Issue 19

The choice of sessions from which to choose was vast, but I decided that those on Wednesday 9th October better suited my needs. The first session of the day, Australian Culture: Reading our Future in the Mirror of our Past Heritage, the speakers, Professor Marcia Langton and Professor Stuart McIntyre spoke of the role libraries play in preserving our national culture. After morning tea, which was served amongst the huge array of exhibitors (what a good idea), I attended, The Transforming Library: Print to Electronic. This session focussed delegates on the issues of management, organisation, service provision, and relations with suppliers, as library services move from print based collections toward electronic collections. Min Min Chang, Director, University Library, University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong spoke about benefits and problems associated with electronic information. Some advantages of electronic information are, the elimination of binding costs, space saving considerations and the availability of 24 hours access. But staff generally prefer hardcopy, many journals are only available in hard copy, electronic journals are often not current and back files can be lost, are some of the disadvantages. To the Edge of the World : the Role of the Serial Agent in the Coming Years was presented by Kevin Ward of Sweets & Zeitlinger. Ted Chrisfield Audio Visual Librarian at La Trobe University outlined how the library established a multimedia database to assist instruction in Health Sciences in Networked Multimedia Meets the Electronic Library. The session finished with Geoff Payne of CAVAL outlining World 1, the National Library service which is to replace ABN, Ozline, NZBN and Kiwinet.

Education in the Twenty -First Century was the title of the afternoon session. The three speakers, Shelda Debowski from the Department of Library and Information Science, Edith Cowan University, Jill Kendall, from the University of Melbourne and Suzette Boyd, Director of Library Services at Methodist Library College, Melbourne, addressed the impact of technology on services offered within school libraries and the changes needed to ensure the continuation of the important role of school libraries within education. Shelda in Preparing our Users for the Future: The Training of End Users described her research findings and stated -generally, tertiary students have no idea how to execute a proper search! She then went on to outline some useful strategies to improve user instruction. In the session, The Educative Role of the School Library into the 21st Century , Jill put forward her vision of an "Investigation Secondary College". Evolution and revolution in School Library Practice was addressed by Suzette. She stated: To create the future you have to challenge the past. Teacher librarians must take risks -think big, be creative leaders who know their own strengths and weaknesses and have clearly defined mission statements.

The availability of such a wealth of expertise in Melbourne for the ALIA Conferences prompted the ALIA, School Libraries Section to organise the: Biennial Conference Schools Seminar : Reading the Future.

The opportunity does not often arise for librarians and teacher librarians, to be challenged professionally, by speakers from such a wide geographical area (and in such salubrious surroundings, as the Members Lounge of the Theatres Building, Victorian Arts Centre) as delegates to The ALIA Biennial Conference Schools Seminar were on the 7th October this year.

The proceedings focused upon future developments in schools libraries by tackling the issues of networking, outcomes education and collection management. The day was organised into 3 sessions -two panels and one lecture.

The first panel focussed on Networking Technology in Schools -the Issues and some Solutions. It consisted of Bruce Rigby, the Senior Project Leader, Classrooms of the Future, for the Victorian Department of Education and Co-ordinator of SOFWeb, the Internet homepage of The Department. Bruce spoke of where he saw libraries fitting into education and technology in the future. Bronwen Parsons who is currently librarian for SOFWeb, preparing the 1997 resource list for the VCE and acting as a consultant for the Geelong Science and Technology Centre spoke about how she had to altered her subject searching approach when surfing the Net and more importantly, the curriculum context of technology Pru Mitchell, Head of the Library at La Salle College, W.A. relayed her hands-on experiences as part of the De Salle Information Technology Committee and planning for the new library which needed to reflect the changes in the use of technology.

Michelle Ellis, Senior Curriculum Advisor, Libraries and Information Literacy, N.S.W. Department of School Education, Ross Todd, senior Lecturer with the Department of Information Studies at the University of Technology in Sydney and Chris Perry lecturer at Deakin University in Teacher Education focussed on Outcomes Education -the Link to the Curriculum . Chris Perry considered the the different learning styles and outcomes education and challenged the delegates by asking -How often we spoke of and compared, the technology in our libraries (the inputs) as against how often we spoke of what our students achieved (the outputs). Michelle spoke of the effects of the shift to outcomes education on the role of the teacher librarian and called upon delegates to evaluate student outcomes by conducting Action Research. She laid down the challenge -you undertake Action Research and I will publish it in Scan! Ross investigated The Skills of Information Literacy and Outcomes Education. After a pleasant lunch and a look around the gallery Shelda Debowski, Lecturer in the Department of Library and Information Science at Edith Cowan University, W.A. explored Collection Management in School Libraries -a Technology Future. She stressed that the use of technology in the form of an automated acquisitions systems to aid, selection, ordering, budgeting and collection monitoring and mapping can greatly enhance practices.

The formal programme for the day promptly finished at 3.00 p.m. with a city walk, for those who were interested in viewing some of the sights of the Melbourne CUB. I came away from the conference feeling enthusiastic and challenged by what I had heard - technology is here to stay, teacher librarians are in a perfect position to grasp and utilise its power to enhance educational outcomes. But we must be prepared to evaluate the outcomes of our endeavours and . share our findings with our colleagues.