Program

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Tuesday 12 May 2009

Venue: Brisbane Square Library, Level 16, Brisbane City Council

9.30 - 9.45 Welcome and overview of the day

9.45 - 10.15 Paper 1 – Community
Judith Hare. Halifax Public Libraries – Canada
Community let libraries

“Working Together” was a 3 year project funded by the federal Human Resources Development Commission. Over the course of 3 years, Halifax, Regina, Vancouver and Toronto Public Libraries partnered in the “Working Together” project which challenged the concept that libraries are socially inclusive and serve the entire population.

The goals of the project were:

Through establishing ongoing relationships with socially excluded people, work collaboratively with communities to articulate and respond to their library service needs and wants;
To identify and examine systemic barriers to library use for socially excluded people and propose policy and procedural change; and
To develop an inclusive service planning model that can be applied across Canada.

10.15 - 10.45 Paper 2 – Community
Patti Manolis. Geelong Regional Library Corporation - Australia
Libraries Building Communities in Timor-Leste

Once upon a time a woman named Patti attended a National Community Development Conference in Townsville, Australia, to present a paper about a subject dear to her heart and central to her professional reason for being – Libraries Building Communities (see www.slv.vic.gov.au).

Major inspiration came in the human form of Kirsty Sword Gusmao, the keynote speaker. Kirsty talked about Timor-Leste, the country’s amazing victory against colonial indifference, neglect and violent oppression, and the work required ahead to rebuild the nation that she now calls home. Patti was particularly moved by the stories of the women and the incredible sacrifices they have made, the violence they have endured, the hardships they still face today, and the work Kirsty’s ALOLA Foundation is doing to support women and children across Timor-Leste.

Kirsty then went on to talk about the Xanana Gusmao Reading Room, Timor-Leste’s first public library to open post independence and at that moment an idea for a project was born. “I want to go to Timor-Leste and take a look at libraries and their current and potential community building role” she thought. She applied for a State Library of Victoria Scholarship.

The Library Board of Victoria saw something special in Patti’s application and awarded her the Margery C Ramsay Scholarship for 2003. Patti traveled to Timor-Leste for six weeks over May/June 2004 and visited 30 libraries across the country including, public, school, university, special and community centres.

It was a time of incredible personal and professional growth for her. She met many wonderful people and her opinion that community libraries can have a profound effect on people’s lives was further strengthened. She found that there is great hunger for knowledge and desire for education but that human, financial and physical resources required for the establishment and operation of public libraries are few and far between.

Despite this fact, libraries are springing up everywhere. In fact Patti found some libraries that were previously unknown even to people who were setting up Timor-Leste’s first ever Library Association. She felt like an explorer and documented her discoveries.

Patti’s presentation will focus on the important role of libraries in the future of Timor-Leste and will feature specific case studies.

Paper 2 – Creative community spaces
Johanna Hansson. Stockholm City Library – Sweden
All tradition is change! reorganization and development while planning for a new city library in Stockholm

This presentation is about what might happen on the journey from vision to reality, from words to action, and the importance of strong ideas as guidelines in everyday work

10.45 - 11.15 Morning tea

11.15 - 11.45 Paper 3 – Community
Antony Chiwaka. The Heritage School. Harare – Zimbabwe
Public library services in the Harare metropolitan area – a case study

Antony is the recipient of the Stuart Brewer Scholarship

This purpose of this paper is to outline library services offered in the greater Harare metropolitan city by two different authorities, the Harare City libraries and City of Harare library networks. Although they share the name Harare, they operate in different areas of the city, with their roles different as outlined in the paper. The paper also highlights their successes and challenges in their quest to offer library facilities to all citizens of the city.

11.45 - 12.15 Paper 4 – Community
Shu-hsien TSENG. Taipei Public Library – Taiwan
Building a Vigorous Metropolitan City Imbued with Happy Reading and Enthusiastic Learning

The aim of presentation is to introduce Taipei Public Library. The presentation will address 5 areas:

1) A bridge across different generations in the community,
2) Knowledge navigation through diverse collections,
3) Comfort, convenience and infinite possibilities,
4) International connections for resource integration,
5) The pursuit of excellence: An unchanging commitment

12.15 - 13.15 Lunch

13.15 - 13.45 Brisbane City Council Library Service – Overview

13.45 - 14.30 Tour of Brisbane Square Library

14.30 - 15.00 Brisbane City Council Library Service – overview of collections

15.00 - 15.30 Afternoon tea

15.30 - 16.15 Discussion on today’s papers

17.30 - 18.00 Gathering on River Decks, State Library of Queensland

18.00 - 19.45 BBQ at kuril dhagun, State Library of Queensland

Download PDF version of the entire program [173 KB]

Last updated: 16 April 2009