Connecting Librarian

Major lessons learned about her career: you never know where your career will take you… but always think big.

The first thing she noticed (someone yelled out that librarians drink a lot): the stereotype that people applied to her and commented automatically. They included: you must luv to read, you seem pretty smart and I thought you said you went to college your like woo way too sexxxy to be a librarian, dont you check books in and out, you wrote a book, what about?? the dewey decimal system, how to say shhhh? She was forever fighting and defending the profession – but she has now embraced the challenge.

However, the stereotype can work to your advantage and your amusement if you play it right.

2. Flexibility: a restless person such as Elaina finds a home in the variety of opportunities available in the profession. Library will not go extinct, but the positions will adapt and evolve.

3. Global perspective: we are family. A friend of hers met someone in Senegal who had read her book and was thrilled to meet someone who knew her. Life is always bigger than you imagine: find out what other libraries are doing, not just by reading, but by talking to other librarians, both here and around the world. She worked with librarians on the Isle of Yap for a week in 2008 – eye opening experience for her, but even though they didnt have much, they were passionate and giving to their profession.

4. Successful libraries: in 1996 a professor reminded her that libraries would be extinct in 5 years. Library closings are happening more often in the US, as are the threats of closures. In Malaysia, many of the 1384 libraries in the country may be force to closed down for lack of visitors. EPA Libraries closure and then reopened, but as a shell of its former glory. Philadelphia Free Public Library was Library of the Year in 2005, but will be closing 11 of their 54 branches – 200 staff to go. Her observations on this: need to be proactive – not reactive, the most successful libraries operate like small not-for-profit organisations, successful libraries do the little things to make big impacts, marketing is a long term strategy not a short term solution.

5. Commitment to life long learning: passion to keep people relevant, quote: without this training, I quickly become obsolete – Richard E. Ashby Jr – Queens Public Library.

6. Librarians change lives. We are doing amazing work. She spoke about a program she was involved with – the Peer Information Counseling Program, training students to work in the library, so they would learn how all about the library and to encourage students to become librarians.

7. Librarians have a passion to serve: all the things that librarians do to help people, often way above and beyond the call of duty.

In conclusion: always be proud of our title – its an uphill battle but worth it, lets bridge a gap and continue to learn from each other, lets always fight to stay not only relevant but enhance our message… we are vital to our community….

Today was the first day of NLS4, which I have blogged about already, but only the last afternoon session and plenary. I missed a lot because I ended up spending most of the day with other public librarians and Erik and Jaap the Shanachietour guys.

I began the day at the State Library of Victoria with friends and colleagues from other public libraries, to talk to the Shanachie boys about what we are doing in Victorian public libraries. I had to leave early to go and present at NLS4 – my presentation is linked from the presentation page. After I had done that, I headed back to SLV for the Shanachie guys and ended up joining them for a tour of the State LIbrary of Victoria and lunch. Check out the photos on Flickr.

Then back to the conference for the days end and then for the Cocktail Party which was held at Experimedia at the State Library. Drinks, finger foods and fun games got us all talking with friends we hadnt met yet. Presentations were made – Kate Davis from Gold Coast Libraries received the Metcalfe Award and Rachel Crowe the ALIA Aurora Scholarship. More photos of this too on Flickr.

Another day of NLS4 tomorrow, which will include a presentation from Erik and Jaap. If you havent checked out the Shanachie tour, I highly recommend you do. And if you have never done a tour of the State Library of Victoria, I suggest you add it to your list of must dos- its an amazing building.

Part 1 – Crash through or crash

1999 – Britannica went online, all
30+ volumes. The servers, network connections and all crashed because
of the amount of traffic hitting it at once – 50 million people.
Britannica had tapped into the need for high quality information. It
didnt need to advertise to bring traffic to its site, everyone just
came. Within a few weeks it was back in business and also became one
of the most trafficed sites on the internet. However, it lost money
and as a result several months later they introduced fees and the
traffic dropped to 1/100^th of the original. Wikipedia
stepped into the place that Britannica vacated.

Wikipedia is an example of crowd
sourcing – user contributions, transparent editing, governance and
goals. High quality facts encourage high quality visitors who then
further edited and added to the quality of the site. It has long
since surpassed Britannica in size.

We dont think about Britannica anymore,
Wikipedia has eaten up its market – one which had been dominated by
Britannica for 200 years. Britannica began to die when they
introduced payment.

2 weeks ago, the EU launched Europeana,
a cultural showcase for Europe. Launched on 20^th November
and immediately crashed. It will relaunch when additional servers and
broader internet connections are established.

The more something is shared, the more
valuable it becomes. Hopefully Europeana learns from the lessons of
Britannica and the success of Wikipedia.

Part 2 – the Universal Library

A few weeks ago, Google agreed to pay a
licence fee to publishers, even if they are out of copyright. The
Google Book search library now has millions of items, accessible by
the vast majority of the worlds population, through computers, phones
and other mobile devices.

Within a few years, every book within
the reach of Google, will be scanned and made available through book
search. What does this mean for the library as we know it. Has it
obsolesced the library stacks? The stacks have gone virtual, it is
now universal and we are all part of the library.

Part 3 – the necessary army. If this
is so, what happens to the librarians? The central task of the
librarian is to bring order to chaos – which happens differently
from situation to situation. Even if we are done with the library, we
are not done with library science. The skills that our profession are
based on are desperately needed in the online world.

We are rapidly becoming a data
generating species – ie, email, video, photos, text messages – it
all adds up. Our culture is going to be permanently recorded and it
all needs to be indexed, stored and retrieved. To enable us to deal
with this, we are all going to have to become library scientists.
Librarians will become life coaches for the digital lifestyle. We
need to help people to capture, store and index their creations.

Library scientists need to be wherever
data is created. The proof of our value will be obvious once its put
to the test – we will need to throw a life preserver to users, and
once they realise our worth, we will be indispensable and highly
valued in the management of content.

The transition to a digital
civilization will founder without the input of librarians. The more
we share what we know, the more valuable we become to our culture. If
we are to make sense of the digital era ahead of us, then librarians
will be needed and many more of them.

Question: librarian roles in the
political sphere? – need to be involved in the copyright, filtering
and censorship debates – something that we need to own.

Question: are we teaching new
librarians the necessary skills to be that army? – its not about a
particular system (Dewey), but how to create systems, including
public parts that enable it to be shared with others, and thats where
librarians are important

Question: should we be concerned that
Google owns all that content and could start charging ? – not real
concern, Google makes better money elsewhere, need to be more worried
about having a single source for anything.

Question: libraries still have a place
because of the feel and the romance of the physical book – Mark
agrees, but we are in a transition and we need to think about how the
online version may not be as supple but is more immediate.

Question: Google didnt take the path of
subject cataloguing because its full text searchable – decision
they made that this data had no value, but we should be providing as
many access points as possible.

Question: libraries in different
sectors have different purposes – the future of these libraries can
be very different due to this. Libraries will get more promiscuous
about what they do – school library will be where the rubber meets
the road when it comes to how the internet is used. Each institution
is dealing with the other world that is out there, the challenge is
to make their specialist collections as widely available as possible.
Libraries need to be everywhere and if they are not, they are doing
a disservice to their users and their collections.

Question: limitations of tagging versus
controlled vocabulary – strength of tagging is that the wisdom of
everyone is stronger than the small group. Its not an either or and
or, we need both. There are ways to do this, which are not abusive.

Question: commercialisation impacts
heavily on the results you get online – Its an arms race, we need
to keep pace with the noise that this thing generates.

Question: Will Google try to develop
their own operating system. No, they are already bigger than
Microsoft, they already won. Microsoft and Apple are only being used
as portals to getting people to Google.

Question: Librarians need to have an
alliance with Google but they seem reluctant. – Google holds an
entire copy of the entire internet, for searching. Now that Google is
holding on to the Book search content, they are changing the rules –
this will have an impact. Google wants the data, so this is giving us
something to negotiate with.

Question: library as a building is not
in danger of extinction, would it help to change the name to match
the new image? The fault is in people not knowing that they need a
librarian – we dont need rebranding.

Began with the UWA Library strategy
2005-2007, In 2007, they started the Flying Start program for new
librarians at UWA. It is a 12 month program that sees new librarians
work ½ their time in reader services, the other half in
information services, to give them the bigger picture of UWA
libraries.

Core competencies have been developed
for each side of the library, but they are also expected to pick up
additional elective skills in more specilaist areas of either
information or reader services. This has included a project
management module, which results in participants then working on a
major project team at the library.

At the end of the program, participants
are able to give feedback on the program to the Executive and to
indicate their preference as to where they would like to work after
the programs conclusion.

Matts experience of the program has
been both challenging and rewarding, enabled him to deal with variety
of tasks in reader services, was given other development
opportunities, enabled him to break down internal barriers.

Knowledge of both sections of the
library has helped break down the existing silos, enabled him to
better serve users and fellow library staff. Challenges included
information overload two part-time jobs but in the same location,
difficult to switch off from one half, neede to develop task
prioritisation skills.

Other participants expressed that the
found the program to be beneficial, both to the individua librarians
and to the teams they worked with, however a preference was expressed
for different timing – working in 6 month blocks in each section,
rather than half weeks. The program will continue and longstanding
librarians are expressing an interest in undertaking a similar
program.

Alyson Dalby -

I have missed most of the day so far at NLS4 as I have spent most of the time with the Shanachie boys at the State Library of Victoria. More on that later. For now, here I am live blogging for the rest of today and for all of tomorrow (at least that is the plan).

What is professional involvement? Is attendance at a conference enough? It means having an input into the profession, contributing your knowledge and ideas to the greater pool of librarianship. Professional development and professional involvement are linked, but although you can have the 1st without the 2nd, you cant have the 2nd without the 1st.

So why be involved? It will make you better at what you do – you encounter new ideas, builds your communication and negotiation skills, its strengthens your voice and helps you to develop your perspectives, helps you find new tools, prepares you for the next job, helps promote your organisation as one which supports such things and therefore makes you an employer of choice.

Professional involvement makes you love what you do, it can help you to learn about things that arent necessary for your job, gives you the opportunity to do things just for fun, helps you to see the bigger picture that we are all part of and you make friends, not just connections.

The profession needs people to be involved – we need a professional voice, someone talking to government, to lobby and more, we need to know whats going on, sharing is good – if we all share what we know, then we all benefit. Represenatation needs to be real, hold your representatives to account.

When you shouldnt bother? When youre just not into it, you just want a job and not a career. Its not as hard as it may seem. You can make involvement work for you. Do a little extra, its not a lifetime commitment, its flexible and the level of your involvement is entirely up to you. However, it can be addictive.

So what can you do? Join and post emails to e-lists, comment on someones blog, ask a question, write an article (for Incite or something else), hang out with library folk (NSW – library folk in the pub, elsewhere – start your own), join a committee.

Just do something!

Its been a while between blog posts and although I’m still frantically busy, I thought it time to share some of the highlights of my last few weeks in the library world.

The reason I have been frantically busy is that our biggest library, Narre Warren has been closed this last week for recarpeting and repainting and I have been part of the moving team, meaning lots of extra hours, both in preparation for the move and for the move itself.  Its been a very interesting process which I will blog about another time.

In other news, I applied for and was granted a place in the 2009 Aurora Leadership Institute – an annual leadership program, held over 5 days in February in Thredbo, NSW.  I am doubly fortunate to be able to attend with the support of my work and grant assistance from the State Library of Victoria and in the company of some librarian friends, both local and interstate.  I am very excited about this great opportunity and will no doubt have lots to blog about when its done.

At work, I am very excited about the start of a project that I had never imagined would happen.  We are starting the process of creating a new library website and it will all be done in-house under the direction of myself and my partner in crime – Linda.  After some serious consideration, we have opted to use Drupal for our content management system.  This is all new for all of us, so we will be blazing some trails here for our library service, but again I am very excited about this project, which will take many months and look forward to starting on serious work for it in coming weeks.

Then to top off all the excitement, next week I will have both the honour and the privilege of being able to attend the Shanachie Tour Down Under when it hits Melbourne next week, followed on the next two days by NLS4 which I am presenting at, as well as enjoying as a delegate.  So expect some more blogging with all these events happening.

Add to that my friend Kathryn Greenhill (from Librarians Matter) receiving the VAL A Travel Scholarship and it all adds up to being an awesome time to be a librarian, with so much more yet to come.

I love sharing happy news!

Not only have the conference presentations been good, as will the papers Im sure, but I have to post about the social side as well. The networking opportunties have been great.

It started on Tuesday night with a welcome reception and the opening of the trade exhibit. Drinks and horses doovers met everyone who had mostly arrived on librarian full planes from all Australian capitals on Monday and Tuesday. We were entertained by Drums Atemwe – a group of young indigenous girls who captured our attention with their beats and smooth moves.

On Wednesday morning I attended the first-timers breakfast – with lovely food and new faces. Met some lovely people from around the country and across library sectors. I even met up with an old friend, who I last saw at our shared workplace 18 years earlier. For everyone who remembers who, Marita Thompson sends her greetings to all who used to be at DVRLS.

Wednesday night was Happy Hour followed by the Australian Premiee of the Hollywood Librarian documentary movie. Even though I had read reports and seen snippets from it I didnt know what to expect. Appropriately armed with popcorn, I was pleasantly surprised, it was an enjoyable, insightful and emotional look into the public library scene in the USA at present. Ann Seidl, the producer, director etc here and shared both with us on the night and with individuals at the trade exhibit the next morning. It will be screening in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide in coming months, so check it out if you can.

Thursday morning I attended the ALS Breakfast, which I have already blogged about separately. Thursday night was the awesome conference dinner. About 600 people were bused 30 minutes out of Alice Springs to Ooraminna Homestead – most of that way on corrugated dirt roads. We arrived to find an open arena, with beautifully laid out tables out in the open resting on that amazing red sandy soil. We found out during the course of the evening that the buildings surrounding us were built as a movie set for a film which never eventuated. Our MC, the son-in-law of the owners, was friendly, irreverent and hilarious. The food was BBQ style with the option of steak or barramundi – the steak was mmmmmmmm! We did some star gazing which was amazingly easy in the middle of nowhere, led by an amateur astronomer, learnt some line dancing and boogied away to live music. It was a great night.

Friday morning was a late start fortunately. We finished the day with farewell drinks and a visit from some of our reptilian natives. It wa very amusing to watch as several people bolted as the handler brought out the python for a look see. A large group of Victorian public and other librarians went out for dinner in Alice to finish off a great social time.

I was fortunate to spend most of my conference time with two good friends, inspirational to me in their own ways. Thanks Melissa and Glenn for helping to make it such a good time.

ALA and the intersection of indigenous library services and values – Dr Loriene Roy – University of Texas

As ALA president, you get money for assigned tasks, an assistant etc ($250,000) and then $100,000 for programs. Routine duties include communications ie. presidential message quarterly reports and much more such as greetings, blogs, messages, cards/greetings. It also involved talking to media – she gave 150 interviews and did a media day amongst other things. Did 60 presentations worldwide and innumberable national presentations,including state and national organisations, as well as selected local events.

Chairing the executive board, the executive council, ALA council, ALA-APA executive board, ALA-APA council. Made more appointments than the speaker of the house – 250 in all. Appointments to ALA committees as members and chairs and task forces. Then there were ALA Presidential initiatives which included an Indigenous project.

Workplace wellness included a website, a wellness passport, workplace wellness inventory, tips for health conference travel and a workplace wellness fair with a wellness pavilion where they taught seated exercises.

Supporting LIS Education through practice include education forums, a book – Service learning and meetings with relevant organisations.

CIrcle of Literacy – Gathering of readers with schools from around the world in April 13-19 2008.

Indigenous writings were highlighted through writers, teen graphic novels, many voices-many nations performance event at the ALA conference.

Demonstration projects included National Library Camps – got grant info to develop this, Capturing our stories – developing a national oral history program of retiring librarians, Meeting effectiveness – tip sheets and podcasts on how to improve your meetings – also has a website.

Fun stuff included handing out gaming awards, gave out citations on innovation in international librarianship, had a theme of celebrating community, collaboration and culture.

It was a year of gifts – the dance of Honor, the Inauguration event, tribal community connections, renewing friendships.

Now – member of ALA Council, Executive Board and Committee. Chair of some committees and liason between ALA and other organisations. She is doing work for IFLA and will return to teaching at UT. Gets to be past-president forever! Check her out on Facebook.

Not been easy to stand in front of rooms, but it has been well worth it , both personally and professionally.

I was fortunate enough to be invited by Patricia Genat to attend the ALS Breakfast during the ALIA Dreaming 08 conference. Over a lovely pancake breakfast we had a casual conversation with Margie Seale from Random House on publishing trends and the scene in the Australian industry.

Margie began by saying that she was impressed by our library websites and what we do with them, that they are not just about information.

The retail market for books has 3 major segments: discount department
stores like Kmart and BIg W, with 22% of the market, chain bookstores like Dymocks, Borders and A&R with 50% of the market and independent bookstores with 25%. The latter is a fast disappearing breed in the US, due to price competition, which has also resulted in a lack of diversity. In Australia, our markets is very vibrant, generally successful and still very diverse.

The Book Scan service has helped suppliers and publishers to recognise
trends and ajdust their business strategy on the fly as the trends are revealed.

The 2008 top sellers in Australia so far are: Ingredients, Underbelly, Change of heart by Piccoult and Breath by Winton. Last year it was The Secret, ahead of the adult edition of Harry Potter and the deathly hallows. For childrens books, this year so far has been Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyers and last year was Harry Potter. Interestingly, many of the attendees
were not aware of many of these titles, because they were mainly managerial staff.

At present, the big sellers in each of the markets are; Breaking Dawn in the chain bookstores, Very hungry caterpillar in the discount department stores and Gallup in the independents. The US top titles at present are New Earth – a republishing of Eckhardt Tolls book an the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. The same titles will follow here as our markket is similar to the US. In the UK, the top titles are A thousand splendid suns and the latest Delia Smith cookbook.

Across all 3 markets there are only 3 books in common in the top 10 bestsellers – Atonement, Kite runner and A thousand splendid suns. Australia and UK have 5 titles in common, Australia and US have 8 in common and the US and UK only have those 3.

The Australian market leans slightly towards the US in trends. If a title is going to work here though, it does so quickly. However, UK covers and formats work better here. Why? Margie believes because it is better quality, more stylish, more anglo is design. Our covers are more subtle, not so blatant.

An issue of interest to the book industry at present is the 30/90 rule, which is under review. The rule was introduced in the 1990s to allow certainty of copyright and to provide consumers with titles in a timely manner. Publishers buy rights for a territory so only they can bring the title in. This means that publishers had to publish that title within 30 days of it being
published in English anywhere else in the world. If it goes out of stock, publishers have 90 days to restock. If neither of these conditions is met the copyright is lost and the title goes back to the open market.

The government is reviewing this and looking at making Australia a totally open market, where anyone can bring in titles from anywhere at any time. The UK and US markets are not considering doing this at present.

Booksellers say that it will bring book prices down. Publishers are concerned that they will not be able to invest in new authors, because they wont have the certainty of their protected business to support the risk. It may also put Australian book printers out of business.

Drivers for this change? US currency makes US book prices look cheap. The
Australian Booksellers Association is in support of the change, although not necessarily all of its members. As for the book printing business, although colour printing is done overseas, 50-60% of Random Houses black and white printing is done in Australia. The rule has been reviewed several times over the years, so this is only the lastest in a series. It will be interesting to see what develops.

Margie Seale was an engaging speaker. It was interesting to hear the publishing perspective and see how it matched with the borrowing behaviours we see in our libraries.

Changing library types – the journey from joint use to public library – Kimberley Hargrave

In SA, community libraries were established in the 70s and 80s. Of the 142 public libraries in SA, just over 1/3 are joint use. There is an agreement in place outlining the responsibilities, funding etc.

The Two Wells library operated at the Primary School since 1983. In July 2006 the Council opted to have their own library, which was launched in 2007. It opened in the Two Wells Institute. Such a split is a rare occurence in SA.

In 2004-2005 a new joint use agreement was being negotiated and that was the time for reassessment. A new agreement was finalised in 2006, but was reviewed in May 2006 and a statistical snapshot was conducted. In July 2006, Mallala Council opted not to renew the agreement. August the library staff visited their future home and vision for the library was defined.

September 2006 they developed change management tools, purchased the Spydus system. October 2006 they reviewed magazines coordinated the asset division and received donated shelving.

November 2006 they undertook training, management committee had last meeting, resources reviewed. December 2006 – joint library closed, moved resources and had broadband installed. Jan 2007 – the move, but without a phone for 2 weeks.

Feb 2007 – opened to the public, promoted and worked without computers. March 2007 – trained on Spydus, which finally went live in May – when the library was officially launched.

Library open 28.5 hours per week, with other branches open very short hours. Slight reduction from the joint use library, but open longer on school holidays. Good reception to the hours opened.

Challenges – design and fitout of the library was limited due to preexisting bookings of the facility, the heritage nature of the building and budget. Donations assisted with the budge restrictions, with more than half the shelving and the circulation desk being donated.

Higher loan figures in many collections, reference requests, internet access, access to Council services and more. Very positive feedback on the new library.

Review the change process regularly, celebrate achievements, list all tasks and network with local colleagues. Dont implement a new ILMS, dont be afraid to ask for help, dont paint laminate, keep participating in your profession. Remember to maintain a good work life balance, take more photos, provide recognition, include everyone in the journey.

The future: increase and improve marketing, stocktake, development of the local history collection, review library policies and procedures.

Question: what was the schools response to the change. Mostly positive as they were happy to get the extra space, have the security of school attendees only and they were able to take their library in a new direction, not problem free, but handled well.

Question: how using volunteers. In move, packing and unpacking. Now general circulation and currently writing job descriptions for them.

Libraries to 2025: turning dreams for new public libraries into reality – Carolyn Robertson

Greater Christchurch area is expected to grow by 50,000 in the next 20 years. They have 18 community libraries an 2 joint use libraries, with 70% membership. Over 1.1 million items, 6 million loans, 3.8 million visits.

The plan began in 2005, at the completion of a 10 year library development plan, but no new libraries were identified and no capital funding assigned for the next 10 years. In early 2006, surburban libraries and a mobile were identified for potential closure due to budget restrictions – was overturned.

Library planning proper didnt restart until 2007. It is not an asset management or refurbishment plan or facility plan. Built within the framework of local government, educational and national strategies, both government and library.

Collaboration and consultation with local governments, the public and staff. Partnership was a guiding principle. Used an external working party which gave them a cross section of representation, included key stakeholders and gave them Council and community buy-in at an early stage in the process.

The plan – criteria for future library planning (effectiveness, efficiency, affordability, equity), size-function and range of services, options development, identify priority areas. They modified their hierarchy of libraries to metropolitan, suburban, neighbourhood and rural outreach and other. Priority areas were identified, by looking at growth, community need, asset condition, resulting in the 51 options reducing to 28.

Stakeholder engagement also undertaken through meetings, newsletters, market research, online surveys, targetted community events survey and staff workshops. Asked the same questions of all groups.

Public participation included public forums, public participations, one on one and group invitations, public hearings and feedback, which ended in the final plan.

Plan supports options for a new central library, recommends 3 new libraries (1 a larger replacement), replace a current library due to poor condition. More projects other than the capital developments are also outlined, which include 7 day opening, a library cafe, review of services in smaller libraries and volunteer library arrangements. Partnerships will also be reviewed in line with criteria established.

Adoption of the plan is no guarantee of funding – which is being developed at present along other Council budget reviews. Final sign off will be in June 2009.

Have learned that the Working Party was a successful model, lots of work to support this though, use of language is important (dont use closure), repeat key images continuously, make connections. Overall has been a very rewarding experience.

Redevelopment and reinvention: rethinking reference services at SLQ – Vicki McDonald and Sandra Duffield

Planning framework was service delivery groups – had to rethink current services,how they were delivered and how they could be delivered in future. This included client empowerment and encompassed service delivery and building design.

The Info Zone was developed and is distinctive in its lack of shelving. Staff rove and provide assistance at point of need. Talking and eating in this space are allowed here. Clients are able to access the catalogue and the internet without authentication in stand up and sit down system and uses a queueing rather than the booking system which is used throughout the rest of the library.

One of the most successful services offered was wireless – which is available 24/7 without authentication. It will extend to the whole building soon and will comprise a separate network for staff and clients.

e-services card is available for clients to book a PC on upper library levels, call slip an item, access databases- both done remotely and locally, copy, print and more.

Once in the new library, the review continued but moved away from building considerations. They undertook a value management study and surveys. The study reviewed teh delivery of reference services to individual clients. The study recommendations confirmed earlier study as well as NSLAs strategic plan. The survey was client exit from upper levels only and mystery shopper and onsite only. Survey found that staff skills, behaviour, knowledge an experience and clients satisfaction was based on the entire experience of the library and resulted in a 80% satisfaction rate.

Latte Librarian was trialled at the Library Cafe – with a coffee and a laptop – highly desired slot, but finished early due to the low uptake of service and the instability of the wireless access. Once wireless is expanded, the trial will be continued.

IM reference is being trialled during business hours, using Meebo from the Ask Now page and no results page on the catalogue. They have been very happy with the response so far to this offering.

Convict Transportation Registers database is now available to all web users – the result of 12 years of volunteer work. Much international recognition for this. Can be accessed via Google.