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….

Look who's on telly

Look who's on telly
Originally uploaded by CSU Information Studies.

Lecturers Roy Crotty and Dianne Lane attended the Western Association of Teacher Librarians conference - in Dubbo. Here they are joined by Arthur, Joy and Ashley by videoconference.

Government information management

parliament_jacarandas
Originally uploaded by monkeytypist.

A conference at the Queensland Parliament highlighting a range of important issues around information management within government was attended by lecturers Damian Lodge, Lisa Soon and Jake Wallis.

A range of skills gaps were discussed, as well as strategies for managing interaction and information flows within, across and outwith government.

The road to Dreaming 08

Lecturers Damian Lodge, Bob Pymm and Jake Wallis went on the road to make the long drive to Alice Springs for the ALIA 08 bi-annual conference at which they will be presenting a paper entitled Library education 2.0: shaping the librarian of the future.

Jake Wallis presents the rationale for the trip:

ASLA NSW State Conference

On Friday March 28 and Saturday March 29 the Australian School Library Association (NSW) and the NSW Department of Education and Training jointly hosted the 2008 State Conference for teacher librarians. The event was held at The King’s School, North Parramatta and was attended by a large number of teacher librarians from primary through to high schools from across NSW.

Staff from the School of Information Studies from CSU were involved in the proceedings. In particular Professor Stephen Kemmis from the Faculty of Education gave a keynote speech as did Dr Kirsty Williamson. Lyn Hay, lecturer at CSU and Dr Williamson also conducted sessions for smaller groups during the program. CSU hosted a reception for delegates on the Friday night, providing prizes from the CSU winery for delegates who participated in fun activities at the end of a hard day’s work

James Herring at IASL

Our very own James Herring recently gave a keynote address at the International Association of School Libraries conference in Berkley, California, USA.

Catch a few minutes video of James being interviewed (at http://www.librarymedia.net/IASL.html ) about the issues and ideas that he is currently emphasising in his teaching, research, workshops and speaking.

SIS leads the research strand of the ASLANSW-NSWDET State School Libraries Conference

Professor Stephen Kemmis presents his keynote address

The School of Information Studies played a significant role in supporting the conference program of the inaugural ASLANSW-NSWDET State School Libraries Conference which was held at The Kings School, Parramatta on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th of March. The theme of the conference was 'School Libraries Leading Learning', with around 300 participants attending a number of keynotes and workshops across the two days. As part of Friday’s program, Lyn Hay presented a mini-keynote on the findings of her Student Learning through Australian School Libraries research project and at the end of the day hosted a social event for 1½ hours within the trade fair area which featured CSU wine and cheese, sponsored by CSU’s Faculty of Education. CSU’s Centre for Information Studies also donated a number of its recent publications as lucky door prizes for this event, and Duncan Ball, author of the Selby and Emily Eyefinger series launched one of his recent children’s books.

Saturday’s program began with Professor Stephen Kemmis (pictured) presenting the opening keynote address on ‘Research Circles and the Participatory Action Research Process’. Stephen’s keynote was sponsored by CSU’s Centre for Studies in Teacher Librarianship and it was the first session of a full-day program strand devoted solely to research-based conference presentations. Our own Dr Kirsty Williamson built on Stephen’s introduction to action research in her keynote address ‘Action research in school settings: Method, techniques and exemplars’, and after lunch Dr Ross Todd worked with Kirsty and Lyn to host an afternoon workshop for those participants who wished to explore their ideas on implementing an action research project at their school. Feedback from participants who attended the research strand was very positive and we hope ASLANSW and NSWDET will include a research strand in future conference programs. On the Sunday morning, Kirsty followed up with a post-conference workshop on interviewing techniques for ASLANSW’s Community of Action Researchers – Teacher Librarians (CAR-TL) members. Given all of the above events, CSU’s presence did not go unnoticed!

Highlighting the potential of web 2.0

Dr Robert Pymm speaking at the National Library of Australia Originally uploaded by CSU Information Studies.

Dr Robert Pymm and Jake Wallis recently organised, chaired and presented (phew - long day!) at a professional development seminar at the National Library of Australia on the potential of web 2.0 for information services. With the registration having filled within about 20 minutes of the rego form going online, this was a popular event!

Given the demand for the event from across Australia, we arranged for the audio to be recorded on the day so that it could be podcast after the event. So, for all of you who couldn't make it, the presentations, including audio, are available at http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/web2prog.html Enjoy!

Damian and Bob @ ALIA Lib Techs 2007

Damian and Bob @ ALIA Lib Techs 2007 Originally uploaded by CSU Information Studies.

Damian Lodge and Bob Pymm (pictured here looking a little nervous before giving their paper) attended the ALIA Library and Information Technician's Conference held in Melbourne in October. The Conference attracted around 400 people and was a mix of good, interesting and often practical papers; some great visits and a hectic social whirl. Photos from the Conference dinner, held at the Melbourne Aquarium have had to be held back due to their potential for embarassment!

Anne Lloyd, also from the School of Information Studies at CSU, also attended and gave the keynote address on the last day and, considering it was the Friday morning after the dinner, did a great job at keeping people awake with her story of welders in the TAFE library and her subsequent 'research' with firemen!

Libraries in the Digital Age

Dr Bob Pymm, working hard preparing his conference paper (uploaded by CSU Information Studies).

LIDA (Libraries in the Digital Age) is an international conference, held annually, that this year (in Dubrovnik, Croatia May 28 – June 2 2007) focused on two themes – users and digital libraries, and the economics of digital libraries. The conference was organized by the JJ Strossmayer University in Osijek, Croatia and Rutgers University New York. Papers covered a wide range of topics associated with the conference theme, including one from our very own Bob Pymm, on e-book use in public libraries. The presentations from the conference are available online.

Around 150 people attended – evenly split between those from eastern Europe and those from the west with a large contingent from the US. These included some surprisingly high powered names including Christine Borgman (Dean of UCLA Library School), her predecessor and now emeritus professor Bob Hayes; Karen Fisher (University of Washington, Seattle) – one of the authors of Theories of Information Behavior and Peiling Wang from the University of Tennessee, award winning author in the information behavior field.