Dr Kirsty Williamson heads way out west

As Director of Information and Telecommunications Needs Research (a research partnership between Monash University and Charles Sturt University), Dr Kirsty Williamson recently spent some time working in Western Australia. Kirsty was interviewing for the Australian Research Council Discovery project: One Day, We'll All Invest This Way! Regulating Online Investment, and whilst there took the opportunity to interview the Chief Librarian of the City of Joondalup Libraries for the project, The Impact of the Retirement of the Baby Boomers on the Public Library. The latter project is funded by Upper Murray Regional Library, the State Library of NSW, and Public Libraries Australia.

Kirsty's involvement in this project stems from the belief that the level and standard of information seeking, undertaken by online investors, will indicate whether there is a need for further regulation of the activity. Kirsty notes that the four interviews she did in Western Australia were some of the most interesting that the group has done – providing a wide variety of information-seeking approaches.

Kirsty was invited to present on various research projects and was sponsored by ALIA West, the State Library of WA, and Information Studies in Faculty of Media, Society & Culture, Curtin University of Technology. The presentation covered both projects mentioned above, as well as her work with CSU PhD student, Terry Asla, on the information needs and behaviours of older people.

Also mentioned was the Australian Research Council Linkage project, Generating Knowledge and Avoiding Plagiarism: Smart Information Use by Secondary Students (in which Kirsty works along with Dr Joy McGregor, Professor John Weckert, Dr Yeslam Al-Saggaf as Chief Investigators). A CSU student from Western Australia, Maureena Lockyer-Benzie, who is investigating baby boomers in relation to public libraries for her PhD studies, also made a contribution to the presentation.

The PowerPoint used for the presentation can be found at:

http://infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/itnr/assets/perth-seminar.ppt

Managing knowledge together

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, was in Australia recently doing a number of workshops around the country. The events were organised by education.au, an organisation involved in the promotion of ICT in education.

"What's all the fuss about?" you might ask. Well, Wikipedia is fascinating for those of us involved in education and research in information studies. In a very powerful way, Wikipedia demonstrates the potential of online spaces for a collaborative and consensus-based approach to the creation and management of knowledge. The technology platform, the wiki, that is the foundation for a large-scale (global) project such as Wikipedia has grown from the open-source software movement. Various flavours of wiki software are freely available for download and implementation.

Here in the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University we're thinking about how the potential of the wiki environment can be harnessed to faciliate group learning within Higher Education and as a tool for knowledge management.

Congratulations, Dr Fan!

Qiuyan Fan PhD Originally uploaded by CSU Information Studies.

The School of Information Studies’ graduation ceremony on 20 April was notable for the conferring of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Qiuyan Fan (pictured above between supervisors Professor Ross Harvey and Dr Kirsty Williamson).

Qiuyan’s topic was ‘Internet access and Government policy: the case of Australia’. Her research looked at how Australian federal government policy on telecommunications influences internet access in Australia. Its findings provide insights into the regulatory outcome and the effectiveness of national approaches, which are helpful to inform and improve current practice in Australia. It also has implications for other countries. Qiuyan’s research is of course particularly relevant to libraries, who increasingly deliver services via the internet.

Qiuyan is now a Lecturer and Course Advisor for Bachelor of Business (E-business) at the University of Western Sydney.

We have a tie....

Zenith Management Services Group prize winners Originally uploaded by CSU Information Studies.

....for the Zenith Management Services Group Undergraduate Library and Information Management Prize!

Time for a deciding tie-breaker, fingers on buzzers.....no, in fact the prize was jointly awarded to Rachel Gillot and Amy Heap, who are pictured here with Marian Cantarella, Senior Personnel Consultant at Zenith Information Management Services, on graduation day.

ALIA prize winners

ALIA prize winners Originally uploaded by CSU Information Studies.

Well done to our ALIA prizewinners Alinda Sheerman, Rosalind Wade, Deborah Hill and Lynette Barker, pictured here at graduation with ALIA board member, (our very own) Damian Lodge.

Congratulations also to Colin Noud (not pictured).

Points mean prizes!

The School of Information Studies is fortunate enough to have the sponsorship of prizes for our top students from a number of prominent information industry organisations. Prizes are sponsored by:

• The Australian Library and Information Association
• OVID
• Softlink Australia
• Zenith Information Management Services

Can't look bad on your CV!