As of 2009, students doing their HSC in NSW will be able to take a course in studying Wikipedia.

The course is “intended to teach students skills of analysis to enable them to be more discerning about content they find on the web”. (Don Carter – Board of Studies, NSW).

Considering that a lot of educational institutions are pushed to ban Wikipedia, this is an interesting move. No details yet on what form the course will take.  It will be interesting to see how many students take it up and also if the Board of Studies in other states follow NSW’s lead.

The Australian Committee on Cataloguing (ACOC) has released its position statement on the coverage of cataloguing in courses providing an initial qualification in library and information management.

The statement including an extract from the Educational Policy statements of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services is available from the ACOC site.  This extract contains a list of knowledge and skills required for intellectual access and information organization.

ACOC: Overview

“ACOC holds that ALIA-recognised courses must provide their graduates with a “knowledge of cataloguing tools and sources of bibliographic records and how to use them” so that graduates can indeed use key cataloguing tools and apply basic bibliographic standards.” — Position Statement

If you feel all nostalgic about card catalogues and would like an image like this one, head over to the Catalog Card Generator from John Blyberg.