Innovative Ideas Forum
Donna Runner (Deakin University) speaking at the Innovative Ideas Forum, on a proposal for a national catalogue of alternate format materials to support students with a disability
Kevin O'Gorman (Centre for Learning Innovation), speaking about the sharing of educational resources
In early April, over 200 people attended a two-day forum at the National Library, organised to share innovative new ideas, and discuss developments and trends in providing access to information services.
On the first day of the forum, delegates heard from speakers including Geoff Huston (the Asia−Pacific Network Information Centre), Jeroen Reiniers (Endeavour Information Systems), Richard Springhall (Yahoo!7), George McLaughlin (AARNET) and Brian Fitzgerald (Creative Commons Australia)—learning about developments and issues affecting the way in which information is delivered. Other speakers gave insight into such projects as DART (from Andrew Treloar), the Social Science Data Archives (Sophie Holloway) and developments to support eResearch at the University of Queensland (Jane Hunter). Two presentations focussed attention on interesting projects which many members of the audience would not come across in their daily work—the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance (Aaron Corn) and the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (Maggie Exon). Warwick Cathro gave an overview of the National Library's updated strategic directions statement.
On day two, the presentations focussed on developments within or aimed at the education sector. Of particular note was an excellent presentation by Beatrice Barnett from the National Archives, speaking on their new virtual reading room, Vroom. Tony Boston of the National Library showcased some of the Library's services which support formal education and research, as well as lifelong learning.
The program for the forum is at: http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/iiprog.html. Most powerpoint presentations, a few of the papers, and a number of links to discussed projects are included at the site. Webcasts of the presentations are also being added progressively, so that you can view and hear many of the proceedings.
An evaluation of the forum indicated a very positive response. As one respondent summed it up:
‘It was valuable to be presented with a higher level forum that discussed the ideas and how the ideas were being formed, in addition to simply presenting the projects that utilised the ideas … It was fascinating to hear projects being spoken about in terms of “this is what is happening in the technology environment and this is show we responded to it in order to achieve our project”. It was an intellectual approach, and that is completely refreshing—I love discussion of ideas! The quality of the speakers reflected the intellectual framework of the forum. I went away knowing that as a participant my horizons had been stretched.’
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Sandra Henderson



