Government libraries essential for an effective public sector

The ALIA submission to Advisory Group on Reform of Australian Government Administration is now online. See http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy/submissions/reform.ausgov.html

Government information helps to educate people, stimulate progress and solve complex economic, scientific and social problems. With many new technologies, however, government information has expanded so quickly that basic principles regarding its creation, use and dissemination are in danger of being neglected and even forgotten.

This submission highlights three major issues:

• the importance of libraries and information centres in assisting high quality policy advice and service delivery,
• the need for whole of government approaches to information for an efficient and effective public service and
• the need to make government information widely available with web 2.0 technology to enable a high level of citizen participation in policy development a service delivery.

Library Day in the Life

Ready to start the year with a bang? Take part in Round 4 of the Library Day in the Life Project beginning January 25th 2010.

Whether you are a librarian or library worker of any kind, help us share and learn about the joys and challenges of working in a library. Join us by sharing details of your day for a week on your blog...

Any one who works in a library can participate. You may share your day (or week) on your blog, Twitter, Flickr and/or YouTube (or any other way you choose. If you have none of these don't worry, just create a new page in the wiki and post your day there.

See http://librarydayinthelife.pbworks.com/

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AMENDMENT (REFORM) BILL 2009 and INFORMATION COMMISSIONER BILL 2009

Yesterday both these bills were presented to the Parliament in the House of Representatives and you can see the second reading speeches online at:

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F2009-11-26%2F0021%22

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F2009-11-26%2F0017%22

Major step forward!

2009 ALIA National Library & Information Technicians Conference

Congratulations to Terri and her marvellous team for running the 2009 ALIA National Library & Information Technicians Conference.

You can find information about the conference, including links to many great photos on facebook at http://conferences.alia.org.au/libtec2009/

Most papers are now available on the program page at http://conferences.alia.org.au/libtec2009/programs.php

It was a very stimulating and inspiring event. I came away with a vision of enthusiastic library staff across the nation focusing on developing their services to engage better with clients, willing to take on new challenges and to develop personal skills to deal with the exciting/turbulent environment.

I encourage everyone to put the next ALIA Technicians conference - Back to basics, Perth, September 2001, in their diaries.

Engagement and Participation: What the Public Want and How our Politicians Need to Respond

The Hansard Society (UK) has published the sixth Audit of Political Engagement recently (thank you Andy for providing a copy). The report is available online at http://hansardsociety.org.uk/blogs/parliament_and_government/archiv....

A very interesting article based ont he results of the study by Ruth Fox is also available online at http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/62/4/673 - I have used the title of the article as the title of this blog posting.

Haunted and Mysterious Australia - Tim the Yowie Man

Attended the booked out fireside event at Saint Luke's (http://www.firesidefestival.com.au/host/29.html) for a tour of the cemetary and Tim launched the new edition of his book. It included a spiritual burning of the book - ashes to ashes. Quite a different event! Only mildly traumatic for a librarian.

News from public sphere 2.0

http://www.katelundy.com.au/2009/07/29/briefing-paper-and-recommendation-endorsements-from-public-sphere-2-government-2-0/

News from public sphere 2.0

They have put all recommendations into an endorsement system, where all are encouraged to vote. This is for a final quality assurance of the outcomes, and possibly to assist with prioritisation of the issues, so please participate:
http://au.nationbuilder.com/branches/9/priorities/top

They will handover the briefing paper formally to the Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce in an public Q&A session where you are all invited to participate. Details of the event will be sent in the last Government 2.0 Public Sphere email in the coming day or two.

Again, many thanks for all your contributions to this Public Sphere topic!