Library & Information Careers Evening

Library & Information Careers Evening
Melbourne, May 2009

Held at Experimedia, State Library of Victoria, 26th May, 5:30-7:30pm.
Organised through the Australian library and information associations, and supported by the State Library of Victoria, the School Library Association of Victoria and Public Libraries Victoria.

The session was very successful, attracting 150-180 people interested in work and study in the field. It began with a panel consisting of a library technician, a teacher librarian (a CSU MEdTL grad), a university librarian and a special librarian who has a wide range of experience. Each of the panel members introduced themselves and described their work and how they felt about their careers in this profession. This was followed by a Q&A session, based on questions collected from the participants as they arrived.

It was particularly pleasing to hear Jodie Heath, a CSU MEdTL graduate on the panel. Jodie spoke extremely well, and very positively, about her DE online study with CSU.

After the panel session people were encouraged to visit the stands of the tertiary institutions. Roy Sanders was supported on the SIS/CSU stand by 7 of our students/graduates (list below), and between them estimate they talked to over 60 of the participants. Interest was pretty even between MIS, BIS and TL courses. All our brochures were taken, and at one stage we looked to have most of the attendees around us.

Other courses represented were Swinburne (LibTech) , Box Hill TAFE, RMIT and Monash.

Many thanks to our student and graduate Helpers on the night:
Tania Barry BALIS graduate
Deanne Shoosmith BASLIM graduate
Annie Reilly BASLIM graduate
Deborah Parkinson BASLIM, 4th yr
Lizzie Gilmour MASLIM, 1st yr
Lesa Maclean MASLIM, 3rd yr
Satu Alakangas BALIS + MASLIM graduate

Another doctorate for Information Studies

The Charles Sturt University graduation ceremony at Burlington, Ontario on 5 June 2009 was notable for the graduation of Dr Shelby Sanett. Shelby completed her doctoral studies while enrolled in the School of Information Studies, with Ross Harvey as Principal Supervisor. She chose to graduate at the ceremony held in Canada for the Ontario campus because she is currently working in the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. Her decision meant that Ross Harvey, currently based at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College, Boston, and Professor Michele Cloonan, a co-supervisor of Shelby’s thesis and Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College, Boston, could also attend. Shelby also gave the vote of thanks on behalf of the students at the ceremony. Congratulations, Shelby!

Drs Ross Harvey, Shelby Sanett, and Michele Cloonan

Libraries in the Digital Age Conference

Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) May 25-30, 2009. Dubrovnik and Zadar, Croatia.

The University of Zadar

This annual conference, now in its tenth year, provides a good mix of papers presented in a beautiful environment. It is co-hosted by the University of Zadar and Rutgers University, New Jersey. This approach enables a wide range of speakers and topics including big names from the US – this year the invited speakers were Marcia Bates and Michael Buckland, together with Peter Ingwersen from Denmark. The conference attracts around 200 participants and runs for a week, starting and ending with workshops covering a range of topics including working with Dublin core tools and an introduction to the Digital Library Reference Model. The first two days were held in Dubrovnik, a jewel of a city and this year, extremely warm. The organisers then moved everyone to the University itself in Zadar – another Croatian town set on the water’s edge. Again, a beautiful setting with the University in a prime location and chandeliers in the lecture theatres!

Presentations were wide ranging and included CSU lecturer Bob Pymm’s paper on archiving television in the digital age.

Bob on the balcony of the lecture theatre

SIS student at Museum Victoria

Read all about how Daniel, a student from our school's library and information management program, spends his three week placement at Museum Victoria's Discovery center. Visit the museum's blog at http://museumvictoria.com.au/accessallareas/discoverycentre/. Scroll down to June 10 entry titled "Thanks, Daniel".

Joy McGregor at Canadian Library Association conference

Dr. Joy McGregor attended the Canadian Library Association 2009 conference in Montreal from 29 May-1 June, where she presented a session called “Smart Information Use: Generating Knowledge and Avoiding Plagiarism”, soon to be available on the CLA website at http://www.cla.ca/conference/2009/. The presentation was based on the ARC funded research project she is concluding this year with Dr. Kirsty Williamson. It focused in particular on the understandings of plagiarism held by student, teacher, and teacher librarian participants and on the strategies developed by teachers and TLs to support students in avoiding plagiarism in their writing.

The conference was un-themed, with topics ranging across the spectrum of possibilities, from Joe Janes’ (University of Washington) opening keynote called “Rethinking the Library” to Helene Blowers’ (architect of Library 2.0: 23 Things) closing address, “The Experience of Play”.

An online community was created for this conference at http://cla2009.ning.com. Photos were posted to Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/groups/cla2009/. Although these online communities attracted only small numbers of attendees this year, similar communities are bound to develop and grow exponentially over the next few months and years, as more people become familiar with social networking tools through their work. This trend of growing familiarity was apparent in many of the sessions Joy attended.

Since the Canadian Library Association/Association Canadienne des bibliotheques is bilingual, and especially with the conference taking place in Montreal, French language exhibits and sessions were everywhere.

A French language kiosk at a Montreal street fair, however, demonstrated an unexpected cross-cultural experience—one could purchase kangaroo sausages. When asked (through a by-stander/ interpreter) what their connection with Australia was, the merchants indicated that there was no connection whatsoever. Interesting to speculate how this French Canadian ‘sausage sizzle’ came to be….

Roy is in SMH!

Roy Crotty, an associate lecturer at SIS was recently interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald on School Libraries. The online version of the full article on SMH can be accessed through this link:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/book-now-libraries-are-top-shelf-in-family-attractions-20090530-br1b.html

Roy is also the president of the Australian School Library Association in NSW.