New South Wales – Meet & Greet

Aloha! NSW ALIA SNGG will be holding a Meet and Greet.

If you are currently studying or have been in libraries for awhile this may be the perfect event to come and make new friends and develop new contacts.

It is also an excellent opportunity to meet our new ALIA Students and New Graduates Group (NSW) Coordinators: Michelle Feely, Angela Bagaric and Michelle Stuart.

When: Saturday 4th March at 3 pm.
Where: Coco Cubano Macarthur Square, Campbelltown.
RSVP to alia.sngg.nsw@gmail.com

Hope to see you there!

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New South Wales – Meet the Locals

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With ALIA Information Conference starting soon in Sydney, ALIA Sydney and along with NSW ALIA SNGG will be hosting a preconference get-together.

Meet the Locals: Come and meet library professionals and develop new contacts.

You are all cordially invited to attend, non-conference attendees are most welcome!

When: Monday 13th February.
Where: Verge Bar, Arthouse Hotel The Galeries 275 Pitt Street, Sydney.
No need to RSVP (free event)

Sydney – Speak Up! Presenting at Conferences for the First Time

The NLS8 Team are joining forces with ALIA Sydney this August for a very special event!

Thinking about preparing something to present at a conference but not quite sure how to do it? Have you presented before but need to brush up your skills? This night is for you.

Hear from the NLS8 Team about how to submit a proposal for NLS8 in Canberra next year, and join us for a panel discussion with local librarians who have taken the plunge and presented at conferences in the past.  Ask them your questions, pick up some tips, and gather your courage!

The Deets

This is an ALIA Sydney and ALIA NLS8 joint event.

Entry is FREE, but reservations are appreciated.

Held at CQU, 400 Kent St, Sydney (very close to Town Hall station)

6.15pm for a 6.30pm start (until approx 8pm), Tuesday 9th August.

RSVP & enquiries to aliasydneygroup@gmail.com

(Did we mention that it’s free?)

Learn more about ALIA Sydney at aliasydney.blogspot.com and follow them on Twitter at @ALIASyd

ALIA New Grads Sunday Funday 3rd of May 2015 – NSW

There’s nothing more fun on a Sunday than… a library!

The State Library of NSW is running an exhibition called “Pulp Confidential: Quick & dirty publishing from the 40s & 50s“.

Meet fellow new grads and students as we tour the saucy-sounding exhibition, then join us for a self-catered picnic in the nearby Botanic Gardens, weather permitting.

Time: 10am

Place: Macquarie Street Sydney; meet at the glass revolving doors

Cost: Cheap! Free entry to the exhibition, BYO picnic and train fares are $2.50 on Sundays.

No need to RSVP, just feel free to join us on the day. We will wave an ALIA sign of some description!

Hope to see you there!

NSW Co-ordinators Melissa & Melissa (yes, really).

Reflections on the State

Today was the last day of my three week student placement at The State Library of NSW. My heart is a little heavy because I know that three weeks is not nearly enough to absorb all that is contained within their vast collection. I left knowing it holds so much of this nation’s history, much of which will only be revealed in generations to come. There is comfort in knowing however, that a lifetime is not enough to learn everything within those walls – physically, and digitally – although some of the staff have certainly made a fine go at it.

In my three weeks I discovered the great wealth of information at your fingertips with a State Library membership card. I learned that anyone with identification of some kind can access this knowledge. I gleaned, most importantly, that anyone with or without a membership card can ask a question of the librarians who staff this great space and they will do their best to answer. In fact, if they can’t answer, it will frustrate them to no end.

I am looking for information on Cedar trees, do they taint water if they are planted near water tanks?

I’d like to find out more about my family. My great-great-grandfather was Chinese gold miner, can you help?

I am trying to ascertain the number of public and private hospitals in NSW, as well as their locations and size during the years 1914-1939, please help?

I was wondering if you can tell me – how old is the universe?

Question after question. If you are passionate about learning something new every day, then the library is the place for you.

I will probably not be alive when the thousands of tweets made during the Sydney Siege and stored in a digital repository are looked at as a snapshot in time, a glimpse into a world of fear and hate, but also solidarity without question and great hope and heart. Perhaps you do not realise there is someone collecting your content, someone who will not judge today, but who will keep it for those in the future to do so.

I hope I will be alive when the millions of pictures, sketches, diaries, manuscripts and other assorted ephemera contained within the stacks of the library are digitised and made accessible to the world, as so many already have been.

I hope I will be alive to see libraries revived, reimagined, revealed as the great repositories of information they are. After all, if content is king in this digital age, why don’t libraries rule?

Knowledge and learning is the antithesis to extremism, because the more you know, the more you come to realise you know so little. There is arrogance in extremism, there is humility in the acceptance of ignorance. It is not bliss, but there is a certain peace to it.

Libraries are certainly a reflection of this. They do not have the answer to everything, they just hope to be able to collect those things that may give us the capacity to interrogate the past and explore the potential of the future. To make information accessible to all, however old, from whichever land you come, no matter your story, or your past. To learn and discover. To educate, not to eradicate. As humans, we are unique in our desire to understand why we are here. As librarians, we are intent on giving you the means to find out. Embracing the technology and innovation that makes this knowledge more accessible to everyone is just one part of the story.

If only you knew. If only you knew what went on behind those doors. But that’s the thing, you can know. It’s a simple as walking through them.

By Amanda Gitzel

Amanda Gitzel is a Publicity Officer at Parramatta City Library, and is in her final semester of a Postgraduate Diploma in Information and Library Services from Curtin University. 
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