It was announced last week, that the Northern Territory Library had received the Gates’ Foundation’s 2007 Access to Learning Award. They received US$1 million from the Foundation in recognition of their work with indigenous communities in the Territory:
“The majority of the Northern Territory’s indigenous population lives in extremely isolated areas with very limited services [...]

It’s just been announced that ALIA and Brisbane will be hosting the IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) Congress in 2010. A gathering of several thousand librarians from all over the world. From the press release:
Speaking today from this year’s Congress in Durban, South Africa, President of the Australian Library and Information Association, [...]

Library folk in NSW are getting their leathers together for a bike ride in October (18 to 21) from Engadine to Kiama. “A fun filled few days where librarians across the state get together to visit rural libraries to generate publicity and have some fun.” A chance to visit a bunch of libraries, hang out [...]

There’s plans afoot for librarians around the world to coordinate an invasion of the various Answer sites on the same day, 10 Sept 2007. A day long answerfest with librarians marketing their services to an audience that has gone elsewhere. Answer as many questions as you like and leave links back to your library so [...]

I see a dark future…flickering in the candlelight. A dsytopic paradise with electricity a luxury not a right. Illuminators (no, I’m not a tracer!) working hard to ensure everyone has a copy of the current book on their desktop. Advanced delivery mechanisms guarantee article delivery in mere months across a drought stricken land. The Water [...]

In news just to hand, the National Library of Australia announced today that Libraries Australia (LA) will be joining OCLC’s WorldCat. The recently negotiated deal means member libraries of LA will have “unlimited search and cataloguing access to OCLC’s WorldCat.”

There’s a funny smell in the woodshed. ALIA’s elists have been alive in recent weeks with accusations of censorship, heated discussion and even some election commentary. It began with a humorous commentary on the coming ALIA elections by Trevor Wakely on aliaVIC. In response, one chap let loose with a stinging rebuke that far outweighed [...]

LIANZA, the NZ version of the recent ALIA conference, is now in full swing. A big focus on the next generation of library stuff, with a strong whiff of Libraries 2.0. Already there have been interesting talks from international bloggers including Stephen Abram and Michael Stephens. The conference has its own blog, which is not [...]

A recent post to the NewGrads’ elist highlights a career overview of librarians, on Australian Jobsearch. Interesting to note is that average salary is around $1,000/week (which seems high based on most of the librarians I know). While job prospects are average, unemployment remains low. It’s a female dominated industry at 78% of the workforce; [...]

ALIA is just getting underway with regional meetings for their National Advisory Congress with meetings across the country. The first was in Alice Springs last week, with Brisbane tomorrow, and the rest are planning to meet during August. I recall going to the Sydney one last year at which a dozen or so folk attended [...]