ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 59| October 2002
Where Would We Be Without Kinetica?
The title of this article comes from one of the users who attended the Kinetica Annual Users’ Meeting (KAUM) which was held on 8–9 August 2002 at Dockside, Darling Harbour. A total of 222 delegates attended and experienced glorious Sydney sunshine and breathtaking harbour views.
On day one the opening and welcome was presented by KAUM Chair, John Shipp, whose sense of humour, charm and professionalism provided a positive and engaging tone to the meeting. John introduced Professor Alan Robson who gave the official opening address, highlighting the significance of the National Bibliographic Database’s (NBD) 21st birthday and the need for all libraries to collaborate to provide support for, and access to, research and scholarship.
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| Sherrey Quinn, Acting Head of Kinetica Advisory Committee reporting on the Parallel Sessions |
Initial presentations were delivered by staff from the National Library of Australia (NLA) including Jan Fullerton, David Toll and Roxanne Missingham. Jan Fullerton outlined the National Library’s strategic directions for the coming year, emphasising that the focus is to make the Library’s collections more easily accessible to users through simplification and streamlining of the National Library’s web site and other promotional, educational and collaborative strategies. David Toll spoke about the Library’s new action plan for 2002–2003, which includes a feasibility study for a national resource discovery service for electronic resources, while Roxanne Missingham gave a comprehensive and detailed overview of Kinetica, including key issues and developments for the next 12 months.
During the afternoon, sessions were given by Professor Leon Cantrell from the Australian Libraries Collection Task Force, Fran Awcock (Chair, Council of Australian State Libraries) and Helen Hayes (President, Council of Australian University Libraries). These key speakers presented diverse and stimulating papers on resource sharing and interdependence in the Australian library community. Rob Walls from the NLA conducted a session on Metadata and the need to expand the NBD contribution, while Annette Scarvell from Austlit spoke about a new research tool, the Australian Literature Gateway web site (www.austlit.edu.au). Sue Clarke from Melbourne University, Rona Wade from Unilinc and Meredith Wallace from the Waverley Council also provided afternoon sessions, highlighting innovative uses of the Kinetica service. The remainder of the afternoon was spent in parallel sessions where delegates were given the opportunity to discuss future directions for resource sharing.
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| NLA's Margaret Kennedy (second from left) with members of the Expert Advisory Group on Authority Record Delivery |
Day two commenced with a report from the acting chair of the Kinetica Advisory Committee (KAC), Sherrey Quinn. Trevor Wakely followed with a presentation of a report from the Kinetica state user groups. KAC members then provided reports from the parallel sessions and these reports were responded to by Roxanne Missingham and Rob Walls. After morning tea, Els Bossier, CEO of EliAS, spoke about strategic directions for LibriVision and AMICUS with the remaining time used to allow John Shipp to take questions without notice, discuss the 2003 venue and date details and provide the closing remarks.
An evaluation of the 2002 Kinetica Annual Users Meeting was conducted and aspects receiving most praise were: the role of Kinetica staff, meals and refreshments, and the choice of venue. Sixty-one per cent ranked the meeting as a whole to be ‘above average’ and almost 25 per cent deemed it to be ‘excellent’. In comparison with the 2001 meeting, it was found that all measurable items with the exception of ‘opportunities for discussion’ attracted a higher ranking in 2002.
Next year the Kinetica Annual Users’ Meeting will be held in Adelaide at the Stamford Adelaide Grand Hotel. The Grand, situated on the foreshore of Glenelg beach, should provide an inspirational setting for users and it is hoped that as many users as possible will attend.
A Planning Committee for next year’s KAUM
has been established which includes representatives from the South Australian
Kinetica State User Group and staff from the National Library. A draft program
has been developed and the Planning Committee would welcome any comments from
Kinetica users regarding the program for 2003.
—Cheryl Brickell
| Contents list for this issue of Gateways |
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: gateways@nla.gov.au