Themes, recommendations and ideas

I just finished typing up my report for the conference and have copied it to the library's shared drive here:
HUMAN RESOURCES\Conferences\ALIA 2011\ALIA 5th New Librarians Symposium

Since attending the conference I have been reflecting on the key themes covered during the conference. I think some of the key themes of NLS5 were:

• Libraries need to change or they will become obsolete:
• Many people don’t visit the library and the library is facing stiff competition from many others sources.
• If libraries do not radically change what they are offering and the way they market themselves they will not survive in the future.
• We need to focus more on curating and producing content and on making the library the centre of the community.
• Evidence based practice:
• It is critical that we collect evidence instead of using gut feelings when making decisions.
• We can’t plan our future on our own: we have to talk to our users.
• Design thinking is one framework that can be used in combination with evidence based practice to make sure we define problems, prototype and test solutions. 
• It is also very important to publish: we need to strengthen the literature in the field if we wish to be a profession.
•  Take control of your own career:
• A qualification in library and information science is just a starting point: but it isn’t even necessary to have one to work in a library.
• Set aside time for professional development.
• Try to work on projects you feel passionate about.
• Seek out mentors and mentor others.
• Work/life balance is very important: develop your time management skills.

I would love to find out what other people thought were the key themes!

I have included some recommendations and ideas in my report and hope to keep up the energy and enthusiasm I felt at the conference.

It's been lots of fun contributing to this blog and I'm looking forward to working on some of the projects that people have been inspired to start as a result of attending the conferences!

I'll end with some inspiring messages I took away from the conference (these aren't exact quotations, I have just taken them from my notes).

This is your own personal professional fairy tale: follow your joy and your passion!
Samantha Hughes, State Library of Western Australia

You should do something different every day; otherwise you will bore yourself and everyone else.
Mal Booth, Director, Education and Research Services Unit, University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

Confidence and positivity are two characteristics to embrace.
Maureen Bezanson: Liaison Librarian, University of Western Sydney

Become a time management ninja.
Not having fun? Quit it.
Be courageous: Believe in yourself.
Kate Davis, Queensland University Of Technology

Change or die: that’s our choice.
Finding time = finding stuff you are interested in.
David Lee King, Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library

Facilitating a workshop on library cadetship and graduate programs

On Friday the 16th of September I helped to give a workshop on library cadetship and graduate programs with staff members from the State Library of Western Australia: Molly Tebo and Theresa Archer who are currently taking part in the graduate program at the SLWA.

My presentation on the library cadetship program at the University of Melbourne went well and I had a few inquiries about the cadetship program, both from someone planning to redesign their institution’s graduate program and from a prospective applicant. Please email me if you would like a copy of my PowerPoint slides.

It was also interesting to learn about the graduate program at the SLWA:

• It is a one year program and so far they have had three rounds of graduates in 2008, 2009 and 2011.
• Each graduate is assigned a mentor and they aim to match the graduate with someone who will challenge them and give them honest feedback, as well as good advice.
• Mentors are chosen so that they are not on the direct reporting line for the graduate, but are in senior positions in the library (so it can be difficult to find an appropriate mentor).
• There is a graduate program committee and placement supervisors are invited to the committee meetings in the lead up to and during the placements.
• The graduates write a blog together which is accessible to library staff members:
• They interview library staff members about their roles and other library staff members have found these posts useful and interesting.

After the presentations, we ran a brainstorming activity. I had prepared a series of questions on small pieces of paper (that looked like post-it notes):

The participants read the questions and then wrote their ideas for designing a successful cadetship or graduate program on post-it notes, which we stuck on the sheets of paper on the wall, clustered in groups:

Afterwards Molly and Theresa collated all the responses from the brainstorm, and I have emailed these to Sandra Woods.

I hope that some of the feedback that has been gathered and the information on the graduate program at the SLWA may be useful in planning future rounds of the library cadetship program at the University of Melbourne.

Overall it was a fantastic experience that has inspired me to become involved in either presenting or helping to organise future conferences!

 

Photos from NLS5

I had a wonderful time at the conference and was so busy that I am yet to write a blog post! However I have taken many notes, which I plan to review and post on in the coming days.

This afternoon I uploaded my photos from the conference to flickr and have added them to the NLS5 group. If you visit the flickr group you will see many photos different people took during the conference. I have also added some photos to the Library Camp Australia group.

These are just a few of my photos:

Central Institute of Technology Library Tour: ceiling

Depictions of what people learned at NLS5:

Brainstorming ideas for library cadetship and graduate programs:

Reflection

I have just arrived home after a wonderful Library Technicians' conference. It was a truly inspirational experience with wonderful speakers, particularly Rachel Green. The tours were fantastic; I visited Wanneroo public library and cultural centre and the Joondalup campus of Edith Cowan University. Both are quite new libraries and are equally interesting. Congratulations to Kylie Hill for presenting an excellent paper.
It was great to meet so many library technicians from all over Australia and here of their diverse roles in many different libraries.
This is my first ever blog so I feel that I have achieved another first after attending my first conference.

I'm waiting to catch my plane home after seeing the most inspirational of all the keynote speakers. I was teary, more than once, during her presentation. Her name was Sarah Garnett, the founder of The Benjamin Andrew Footpath Library for homeless people.

Now, how many hours volunteer work does our supportive, community minded organisation give us a year, because I've just decided how I'd like to spend mine....and I'm sure I could convince you to take up some of your quota for this inspirational organisation as well. Watch this space folks!

Third Day...

The first day of the sessions & workshops, focusing on personal development...Rachel Green was a highlight...a motivational coach, presenting 3 different workshops. Received a performance from indigenous dance group Moorditj Mob Dancers, meeting many people from Australia wide, including a library technician from King Island!

Second Day...

Busy day...had the tour of the State Library of WA...had 6 mini tours of various areas of the library....one of them was their digitisation department...very exciting! They have 6 Zeutchels! (5 microfilm cameras and 1 book scanner) ;) Took lots of notes and photos...too much too talk about here...then went on to the Chisolm Institute of Technology...and architectural feast...based on indigenous culture and the mining industry...lots of photos and notes again...

First Day...

Just participated in Dr Lisa Cluett's talk on "Preparing an engaging conference presentation". She was very interesting and informative. Have just had a wonder around Perth's Arts precient. Along with the State Library, have been to the city's Art Gallery and Museum. Looking forward to tomorrow's City Library Tour of the State Library & Central Institute of Technology.

Getting warmed up

Funny that the conference is titled "Back to basics" and here I am, doing my first blog.

Basics for me are choosing breakfast cereal, brushing teeth etc, blogging is right up there on the "yet to be mastered, maybe one day when I get some spare time", hardly a basic.

But, lovely Kathryn has got us started and I figure it's a safe enough environment for us to learn in, so bring it on, I'll be breakfasting, brushing and blogging before you know it.

Getting started

Welcome to our ALIA conference blog! I think writing the blog will be a great way to share our experiences with each other and also with our other colleagues in the library.

Please share any thoughts, tips, suggestions, reflections, links or photos related to the conferences, either before, during or after the conferences take place.

To see an example of a similar blog, see Donna’s IFLA blog.

If you would like to Tweet during the conference, the hash tags you should use are:

• Library & Information Technicians Conference: #ALIALibtec
• New Librarians Symposium: #nls5 

There is information on getting started with Twitter here: https://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics

I am @kjlindsay on Twitter.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to phone me or send me an email at: kjl@unimelb.edu.au