ALIA National Advisory Congress reports
In September a program of regional meetings for ALIA members was conducted to gather members’ input to guide the professional organisation. The consultation focussed on lobbying and advocacy, local issues and reviewing outcomes of the 2008 topic – professional development. The reports from the regional meetings are now available on the ALIA website. Just a few interesting ideas that emerged …. from Canberra & Brisbane meetings – an advocacy kit for all members, including statistics, quotes, fact sheets to promote the profession from Gawle

Mo-brarians are go!
This coming Movember we issue a call to Australia’s library workers: become a Mo-brarian and join the fight to change the face of men’s health. Movember, the formerly useless and boring month of November, has been remade with the addition of a little facial hair. Now a global charity phenomenon, Movember creates much-needed awareness while raising tens of millions of dollars to help with men’s health issues—particularly prostate cancer and depression. To be a part of something grand all you have to do is di

Australian Newspaper Digitisation crowdsourcing review
Last year we reported that the National Library of Australia’s newspaper digitisation project had kicked off and that one of its features was that users could correct mistakes in the optical character recognition process. A review of this crowdsourcing has been available for some time, but only just came to my attention via eGov.au Rose Holley writes  “Users have demonstrated a willingness to work towards the ‘common good’, to volunteer their ti

Survey time!
Yet another post about VALA Kate Davis and her partner in crime, Carolyn McDonald, are working to complete their VALA paper (they have an extension…honest guv! but they need lots of folk to complete their survey. Full details can be found on

VALA – Information Technolgy Award Nominations
This just in from VALA: “****Information technology award**** VALA is inviting nominations for its most prestigious award, the Robert D. Williamson Award 2010, and we’d like them by Monday 15 November 2009 (but keep them secret!). This biennial award, always a surprise to its recipient, is presented to an individual or organisation who or which is, in the opinion of the judging panel, currently making an outstanding contribution to the development of inform