COLLECTIONS CO-OP MEETING
BELGRAVE LIBRARY Thursday October 18th 2007
Present Lyn Baines (ERL), Terry May (Melton), John Ruddle (Monash), Sandra
Jeffries (West Gippsland), John Radford (Moreland), Siobhan Dennis (Vision Aust),
Dale Cousens (Whitehorse Manningham), Terry Aquino (Hume), Lyn Ferguson
(Geelong), Pat Bow (Kingston), Karen Williamson (Kingston), Vikki Anderson
(Bayside), Kim Kearsey (Frankston), Marnie Weinrich (Yarra), Angela Papas
(Maribyrnong), Michelle Donelly (Maribyrnong), Amanda Birchfield (Hobsons Bay)
Apologies Naomi (West Gippsland), Anita Cataggio (Yarra Plenty), Jane Simpson
(Mornington), Roisin Jacobs (Greater Dandenong), Neville Harley (City of
Melbourne), Jenny Ackroyd (Darebin), Melanie McCarten (SLV), Brandt McCook
(Port Phillip), Jenny Ferguson (Casey Cardinia), Pru Menzies (Casey Cardinia), Judy
Bell (Moonee Valley), Michelle Bence (Stonnington), Susan Hall (Geelong).
Dale welcomed some new faces and we introduced ourselves.
ACTION FROM LAST MEETING
Dale has set up a wiki as discussed at the last meeting. It’s quite basic as yet, but does
include information from last meeting’s discussion of graphic novels. Tables have
been set up for us to enter information on our graphic novel collections. We will have
the ability to edit but please don’t edit anyone else’s material. The wiki is at
https://Collectionscoop.pbwiki.com
The password is dewey.
If you’re attempting Library 2.0 you might want to wait until the wiki week and get
some background information on wikis and how they work before taking a look. We
would like to think about how we can use the wiki as a space for the gathering and
exchange of information. It could be more useful than email as all the information
would be in one easily accessible place.
VICLINK
Dale went to the 3 day planning session for Statewide Projects at Lancemore Hill. The
facilitators were excellent and the workshop was very productive. All the ideas
canvassed were dealt with in some way. There were lots of ideas for funding. Some
ideas needed further development. Some ideas were not appropriate for the Statewide
Projects funding.
Six projects will be taken to the Library Board for SLV funding
 Collaborative Procurement Model as recommended by Whitehorse Consulting
 Developing Professional Leadership
 The Best That We Can Be – a business excellence style project to define the
value of libraries to their communities.
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Travelling exhibitions
Digitising regional newspapers
Building knowledge for Library Advocacy.
All of the original 27 projects discussed were included in the projects outlined above
or sent on to SLV for further development.
Dale will be on the working group to write the brief for the Collaborative Purchasing
Project.
Terry (Melton) asked what conclusions this group had reached at the last meeting
about the Collaborative Purchasing Project.
Dale said we had felt the model recommended by the consultants was the best. The
shape of the project will depend on the proposal approved by the Library Board. See
Melanie’s comments below.
Terry (Melton) asked what the benefits would be for libraries already receiving
satisfactory discounts from suppliers.
Dale said that the financial benefits could still be substantial for smaller library
services not receiving the discounts which larger libraries could command. The main
benefit could be less tangible, in better service delivery for suppliers if they’re
ordering larger amounts.
John (Monash) asked about the potential for savings for LOTE cataloguing.
This had been discussed at the Multicultural meeting and it was felt that more needed
to be done sourcing suppliers of emerging languages. Dale will keep us updated on
any developments.
John (Monash) asked if money committed to the project will count as tendered funds.
Don’t know but if it goes ahead tenders would be called in accordance with the
relevant legislation.
Terry (Hume) asked about the timeframe for the project.
Project proposal is being written in Nov. The Advisory Committee on Public
Libraries (ACPL) will meet in November and look at the project briefs. These will
then go to Viclink in December. The completed brief will go to ACPL in February
then to the Library Board in March for 2008/9.
GULLIVER
Gulliver will continue. Three year contract has just been signed.
The Gulliver Forum will take place on January 31st & February 1st 2008.
The Forum will be on the Training calendar in early November.
Although a three year contract has been signed and the core product doesn’t change,
it’s still useful to see any new products. BRUCE is annual, so the Forum provides an
opportunity to see their new product.
Alan Brough (Spicks & Specks) will present the awards at the Forum.
COLLECTION MANAGEMENT FOR ALL WORKSHOP
This workshop (a repeat of the one held at Hume in March) will be held at
Cranbourne on Thursday November 15th. Dale will put the details on the Training
Calendar very soon.
LIBRARY LINK
The user group met on October 17th. Refined profiles and rotas were worked out and
the wording on the search screens has been clarified. It was emphasized that patrons
need to login to access the Gulliver databases. This also helps with statistics.
SLV Update
Collaborative Procurement
Whitehorse Strategic Group have submitted their final version of both reports to the
State Library of Victoria and the Workgroup which has been distributed to Library
Service Managers/CEOs.
The reports just need to be copy edited and printed; they will then be distributed in
hard copy to all Library Service Managers/CEOs and a soft copy will be put onto the
Infonet for others to print. We would expect to do that over the next few weeks.
Joseph Cullen (CEO of Eastern Regional Libraries) is very keen to get a group
together to start looking into collaborative procurement.
A project proposal was put forward to the Victorian Public Libraries and State Library
Planning Retreat to ask for the start-up to be included as a Statewide Public Library
Development Project in the next triennium (July 2008-June 2011). The proposal got
through the first gateways and a project charter is being drafted to develop the concept
further in time for the next round of decision making. There is no guarantee it will
pass the next gateways but it is still in the mix at this stage.
This timing feeds nicely with the work being done around Collection Standards and
specifically, Shelf-ready Specifications which we are aiming to finalise by June 2008.
Please note: if the project proposal doesn't make it through the SPLDP process, that
doesn't mean it is 'dead'. It just means alternative funding needs to be sought for the
set-up phase - this could be covered by interested libraries or potentially by the Dept
for Planning & Community Development (Local Government Victoria - Colin
Morrison/Dan Harper's area).
Collection Standards and Shelf-ready Specifications
As you know, we distributed a Request for Proposal for this project. However
following discussions with the Workgroup about our options, we have decided to
approach these projects in a different way.
An Open Workshop will be held near the end of November 2007 to kick off
discussions with interested stakeholders in both topics (Standards and Shelf-ready
Specifications).We are working to secure a date and location at the moment so keep
your eyes peeled for information about this session.
Following on from the Open Workshop, two committees will be formed with
representatives from the key stakeholder groups with an independent chair.The
purpose of these two committees will be to develop draft Standards and draft
Specifications through a structured meeting process, distribute and call for comment
from all interested stakeholders and then review and confirm the final documents to
then be 'ratified' by Viclink and with the Specifications in particular, by the libraries
interested in Collaborative Procurement.
Memory Victoria
The Conservation Assessment and Reports phase of Memory Victoria is currently in
the kick-off stage. Conservation Assessments will assess a variety of factors affecting
the storage and condition of local history collections held by Victorian public
libraries.
An email has been sent to the key contacts and Library Service Managers of eligible
library services/branches* alerting them to this. The Memory Victoria Workgroup
have appointed The Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation (The University of
Melbourne) to conduct the Conservation Assessments and Reports phase of this
program. Jude Fraser and her team will be in contact with the eligible branches very
soon to begin scheduling visits.
*Eligible branches are those that nominated themselves in 2005 for the whole
program and would have participated in the Significance Assessments and Reports
and the Conservation Workshops. If you have any questions, please contact Beata
Wacek on 8664 7046 or via email on bwacek@slv.vic.gov.au (Beata will be back in
the office on Monday 22 October 2007).
STANDARDS & SHELF READY SPECIFICATIONS WORKING GROUP
NZ & NSW librarians have produced standards in these areas so it was decided that
was unproductive to reinvent the wheel and produce new Victorian standards. A
workshop will look at these documents and brainstorm ideas. A panel will then
recommend a standards model. The proposed forum of the workshop is an
Unconference where the agenda is made up on the day by the participants. A date at
the end of November has been proposed. More details to follow.
OTHER BUSINESS
Kim (Frankston) is considering separating the Biography collection from the Non
Fiction and wanted to know what other libraries did. The consensus was that
separating Biographies works very well as patrons who read Biographies enjoy
browsing all subject areas. Libraries who did not separate them had an identifying
sticker on the spine which was helpful in identifying them for staff and patrons. Some
libraries use the 920 Dewey no which puts all the Biographies in the same place.
Dale will add pages to the wiki about Biographies and DVDs so that we can
contribute to the ongoing discussion about methods of shelving and security.
Michelle (Maribyrnong) asked whether the ILL group had reached a consensus on
loan periods for A/V. As there are no written rules, only guidelines, each library is
free to decide its own loan period for A/V.
Pat (Kingston) wanted to discuss dismantling Reference collections. Everyone agreed
that while we are all heavily weeding our Reference collections, removing them
completely was not an option. Not everything is available in online resources or on
the internet, and there are still patrons who are not comfortable with online resources
and prefer books. A core collection may be suitable for small branches but most large
libraries still need more extensive Reference collections.
John (Monash) asked whether anyone was using Unicode (Greek & Chinese
characters) so patrons can search in their own language.
Maribyrnong & Kingston have, but have had problems with Unicode characters not
printing out on transaction slips.
Sinead (Vision Aust) talked about the problems with sourcing LOTE audio. Proposals
are underway to look at sharing resources with overseas libraries. She also mentioned
new DAISY technology which seem to be about to take over from MP3. DAISY is a
sophisticated audio technology which allows the user to search within an audiobook
to find a particular poem, for example. Large amounts of text can be stored on a single
disc.
A reminder that Bolinda will be at our December meeting to demonstrate their new
audio download product.
Learning 2.0. Experiences ranging from frustration to exhilaration were shared. The
importance of mentors was stressed. Even just knowing what a blog or a wiki is a
successful outcome, and will help us have a greater understanding when our patrons
ask us about this new technology.
Library Elf was discussed. Terry (Hume) was concerned about the security aspects of
our patrons sharing their information with a third party. The meeting felt that if we
inform patrons of the service we tell them that they will be sharing their information
with a third party and they could sign up at their own risk.
The next meeting will be at Moonee Valley on Thursday December 6th at 10am.
More details about the meeting and Christmas lunch to come.