Yet another post about VALA
Kate Davis and her partner in crime, Carolyn McDonald, are working to complete their VALA paper (they have an extension…honest guv! but they need lots of folk to complete their survey.
Full details can be found on Kate’s blog but briefly they are exploring the relationship between IT [...]

[update: ALIA has just set up a wiki to explore possible alternatives for 2010]
[update: official word (Prez) from ALIA, and from the Vice Prez]
Interesting news to hand in recent hours. Alas IFLA has decided to cancel the Brisbane Conference in 2010. They cite a bunch of reasons, primarily centred around the “Global Financial Crisis” which [...]

Internationally recognised US Web 2.0 commentator, blogger and library academic, Dr Michael Stephens, has been appointed the 2009 CAVAL Visiting Scholar. On behalf of CAVAL and its project partners: CityLibraries Townsville and Dominican University Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dr Stephens’ research project will seek to measure the value and effect of Learning [...]

January has been busier than usual with stuff being released and conferences galore including Information Online, RAILS 5, and ALA Midwinter. NLS4 have announced in recent days that most papers are now available, and images have been flowing into their flickr group.
Around the traps, the new issue of the Australian Library Journal has just been [...]

It’s on again, applications to attend Aurora in 2009 opened on Monday, 15 Sept 2008. Most comments I’ve heard suggest this a great learning opportunity, and particularly beneficial for those with leadership aspirations. ALIA has maintained a list of testimonials.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released a snapshot yesterday, as part of Library & Information Week, detailing several facts about library usage in this country including:

46% of Australians aged over 18 years visited a library in 2006
72,600 Australians reported unpaid involvement in libraries and archives in April 2007
Libraries were the second most attended cultural venue [...]

Oops, almost missed it Today marks the start of Library and Information Week 2008, running through to Sunday, 25th May. There’s a bunch of events planned including, but not restricted to:

National Simultaneous Storytime
National Library Technicians Day
Biggest Morning Tea @ your library

Please comment on what your library is doing this week.

The Call for Abstracts has just gone out for the annual LIANZA conference in New Zealand, to be held in Auckland, 2-5 Nov, 2008. The conference theme this year is: Poropitia – Outside the Box.
IMPORTANT DATES:
Abstracts for papers due: 2 May 2008
Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2008
Confirmation of format of presentation: 14 July 2008
Completed papers [...]

The Australian Library Journal is editing a special issue on web 2.0 and the library and information science profession. The issue is being put together by a couple of folk responsible for the recent Beyond the Hype Symposium in Qld.
Guest Editors: Helen Partridge and Clare Thorpe
Contact: Helen Partridge Email: h.partridge at qut dot edu dot [...]

The ALIA National Simultaneous Storytime is on a bit earlier this year, Wednesday 21 May 2008. From their recent update:

National Simultaneous Storytime 2007
Wednesday, 21 May 2008 at 11:00am
We are thrilled to announce that the National Simultaneous Storytime book for 2008 is Arthur by Amanda Graham and illustrated by Donna Gynell!
The book is [...]