STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA - PUBLIC LIBRARY UNIT - VICLINK REPORT (April 2005)
1.0Key Things To Note
- Gavin Jennings MLC, Minister for Aged Care will launch the Multilingual Senior Surfers on April 29 at the Mount Waverley Library (Monash).
- At its 6 April meeting the Library Board of Victoria approved the proposals for Statewide Public Library Development Project funding for the three years beginning July 2005
- The Libraries Building Communities Research Reports were launched by Minister for Local Government, Candy Broad MP, at Footscray Library on the morning on Wednesday 9 March
- The Statewide Training Project hosted five days of training for 340 public libraries staff in web-searching by renowned American trainer Mary Ellen Bates, starting 21 February
- The Statewide Marketing Project has successfully ‘transitioned’ to a new model of operation from 1 July 2005, with the establishment of the Viclink Libmark Sub-committee
- The management of the new model of the Statewide Training Project, to begin operation from 1 July 2005, is a priority for finalising with Viclink over April/May
2.0 State Library Of Victoria – Update
State Librarian’s visits to public libraries
Anne-Marie Schwirtlich visited West Gippsland Regional Library Corporation in February, was at Footscray Library in March for the launch of Libraries Building Communities, and is hoping to schedule another four visits to public libraries before the end of June.
Advisory Committee on Public Libraries
The ACPL met on 11 March at the University of Ballarat with Elisabeth Jackson replacing Barb Horn as a Viclink representative and Bruce Myers standing in for Adele Keneally as a CPLG representative.
The Statewide Public Library Development Projects (2005/08) were endorsed for recommendation to the April meeting of the Library Board of Victoria covering three key themes: Enhanced Collections and Access; Libraries Building Communities; and the Workforce Sustainability and Leadership project and associated expenses.
Other Agenda items included progress report on the 2004/05 Statewide Public Library Development Projects; a presentation prepared by John Murrell and Julie Rae on issues for the public library network for 2005; and an update on the activity of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Public Libraries.
Travelling Treasures program
Travelling Treasures provides direct access to unique State Library collection items by taking individual items and curatorial experts to regional and rural public libraries. During March 2005 Travelling Treasures visited the Mildura and Swan Hill Libraries. The items being presented include a Cuneiform Clay Tablet dating from 2050BC; the expedition papers of French scientist and explorer Nicolas Baudin, who visited and studied the Australian coastline between 1801-03; the 1574 Ortelius Atlas of the world as it was known at that time; and Melbourne’s first newspaper, the Melbourne Advertiser.
Ramsay and Reid Scholarships / Pierre Gorman Award
ACPL members Vicki Williamson, Julie Rae and Rod Fyffe, with Wendy Quihampton from the PLU, have undertaken a review of the Scholarships and Award. The recommendations of the review will be presented to the ACPL for endorsement.
3.0Current Activities Progress Report (Including Statewide Public Library Development Projects 2004/05)
Disability Working Group
The Department of Human Services Disability Services Division and the State Library of Victoria through VICNET have established a working group on ICT and disability which aims to bring representatives from many of the sectors involved in the provision of services for people with a disability to share knowledge and work collaboratively towards improving access to services. There are many different sets of issues for service delivery in the area of Internet computers and disability - potentially this group could further identify and articulate these issues, and disseminate knowledge across its representative networks. Viclink have been invited to provide a representative to the group.
Libraries Building Communities Project
The Libraries Building Communities research reports were launched on 9 March by Minister for Local Government, Candy Broad MP and are currently being distributed to a wide range of stakeholders including Local Government CEOs, with Executive Summaries going to Councillors. Presentations about the project have been given to public library colleagues in Queensland and South Australia. A supporting powerpoint presentation will shortly be sent to library service managers and a LBC Roadshow for all public libraries staff will run during May.
Local History Digitisation Project (PictureVictoria)
The PictureVictoria database, to be launched at the SLV on 23 June, is growing steadily (5000 images) with nine public library services adding their images and data to the database. Five training sessions have been conducted so far with ten public library services attending, and the training has been accepted with great enthusiasm. Web hits on the website are being monitored, with over 30,000 web hits recorded in the last quarter (January to March 2005).
Multilingual Senior Surfers Project
Gavin Jennings MLC, Minister for Aged Care will launch the Multilingual Senior Surfers on April 29 at the Mount Waverley Library (Monash). The project is a joint initiative of the State Library of Victoria through VICNET and the Office of Senior Victorians and will provide specialised Internet training and awareness-raising opportunities for seniors from culturally and diverse backgrounds. Damian Tyquin is the Viclink representative on the project reference group.
MyLanguage Portal
This collaborative project now includes all State and Territory Libraries except Tasmania. The graphic design is being finalised for the 3 main sections of the site; testing of the database has commenced, with custom scripts extracting data from a wide range of targets including the multilingual information on the Open Directory website. A launch of the site is proposed on a state-by-state basis, and information for other potential partners will be prepared shortly.
Statewide Marketing Project
The Viclink marketing subcommittee (Libmark) proposal was accepted at the last Viclink meeting which will continue some of the work of the Statewide Marketing Project following cessation of funding at the end of June; planned activities include: repeating four @ your library campaigns; maintaining the libmark e-list; two professional development seminars (21/10/2005 and 21 04/ 2006); and coordinating a second round of mystery shopping on a user-pays basis.
The final full-day professional development seminar for the Project was held on 18 April at the State Library, and a second libraries newsletter is being mailed to all Councillors, Mayors, and Victorian MPs this week.
New material has been developed for the Read @ your library (March) and Connect @ your library (May) campaigns, the Read campaign featured many events in libraries and a successful competition with Leader newspapers, and public relations work on Library and Information Week has commenced.
Statewide Network Infrastructure Project (SNIP)
The major focus of SNIP during 2005 to date has been the network upgrade at
Yarra Plenty; this has involved VICNET project and technical staff in collaboration with the library service and their consultants. Other outstanding parts of the SNIP project will be completed during the current financial year.
Statewide Training Project
Over 320 public library staff attended Mary Ellen Bates five days of training in ‘Power Searching for the Pros!’ with 96% rating the session as Very Good or Excellent.
Twenty-nine public libraries attended The First Impressions training and these sessions will be followed by a ‘mystery-shopper’ survey per library service, coordinated by the Statewide Marketing Project, with the overall statewide results to be presented at the professional development seminar Impress @ Your Library, on June 23.The logistics of managing the first year of this new model for Statewide Training are a priority for working through in April/May
Websites managed by the PLU including Victoria’s Virtual library
Victoria's Virtual Library continues to offer access to a range of collaborative content projects.There is a small sum of money available to refresh some of the administration elements improving functionality.A Working Party including representatives from VicLink, Gulliver and SLV marketing and Communications has met to workshop the upgrade with work planned to take place during this financial year.
User sessions (visits) for the PLU web sites in the Jan - March quarter were:
Site
/ January / February / March / TOTAL/ 17,548 / 18,721 / 17,514 / 53,783
/ 50 / 37 / 212 / 299
/ 2,479 / 2,752 / 3,060 / 8,291
/ 6,246 / 6,344 / 6,389 / 18,979
/ 0 / 29 / 49 / 78
Writers on the Road
During March/April there were six Writers on the Road youth tours over ten days to Mornington Peninsula, Darebin, Goulburn Valley, Central Highlands, Goldfields and Gannawarra library services. During May/June a further seven youth tours will go to Mitchell, Bayside, Casey-Cardinia, Melton, Whitehorse-Manningham, Boroondara and Stonnington libraries and six adult tours will go to West Gippsland, Campaspe, LaTrobe, Wimmera, Geelong and Corangamite library services, with writers including Peter Corris, Wendy Harmer, Jane Clifton, George Negus and John Marsden.