Information Studies News
Welcome to Information Studies at Curtin.
Left: Part of the Opening Ceremony
Right: L-R: Kerry Smith, Pam Duell (former student) Liz and Paul Genoni
We’d hardly arrived and current student Liz Marnie had organised dinner for Paul Genoni and me at the local Italian restaurant. Many thanks Liz – it was lovely meet you and Pam.
The ALIA Biennial Conference produces highlights for even the most seasoned of conference going veterans, and 2008 (Dreaming '08) was no exception. The venue, the excellent and spectacularly situated Alice Springs Convention Centre, was a pleasant and welcome change from the usual capital cities.
View from the Conference Centre
This is the first time that ALIA had held the conference in a regional city since Albury-Wodonga in 1992, and although this impacted slightly on attendance the Conference still managed to attract nearly 600 delegates, including a large number of representatives of the 'trade' who put on a substantial display of their latest product offerings.
A special word for the social side of the conference. The dinner was held 'under the stars' at the Ooraminna Homestead, a forty minute bus ride from Alice Springs. Quite a departure from the hotel ballrooms that are the usual venue for such events, and delegates seemed more than happy to 'suffer' the forty minute bus ride across roads that apparently hadn't seen a grader in some years. This was particularly so as it is not often that city slickers get to see the Milky Way and millions of stars in the evening, since city lights mar this spectacular show.
Left: The dinner setting
Right: Current student: Linda Bell at the conference dinner
Another highlight was he first Australian viewing of the US movie 'The Hollywood Librarian'. It seems this might be doing the rounds of other venues in the months ahead so if you have an opportunity please go and see it. Entertaining and thought provoking, it will give you a fascinating insight into the plight be faced by many public libraries in the 'information age' - plus remind you of all those libraries and librarians that have featured on the big screen over the years.
Needless to say there were also many memorable moments amongst the conference papers. It would be unfair to single out particular presenters or papers, so I suggest you go and read your way through them at: http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2008/
The Alice Springs venue and the conference theme of 'dreaming' resulted in a number of papers dealing with issues around library and information services for indigenous users, and several of these are well worth reading.
The conference was also used to 'launch' the next Biennial conference, which will be held in Brisbane in August 2010 as part of the IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) Annual Congress – see http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla76/index.htm . This event will attract several thousand delegates from around the world, and we encourage you to start planning now. It will be a significant and memorable occasion for Australian librarianship and for the international library community.
For enhancing student learning in Information Studies through commitment to flexible learning environments and embedding of practical professional knowledge to focus the students' learning experiences
Information Studies@Curtin team - Dr Kerry Smith, Dr Paul Genoni, Dr Margaret Pember, Associate Professor Maggie Exon and Ms Christine Richardson.
L to R: Professor Jeanette Hacket, Ms Lorel Mayberry, Ms Christine Howitt, Mr Robin Groves, Ms Alma Dender, Information Studies@Curtin team, Mr Glen Hutchings, eVALUate team and Mr Khoa Do
Below you will find some snippets of news of our former students. More news and events can be found at our Alumni website
