Welcome if you’re visiting this blog for the first time after hearing all about it at our recent ALIA Biennial!

Feel free to explore what we have here and leave a comment or two if you have anything to say – or just let us know you were here! I’m feeling energised (and tired at the same time, after presenting two papers) and am really pleased to have met so many great library folks from all over the country and from overseas. Let’s keep talking to each other about all the issues and new things we learned at the conference!

The post I showed during my presentation was this one: (We are) redefining a profession by Bronwyn. And the other blogs I mentioned? Visit Real Public Librarian, or Letters from Adelaide. Quite a few people asked me about finding blogs to read – the easiest way, I’ve discovered, is to start with just one or two, and follow any links the bloggers make on their blogs to other blogs. However, if you’re impatient and would like to look at more than just one or two, take a look at our list of Australian library blogs.

I haven’t managed to get my act together to write up the notes I took during the conference but promise to do so over the next few days – I’ll be blogging my experiences at the blog the conf blog. You may also want to read what a couple of Sydney librarians thought of the whole shebang. And don’t forget the official ALIA Click 06 blog!

My posts here have been a little scant of late, mainly because I have been preparing for the conference. Now that it’s started, I can hardly believe it.

I’m hoping to blog my experiences as much as I can, but I think it’s a rather fine line between spending all my time on a computer while at the conference, and actually doing things, and talking to people (and having experiences worth writing about). So I’m not going to promise to blog everything live, but I’ll do my best to report events as I go.  I’ve already started, and look forward to reading about others’ experiences of the conference. You can follow events or contribute on either the official blog, or the blog the conf blog. We even have some colleagues from Sydney blogging their experiences for their colleagues back Over East (as we like to say here in the West). Yes, it’s all happening this week!

I’m not blogging the conference, nor am I going, unfortunately, but this item caught my attention recently … I thought I’d love to attend, to hear new ideas and celebrate our profession and the people in it..  So perhaps you will be interested, too – either to register (if registrations haven’t closed), or to conduct a similar event in your place on the planet.

‘Library stars: best of the best’, a one-day forum to be held on 19 September 2006 at the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre, will showcase achievement and innovation in public libraries. Presented by the ALIA Public Libraries Reference Group, it is sponsored by Peter Pal Library Supplier and SirsiDynix. This is a satellite event for the 2006 ALIA Biennial Conference, CLICK06. Registration is not included with your conference registration; you must register separately. Numbers are limited, so please sign up as soon as possible. For the latest program details and to register:

http://alia.org.au/governance/committees/public.libraries/stars.html

Just noted: the launch of the official Click 06 Conference Blog. It’s good to see that Click 06 is going to be blogged about – as we also have the Blog the Conf blog, and Tom and Sarah in Sydney will be coming over, and are going to blog their experiences, too. Anyone else? Do let us know!

As September draws ever closer and I prepare my presentations for the conference, I’ve also been wondering how many of this blog’s readers will be in Perth for the event. If you’re coming out West, and would like to meet up – over coffee or something, please let me know. Leave a comment here, or email flexnib at gmail dot com.

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 and found it useful for catching up with colleagues and getting a feel for what was happening with ALIA. The National meeting will be held in conjunction with the ALIA conference, click06, on 19 September.