Have your say to help shape Australia’s cultural future. The Commonwealth Government has established a web forum to gather our ideas for the development of a national cultural policy. A discussion framework is available on the site as well as a transcript of Peter Garrett MP’s address to the National Press Club, in which he [...]

In September a program of regional meetings for ALIA members was conducted to gather members’ input to guide the professional organisation. The consultation focussed on lobbying and advocacy, local issues and reviewing outcomes of the 2008 topic – professional development. The reports from the regional meetings are now available on the ALIA website. Just a [...]

This coming Movember we issue a call to Australia’s library workers: become a Mo-brarian and join the fight to change the face of men’s health. Movember, the formerly useless and boring month of November, has been remade with the addition of a little facial hair. Now a global charity phenomenon, Movember creates much-needed awareness while [...]

Wired reports that more than 2 million public domain books will soon be available for on-demand printing from Google Book Search in partnership with On Demand Books. According to the On Demand Books site, the only locations in Australia are: Angus and Robertson in Bourke St, Melbourne. Baillieu Library University of Melbourne (Fall 2009 – [...]

The ARROW (Australian Research Repositories Online to the World) Discovery Service has had a branding makeover. The ARROW project concluded in December 2008, and the new name is ARO (Australian Research Online) – a fortuitously homophonic new name. Update your bookmarks as the URL has changed although at present a redirect is handling traffic. Similarly the [...]

The National Library of Australia recently released its Directions for 2009-2011 which outlines broad objectives of collecting, delivering and collaboration. The Resource Sharing and Innovation Division of the NLA has also released its strategic plan.

[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 [...]

The topic of Australia’s proposed Internet Filter has been mentioned here on Libraries Interact before. Recently there were three interesting views of the issue that I came across. First was the Web of secrecy article on the Unleashed by Mark Pesce: It began with a blacklist. The Australian Communications and Media Authority has one – [...]

Sue Hutley  writes at the ALIA Board blog to encourage members to vote in the Board election. Sue reports that the member survey in 2008 had around 1000 responses of which 83% indicated they would use online voting if it was available. Well it is, and it’s easy – I know, I’ve voted. But as [...]

ALIA has announced the theme for 2009 Library and Information Week (LIW). “Libraries, Your Passport to Discovery”. Visit the LIW page on the ALIA site for more information about activities, programs, events and competitions. LIW runs from 25 – 31 May 2009.