AVCC Library Conference, Adelaide, 22-23 June 2006

I was fortunate enough to attend this conference last week and found the interactive nature of the conference that included a number of group activities to be both beneficial and interesting. I came away with increased knowledge in a number of key areas as well as some useful practical tips. Being in Adelaide for part of the week also gave me the oppportunity to visit Golden Grove where we used to live. The weather definitely reminded we why we moved to the Gold Coast!


Next time I will blog daily so that I don't have to do a long summary like this, but anyhow, I will just mention some of the highlights and I hope my style will become more bloglike with practice!

The conference was opened by Prof James McWha, VC of the University of Adelaide who spoke about current issues in the higher education sector and specifically highlighted the importance of the Library as part of the competitive advantage of the University.

Eve Woodberry, current CAUL president contextualised these sector issues as relating to libraries and mentioned five main areas in which libraries will need to respond:

• Academic student support - varying student cohorts, changing teaching practices and the contrast of the shifting student population with static library staff
• Unreliable and fluctuating competitive funding
• Research support - OAI, RQF and institutional repositories
• Cultural sensitivity issues relating to international students
• Increased cooperation and collaboration through bilateral agreements between universities

Craig McInnis from the University of Melbourne gave a very insightful presentation on trends and issues in undergraduate teaching and learning. An interesting emerging trend seems to be that social engagement is a major contributor to learning and of course we are seeing evidence of this in academic libraries and all around with the increase in social computing. The most significant point in this presentation was, I think, again emphasising that universities must fit with our students' lives and expectations.

One of the highlights of the conference for me was Kym Adey's talk on What I expect from the Library and University Librarian. He stressed that the Library plays a major role in the intellectual health and wellbeing of the university but that a University Librarian needs to win the support of their line manager and not assume it. Kym gave some useful hints about preparing clear, precise arguments that are justified and explained and importantly, pitched in terms of contextual awareness of the broad priorities and plans of the university.

Along the same theme of skills and knowlege required to become a University Librarian, Catherine Harboe-Ree left me with these useful thoughts:

• Do your current job well
• Let people know what you are doing
• Step forward, take risks, lead
• Be passionate
• Mentor and be mentored
• Choose your referees carefully
• Focus on the job
• See work life balance over a career (not a point in time)

Snippets from other speakers:

Jeff Murray - Libraries need to remember that the price of a product they provide is not necessarily related to what it costs to produce

Helen Livingstone - Cross institutional mixing and matching of courses poses challenges for libraries; Today's students are strategic learners who only need what they need when they need it - the next generation may not care too much about information literacy.

Ray Choate - When creating redundancies due to budget cuts, take a vertical slice of the organisation and move sideways

Andrew Wells - Among many other things when planning a libray on a greenfields site, be aware of local standards and ensure local partnerships

Anne Horne - Libraries need money not only to build put to "plan to build"; key steps to success in a shared resource/service are communication, commitment, consistency (of services) and a cost-benefit case.

Finally, some insightful points made by Catherine Harboe-Ree when she presented on eResearch and Librarians:

• libraries have a role to play in the entire research life cyle
• libraries should not underestimate their ability to manage research data on behalf of the university (both print and electronic)
• it is important that R&D become R,D&D: research, development and deployment and be managed as such
• libraries have a role to play in including supporting research data in institutional repositories
• a Research Support Plan is a good idea

Well, I guess this was a bit long, but at least I have got the blog going ...