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The Australian Library and Information Association strongly applauds the move by the Government to provide access to its many data sets, while understanding and respecting data security and privacy issues

This submission examines cyber-safety and seniors focusing on the advantages and the barriers to being online and the role that public libraries already play in training for digital literacy and support for senior Australians in the online world. It describes examples of the current delivery of services such as Senior’s Internet Training and offers some suggestions to increase the level of digital literacy training for seniors, for consideration for the future. 

This letter was written on behalf of the 5000 Members of the Australian Library and Information Association in response to your Review of the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986. 

ALIA Information Online 2015 Conference, 2-5 February Sydney : at the edge
This conference paper has three purposes: to give an overview of the Australian digital collections as they stand today; discussion of the marketing of digital collections tied to a pilot study that the authors have undertaken and finally, to discuss assessment and evaluation of what users’ desire in a digital collection. 
The study focuses primarily on developers using open source software, primarily used by institutional repositories. The software is being adopted by a wide range of libraries and cultural institutions, academic, government and cultural.  

ALIA Information Online 2015 Conference, 2-5 February 2015 Sydney: at the edge.
This conference presentation provides an analysis of a case study in which liaison librarians collaborated with science academics to develop innovative digital literacy activities and assessment tasks for undergraduate units related to ‘Judging Reliability and Accuracy of Information’.
The case study reveals that engaging students in meaningful learning activities and assessment tasks creates dynamic and powerful learning experiences for first and second year students. In addition, the leadership that the liaison librarians demonstrate in activities that capitalise on problem based learning, elements of gaming, peer assessment, and new ways of communicating has prompted open conversations and collaborations with academics about further opportunities.

In January 2016 the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) Australian Public Library Alliance (APLA) and National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA) commissioned I & J Management Services Pty. Ltd. to update the guidelines for Australian Public Libraries – Beyond a Quality Service: Strengthening the Social Fabric, Standards and Guidelines for Australian Public Libraries, 2nd ed. 2012, produced by Libraries Alive! Pty Ltd.
 
The purpose of the project was to establish national standards and guidelines for public libraries that reflect the role and expectations of contemporary public libraries and recognise the different circumstances in the eight states and territories, allowing for appropriate local interpretation. The project also aimed to enable Library Managers to report on key performance indicators (KPIs) about the library service’s contribution to community outcomes, feeding into overall measures for local, state and territory governments. 
 
This document was superceded by "APLA-ALIA Standards and Guidelines for Australian Public Libraries, December 2020".

This media release announced that a librarian at the University of Western Australia (UWA), Chloe Czerwiec, has been awarded the F A Sharr award.
 
Chloe was presented the award at a ceremony held at the State Library of Western Australia on Thursday 26 May.
 
The F A Sharr Award is presented to a Western Australian librarian or library technician within their first three years following graduation, who exhibits the most potential to make a significant contribution to the library profession in WA. The Award is maintained by the ALIAWest Group, with the generous support of the WA Library Technicians Group.
 

National 2016 Conference, 29 August-2 September 2016 Adelaide: Engage Create Lead
 
ALIA National Conference provides the platform as a meeting point for all Library and Information professionals, from all sectors and all areas of Australia and the international community. 
 
 

National 2016 Conference, 29 August-2 September 2016 Adelaide: Engage Create Lead.
 
This conference paper explores how the Community Learning Team at the State Library of South Australia examined how cultural organisations can remain relevant to learners in the 21st century. The team is rising to this challenge, reimagining our role, welcoming new technologies and co-creating dynamic learning opportunities with students that foster creativity, research and collaboration.
 
This session tells the story of how we led a project with students from grades 6 to 10 over a period of two months to authentically co-create a learning program to accompany the exhibition, A Theatre inside the Book, Paper Engineering from the Collections of the State Library of South Australia. All learning experiences are closely designed in line with the Australian Curriculum (ACARA) and Teaching for Effective Learning Framework.  This program was focused on the learning areas of Humanities and Social Sciences: History, The Arts: Visual Arts, Design and Technologies and the General Capabilities of literacy, numeracy, critical and creative thinking.
 
Capturing student voice over time and in a variety of ways has been critical in challenging our thinking, ensuring learning experiences reflect student voice and offer opportunity deeper engagement with the collections and stories of the State Library. In this session we will share a short documentary that offers insights into what students value, think and feel about the process of co-creation.  It highlights how this process has fostered for students, a sense of ownership and personal connection with the State Library and shifted the focus of adults from being the sage on the stage to the guide on the side.
 
So, who is this place for anyway?  It is a place for all.

National 2016 Conference, 29 August-2 September 2016 Adelaide: Engage Create Lead.
 
This conference paper explains how recent literature on researcher profiles often focuses on describing the merits of various tools or overviewing library research support services in general.  Rarely do these discussions feature researchers’ voices nor do they include an evaluation of the effectiveness - for a researcher - of creating and maintaining a multi-channel social media researcher profile. This paper aims to do both these things, through a discussion of two highly customised, and individualised, research support initiatives:
 
The Pimp my Profile initiative was developed by the Creative Industries (CI) Faculty Liaison Team (QUT Library) in tight collaboration with the Research Leaders in the Creative Industries Faculty (CIF). The initiative was seen as relevant by CIF researchers and gained momentum precisely because it was commissioned and moulded by these key Faculty stakeholders. It represented one of the Library’s contributions to the Faculty’s strategic and ongoing realignment of its research dissemination culture. In this way, the CI Library Team customised and aligned Library research support activities closely to the CIF’s strategic vision for developing the visibility of its researchers.
 
The Pimp my Profile initiative led to the Researcher Profile Health Check Service. Both initiatives are very practical; Pimp my Profile takes researchers through a three step guide to creating a researcher profile (based on achieving Bronze, Silver and Gold levels); the Researcher Profile Health Check provides individualised feedback and practical suggestions on how researchers can maximise their online identity and visibility. In both cases researchers do something, and get something at the end. Both are also mechanisms through which emerging researchers were prioritised by the Faculty for targeted support by the CI Library Team. The CIF Research Leaders are further operationalising the Researcher Profile through the university’s mandatory Performance Planning and Review (PPr) process.
 
Both initiatives were developed and implemented in October 2015. Evidence of impact will be gathered via a focus group and a survey in the third quarter of 2016. This evaluation will focus on gathering researchers’ perceptions of the initiatives, as well as attempting to identify positive change over the course of the year, in the visibility of and activity around those researchers who developed their online researcher identity according to the Create Your Researcher Profile guide. 

National 2016 Conference, 29 August-2 September 2016 Adelaide: Engage Create Lead
 
This conference paper draws on the decade-long strategic and organizational change experience of a large Canadian research library to address the conference theme of ‘Engage, Create and Lead’. This paper overviews an emerging framework for sustained and successful innovation for the realization of organizational culture change. The framework under development has three interrelated elements at its core: engagement, leadership and innovation.While the presentation will have a focus on academic librarianship in the context of the global post-secondary sector, this emerging framework for engagement, leadership and innovation to effect organizational culture change offers wide applicability for all types of libraries.

National 2016 Conference, 29 August-2 September 2016 Adelaide: Engage Create Lead.
 
This conference paper describes the survival story of the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Library. On 29th of August 2012, the Director-General of the then Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry publically announced the closure of the Department’s Library.  This was the first Queensland government library casualty, as part of a wider program of contestability and reduction of non-frontline services from a newly elected government seeking to fix the budget deficit; more library cuts were to follow.
 
As the news of the closure spread, the Department’s senior scientists ignited a campaign to save a core-science component of the former service, stating that “a modern, relevant and accessible library service is essential for us to conduct RD&E to benefit Queensland's economy through increasing agricultural productivity”.  The  proposal was successful and just twenty-seven days later a new ‘Research Information Service’ (RIS) was launched and collections and staff moved to the existing Library space at the EcoSciences Precinct, a collaborative facility where Queensland Government and CSIRO scientists are working to solve some of Australia’s biggest environmental challenges.
 
This paper will describe the RIS client-stakeholder model and will briefly detail how it was established, amid the decommissioning and closure of the Departmental Library.  It will address the challenges of operating a service with reduced staff, loss of expertise and budget, and how these issues were overcome.  Cancelling resources, streamlining delivery (both electronic and physical), and reducing administrative workloads helped to generate initial cost savings and reduced the operational burden on a small team.
 
After three years of operation, the success of RIS is the ability to adapt the library service to match stakeholder requirements.  We CAN do more with less, by focussing budget to essential online resources, seeking cost savings through new consortia deals, firmer negotiations with vendors, targeted marketing and branding initiatives, and upskilling in specialist roles to maximise the delivery of existing valued services.  There have been opportunities too, collaboration with government science libraries, co-location with clients, and engagement with stakeholders, who not only understand and appreciate our service, but were prepared to stand up to save it. This strategic-partnership generates flexibility to respond to changing client needs, and creates a desire for continuous improvement and innovation. Ongoing success now lies in our ability to annually demonstrate our value as a cost-effective, fit-for-purpose research and information service.

National 2016 Conference, 29 August-2 September 2016 Adelaide: Engage Create Lead.
 
This conference paper discusses how ibrarians have always played a crucial role in cultivating world class research. Yet, increasingly, all modern research involves some form of computation. If skills such as programming and data analysis are not routinely taught as part of a library science curriculum, what pathways exist for librarians to acquire these skills so they can go on to play a greater role in supporting researchers and in making greater use of the data generated within their own institutions? Library Carpentry is one model for skills acquisition. How could it be put to use in rebooting librarianship for the 21st century – which is already tipped to be the century of big data?

Australian public libraries are powering smart cities through award-winning design, providing technology hotspots, assisting economic prosperity, enabling creative industries to network and grow, building a literate nation through offering informal and formal education opportunities, providing digital access with modern technology and services to assist and engage new migrants and all members of the community.
 
This document supercedes the previous iteration published in 2016.