The best places to volunteer in Sydney for aspiring Librarians

In the years that I was studying my way through high school and university, I’ve had a number of different part time jobs. I’ve worked in fast food, supermarkets, retail, hospitality, call centres, teaching, office support, data entry, public events and even (briefly) housekeeping. This year, I was finally able to put all of this behind me - for the time being, at least - and have found my dream job as a News Librarian with SBS World News. It’s a truly wonderful position, and a fantastic organisation, and I couldn’t be happier in this role.

But it wasn’t an easy path to get there. For many years, while working and studying, I’ve also been heavily involved in volunteering for a number of different organisations, all doing amazing work in local communities and across Sydney. Whether I stayed in a particular volunteering position for only a few short months, or for many years, I believe that these experiences are the ones that have truly shaped me both personally and professionally today. It’s through volunteering that I have been granted the privilege of meeting some inspiring, passionate and diverse people throughout Sydney, and have developed a much better understanding of the issues affecting this community today. It’s also through volunteering that I’ve learnt many important skills related to working as a librarian, including communication, organisation, negotiation and problem solving.

I would like to share a list of places I have volunteered with in and around Sydney, as well as how they have helped me in my career as a Librarian, in the hopes that it may help others to have similarly awesome experiences with volunteering too!



The Japan Foundation Sydney

If you only have time to volunteer at one place, make this your pick! I’ve been a loyal volunteer with JPF since 2011, and keep coming back to help out with events because I always have a wonderful time there. The volunteer coordinators are very friendly and approachable and are eager to get everyone involved in assisting with public events. In addition, there are plenty of opportunities to mingle with fellow volunteers and I have made some fantastic friends this way. JPF volunteers can have any level of Japanese language ability, so you are welcome to volunteer even if you don’t speak Japanese at all! As a librarian, volunteering with JPF gives great insight into organising public events and working with multilingual, multicultural communities. JPF also has its own small library dedicated to Japanese language studies. The library staff are incredibly kind and no doubt would be willing to have a chat about what they do if you’d ever like to stop by!

By signing up online as a volunteer, you will receive regular emails about upcoming volunteering opportunities throughout the year. This normally involves assisting with gallery exhibitions and public talks by providing information to guests, distributing flyers and promoting the event to the community. The highlight of the JPF volunteer year is the annual Japanese Film Festival, held at Event Cinemas George St and in Parramatta. This involves performing the same types of duties for normal events, and features an after party at the end of the festival. You also get a few free and discounted film tickets to check out any of the screenings you choose.

You can find out more about volunteering with JPF at: http://www.jpf.org.au/volunteer.html


Volunteering with refugee communities:


Between the end of 2012 and the start of my study abroad year in 2013, I volunteered with an organisation called the Australian League of Immigration Volunteers (ALIV). This was my shortest volunteering experience, yet in many ways it has also been the most memorable and inspiring. As an ALIV volunteer, I worked with young girls aged 7-15 from recently resettled families in Australia. Within a small management team, we put together a summer camp for these girls that included loads of fun activities, such as arts and crafts, a water balloon fight and a trip to Luna Park. The best part of this work was being able to spend time with these young women and learn about them, and being able to make them happy was a hugely rewarding experience. I particularly enjoyed working with this organisation since they were non-political and non-religious, meaning that all people, regardless of their personal views, were welcome. Aspiring librarians who are interested in the Education sector, or in working with diverse communities in public libraries, would enjoy this work.

ALIV is no longer operational, but the organisation Australia Refugee Volunteers (ARV) operates similar programs. You can find out about these at: http://www.arvolunteers.org/#!who-we-are/crcc



Sydney Story Factory


I have only been with Sydney Story Factory since the end of 2014, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the time I have had there so far. Based in Redfern, the SSF provides children from all backgrounds with the opportunity to develop their creative writing skills with support from a team of workers and volunteers. As a volunteer, you are given the opportunity to work directly with the kids and to offer them encouragement and guidance with their stories. The volunteer coordinators are extremely passionate and dedicated, and offer an excellent training program to all new volunteers when signing up. This work could appeal to any librarians, but may be particularly enjoyable to those who love working with children, enjoy reading and aspire to a career in the Education sector.

You can find out more about volunteering with Sydney Story Factory at: http://www.sydneystoryfactory.org.au/volunteer/



Hurstville Library, Museum and Gallery


Obviously the most directly related to a career as a librarian, Hurstville Library, Museum and Gallery offers a fantastic volunteer program for aspiring librarians as well as anyone in the local community seeking to become involved. I began volunteering in the library at the end of 2014. The staff and volunteer coordinators are dedicated, helpful and encouraging, and will endeavour to provide you with a range of different opportunities depending on what your interests are. The best part about volunteering in Hurstville Library is being able to learn all the ins and outs of working in a public library whilst in a supportive environment, and being able to interact with a vastly diverse and rich local community. I strongly encourage anyone interested in public libraries to investigate volunteering here!

You can find out more about volunteering with Hurstville Library, Museum and Gallery at: http://lmg.hurstville.nsw.gov.au/Volunteer-Internships--Work-Experience.html



ALIA Sydney


Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my time volunteering with ALIA Sydney! As a newbie to the committee this year, I have been welcomed with open arms by fellow members, who have been willing to offer helpful advice on my future career and have been very encouraging of my involvement and ideas. It has been an excellent way to develop myself professionally as well as to expand my network of dedicated librarians. I strongly encourage you all to get involved with the committee next year!

I hope that some of you might consider some of these volunteering opportunities that relate to you and your career, especially if you are like me and are brand new to the profession. The path to success isn’t always clear and straightforward - but it is definitely what you’re willing to make of it!



Eleanor Gerrard
ALIA Sydney Event Officer
Follow me on Twitter at @gerryy91

ALIA National 2014 Conference Wrap up

Caitlin Williams and Amy Croft both attended the ALIA National 2014 Conference: Caitlin via social media, and Amy in person. They compared notes on their experiences:

Attending from a distance...

From 15-19 September, information professionals from around Australia and overseas converged on Melbourne for the ALIA National 2014 Conference.

Attendees and spectators from social media sources are now left to digest the excellent debates, workshops and sessions they attended, and hopefully apply what they learnt to their workplace.

While I didn't have the chance to attend in person, I was able to follow the conference on Twitter, and catch a glimpse into sessions thanks to livetweets. Many people took the opportunity to showcase the notes they had taken through Instragram, which offered a personal touch to this event.

ALIA Sydney's very own workshop, focusing on careers and networking, was highly engaged with technology allowing an online audience to put forward questions on PD and interviewing, and even connecting with special guest speaker Julia Garnett all the way from Canada!

Here are some of my favourite tweets from the conference:

Which tweets did you find most memorable?

Attending in person...

I was lucky enough to be in Melbourne to enjoy the coffee, ubiquitous art and, um, changeable weather in person, as well as to soak up the atmosphere of the conference and meet some amazing library and information people. Actually being at the conference allowed for all sorts of opportunities to run into people, window-shop for new shiny things at the exhibitor's booths, and share ideas over lunch, dinner or drinks. Like Caitlin, though, I found the Twitter backchannel to be a valuable way to start or continue conversations sparked by some excellent keynotes, presentations and workshops. I will definitely be trawling the #national14 tweets, both for sessions I missed and those I attended, before reporting back to my colleagues.

The conference was such a whirlwind that I'm only just starting to slow down and reflect on some of the issues raised, but the main points which stuck with me about the theme 'Together we are stronger', and the daily (and overlapping) sub-themes of Content, Collaboration and Capabilities, were:

• We need to find a 'common language' for working together with other parts of our organisations, as Monash University Library has done by developing a research skills development framework to enable library-faculty collaboration. We need to gather the right data to measure impact, identify the problems of our communities and collaborate to solve them, and show the value of libraries (and get funding in a time of continual cuts). For plenty of inspirational case studies, check out the Urban Libraries Council's Top Innovators.
• We need to find out what our customers/clients/patrons/communities/organisations are interested in, and make it happen - whether that's offering a Minecraft Gaming Day for (and driven by) young people at North Melbourne Library, designing a new library space with a focus on 'making and doing' in Aarhus, or redeveloping academic library spaces based on how students use those spaces.
• How? By building capabilities through education and development, such as cross-institutional mentoring in Victoria, the University of South Australia teaming up with the State Library of South Australia to give students 'real life' library experience, and Queensland public libraries cultivating a culture of learning and development to allow staff to build higher order skills... and especially by individuals taking responsibility for their own careers and for building their own leadership capacity.

This barely scratches the surface of the ideas discussed at the conference, and I haven't even mentioned shenanigans at NGAC's cardi party, the awesome dance moves at the conference dinner, or the Raeco and QUT photobooths... and the fantastic libraries at the University of Melbourne and the State Library of Victoria deserve their own separate post (watch this space).


Sooo... did you attend, or wish you had? Would you be interested in a reprise event in Sydney? Let us know in the comments below!

- Caitlin Williams and Amy Croft (@amyecroft)

Blog Every Day in June Day 30 : Glorias Assimwe, Ugandan Librarian

Today's guest contributor rounds up a terrific month of #blogjune by taking us through her fascinating professional journey as a librarian in Uganda. Thanks for sharing your story with us Glorias! -Maria Savvidis

My name is Glorias Asiimwe - a 29 year old Librarian from Uganda. I recently moved to a new role working as a Health Librarian at a newly established medical School in rural Eastern Uganda and have just submitted my Chartership Portfolio to the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) in the UK. 

My journey into the library profession had not been by accident. I had realised that in Uganda our reading culture was low and wanted to inspire a change. Starting out in 2008 fresh from University with no practical skills, I decided to volunteer with a UK charity operating in Ugandan Prisons.

I worked up the professional ladder taking on different roles in the organisation to being a solo prison librarian in East Africa. Despite the excitement the full-time job could offer, I did face a number of challenges having to work in an isolated environment. I had assumed several responsibilities including developing the first ever built prison library in Uganda, initiating book clubs and literacy activities and training Prisoners and Wardens as Library Assistants amongst others – but no prison librarians in my region to benchmark from.

I felt overwhelmed in this role until I received an amazing opportunity to travel for the first time outside my country on a five-week professional study to the UK - which equipped me with hands-on skills and widened my professional network. This prepared me to embrace high positions of responsibility in my career including, overseeing eleven prison libraries, outsourcing for book donations since the organisation had a limited, at times non-existent budget for collection development to managing library grants.

In 2011, I was awarded an IFLA funded grant to attend the 77th IFLA World Library & Information Congress in Puerto Rico. What a life-changing opportunity having to present a paper I had co-authored at this conference! Joining other delegates on a school libraries tour during the IFLA conference, I was able to learn new ideas that I applied in setting up one of the biggest primary school libraries in Uganda serving a population of 1800 children from the prison and neigbouring communities.

Currently I serve voluntary as the Executive Secretary for the Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa - Uganda Chapter, which I joined in 2010 having tested the ups and downs of working in isolation. Being affiliated to this professional network has provided professional solidarity and opened doors to more rewarding and excellent opportunities in my career – one of which is my new role as a Health Librarian.
My professional journey hasn’t been all rosy as I have had and still face challenges such as poor internet accessibility. However, this has been an incredible dream-come-true given the limited opportunities available to young LIS professionals in developing countries like Uganda face. 

The sky is the limit!!!

-Glorias Assimwe

Realistic Resolutions

By the start of February most of us have already given up on going to the gym every day, eating better, drinking less... but with the start of the Lunar Year, what better time to get real about making resolutions.

We here at ALIA Sydney are challenging you to make just one achievable resolution right now:

Eat chocolate.

What - why?

Um, why not?

But seriously. Because this is the first step in taking charge of your career.

How?

We're glad you asked.

All you need to do is eat chocolate WITH US.

This year, ALIA Sydney want to plan our events around what YOU need for YOUR career!

So, we'll be at the Metcentre's Max Brenner on Wednesday 5 March from 6.30pm waiting to talk with you (and possibly eating all the chocolate).

This is not just a chance to eat chocolate (and tell us what we can do to make our events awesomer for you), but to meet other fabulous chocolate-loving library people.

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