ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 72 | December 2004
|
The
ALIA Conference, 21-24 September 2004, Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition
Centre,
This year I was lucky enough to be included in the National Library contingent attending the ALIA conference held on the Gold Coast. The overall theme of the conference was challenging ideas, with each day addressing a different issue. The first day emphasised culture and tradition, the second day leadership and management and the final day concentrated on meeting the smart service challenge. Throughout the conference there was a strong emphasis on the value of professional library qualifications, lifelong learning and acting locally while thinking globally. Of the many and varied papers presented at the conference it is difficult
to decide which impressed me most, but perhaps the ones that made the
biggest impact were those that discussed culture, tradition and the world
of the information poor. In keynote addresses IFLA President, Kay Raseroka
from Sandi Taylor from the State Library of Queensland’s Indigenous Library
Services discussed the recent establishment of Indigenous Knowledge Centres
to cater for local populations in the remote regions of ‘Indigenous Knowledge Centres are breathing spaces ... they keep our culture strong for our children ... look after our traditions, songs, language, stories and artwork ... bring back the things that guide us today for the future ... combining a meeting place for traditional business with modern library services ...’ The Indigenous Knowledge Centres are staffed by local Indigenous people who receive initial training and mentoring by staff from the State Library of Queensland, and by experienced librarians who have volunteered to spend one to six months living in an isolated community. Grant Collins, also from the State Library of Queensland’s Indigenous Library Services, discussed the enormous archival storage problems remote tropical environments face when trying to preserve material housed in buildings with no insulation or air-conditioning which are subjected to hot, humid weather conditions and insect attack. Like most new schemes not all has gone smoothly, but the outlook is optimistic. With the emphases on community ownership, control and decision making, and government support, the scheme is making headway in addressing the information needs of remote communities. On a more personal note, I found the conference not only fun, but genuinely inspiring and invigorating. It reminded me of the excitement I used to feel when I was a library student—how interesting some of the subjects were, how important information management and access is to a democracy, and how important it is in developing countries. These feelings were shared by other delegates I talked with at the conference. It is easy to get bogged down with everyday tasks, like keeping up statistics, and forget the important wider impact of our work. A new graduates presentation debating the current hot issues facing the library profession introduced the buzz words that neatly summed up the future of the library profession as needing librarians with their ‘lights on’ and not librarians with their ‘lights off’. In conclusion, apart from keeping your lights on full beam, I would highly recommend taking every opportunity to attend an ALIA conference. For a more formal report the papers presented at the conference are available
on the Internet at: <http://conference.alia.org.au/alia2004/>. |