STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA - PUBLIC LIBRARY UNIT
VICLINK REPORT - February 2005
Prepared by
Brendan Fitzgerald (Co-ordinator VICNET projects)
Debra Rosenfeldt (Manager Public Libraries Unit)
Frances Savage (Online Projects Coordinator)
Andrew Cunningham (e-diversity officer)
Nicole Lowndes (Project Officer)
Wendy Quihampton (Project Officer)
Beata Wacek (Events and Business Officer)
Key things to note
§ $10,000 was raised for donation to the Red Cross for the Tsunami Appeal by the giant sale of discarded public libraries bookstock held on the SLV Forecourt on 10 February.
§ The Libraries Building Communities Research Reports will be launched by Minister for Local Government, Candy Broad MP, at Footscray Library on the morning on Wednesday 9 March – please put the date in your diaries!
§ The Statewide Marketing Project launched its publication, Public Libraries Image Handbook by Kevin Hennah, at the @yourlibrary Champions workshop on 18 February - a copy of this publication is being sent to every branch library in the State Library of Victoria
§ The Statewide Training Project is hosting five days of training for 340 public libraries staff in web-searching by renowned American trainer Mary Ellen Bates, starting 21 February
§ Elisabeth Jackson replaces Barb Horn as the second Viclink representative on the Advisory Committee on Public Libraries
§ Conference Papers presented by Brendan Fitzgerald, Frances Savage and Andrew Cunningham at the Information Online Conference in Sydney
State Library of Victoria – update
State Librarian’s visits to public libraries
Anne-Marie maintained her program of visits to public libraries visiting the Mildura, Gannawarra and Swan Hill services during January and West Gippsland and Brimbank during February.
Advisory Committee on Public Libraries
The ACPL is next scheduled to meet on 11 March at the University of Ballarat. Elisabeth Jackson has replaced Barb Horn as the second Viclink representative on the ACPL. The key Agenda item will be confirming the Statewide Public Library Development Projects for the three year cycle 2005/08 that will be recommended to the April meeting of the Library Board of Victoria. Proposals are being developed with public libraries/State Library working groups in the following three areas:
§ Enhancing collections and access, particularly through digitisation (this proposal includes a Travelling Library Program and the Courier Service)
§ Promoting and developing the community building role of public libraries
§ Sustainability and leadership of the public library workforce (this proposal includes the revised Staffing for the Future proposal, seed-funding of the new stand-alone Statewide Training Project, the proposals for the Ramsay/Reid Scholarships, the Pierre Gorman Award and places in the Aurora Leadership Institute, or other leadership programs)
The Public Libraries Unit is managing development of the proposals. Each proposal is also ‘sponsored’ by a member of the ACPL: Greg Hywood – Collections and Access; Anne-Marie Schwirtlich and Rod Fyffe – Libraries Building Communities; Vicki Williamson – Public Library Workforce.
PUBLIC LIBRARIES UNIT- CURRENT ACTIVITIES PROGRESS REPORT
Statewide Public Library Development Projects 2004/2005 –
Statewide Training Project
The First Impressions strategy, a collaborative effort between the Statewide Training Project and the Statewide Marketing Project, commenced late last year with three pilot sessions, attended by six public library services. During February, March and April 2005 all other participating library services will receive their First Impressions training package. Between 21 and 25 February 340 public libraries staff will attend training with renowned American web-searcher Mary Ellen Bates.
The Viclink meeting of 22 February will discuss the recommendations from the I&J Management review of the Statewide Training Project for a for a stand-alone model for Statewide Training.
Statewide Marketing Project
Following the outstandingly successful Treasures @yourlibrary campaign in November, the second Holiday Fun @yourlibrary campaign ran during January 2005, receiving tremendous support with colour advertisements throughout the month in all Leader newspapers. Work is currently underway on developing new campaign material for two entirely new themes: Read @yourlibrary (March) and Connect @your library (May).
A half-day workshop for the @yourlibrary Champions was held at the State Library on 18 February during which the new Public Libraries Image Handbook by Kevin Hennah was launched. This handbook is an extension of the work done by Kevin in providing in-house training to every public library service through the Statewide Training Program. The Statewide Marketing Project continued to work with the Training Project on developing support materials for the First Impressions training that will roll-out over February-April.
The Statewide Marketing Project Advisory Committee, and other interested public libraries staff, have met to discuss a proposal to continue some of the work of the Statewide Marketing Project on a collaborative basis following cessation of funding from the SPLDP at the end of June. A formal proposal will be presented to the Viclink meeting on 22 February.
Libraries Building Communities Project
Following the complex and careful editorial and design process, the Libraries Building Communities reports are finally with the printer and will be ready for the launch by Candy Broad at Footscray Library on Wednesday 9 March. 500 copies of the full set of reports and an additional 500 copies of the Executive Summary will be printed. The reports will also be available online. On 17 February Elisabeth Jackson gave a presentation on the LBC project to the LGPro conference and on 5 April Debra Rosenfeldt will give a presentation at the Queensland Public Libraries Association Conference. Interstate interest in the project is strong, with SLNSW requesting to purchase one copy of the full set of reports for each of NSW’s 100 public library services.
Writers on the Road
December, January and February are quiet months for Writers on the Road. However, between March and the end of June eight adult and thirteen youth tours are planned. The program is ending on a terrific note with some very high profile writers involved in the last rounds of touring, including Peter Corris (going to West Gippsland), George Negus (going to Geelong and Corangamite) and Wendy Harmer (going to Campaspe).
Local History Digitisation Project (PictureVictoria)
Public library services have been surveyed to ascertain both the level of interest by each service in participating in the PictureVictoria project and their support needs. Assistance has been offered to sixteen public library services in all, comprising financial assistance to seven, assistance in data conversion to nine public library services, and in-house training to six (in process of scheduling) with two additional training sessions for all interested public libraries staff have also been scheduled for March. The data conversion program should commence shortly.
Statewide Network Infrastructure Project (SNIP)
Current priority is the network links from this year’s budget and ensuring that last years are finished off. In addition we are finalising the completion of the rollout of the printers to those metropolitan libraries that elected to “buy in “ to the project. In addition we have begun exploring the NILS LIBTEL option as per the advice from the ACPL. Discussions were held with West Gippsland in late December to explore possibilities.
MyLanguage Portal www.mylanguage.gov.au
MyLanguage is an electronic, multicultural library service currently in development to enhance access to online information resources for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) individuals and community groups. MyLanguage will utilise existing multilingual data content including local, state and Commonwealth Government translated resources. Work is nearly complete on the MyLanguage Portal specification. Work on implementing has commenced in January 2005. Launch date yet to be confirmed. This is a collaborative initiative between the State Libraries of NSW, Vic, Queensland, SA, WA and the libraries of the Australian Capital and Northern Territories.
TRAINING, CONFERENCES, SEMINARS AND VISITS TO PUBLIC LIBRARIES
Members of PLU have undertaken the following activities since the December Viclink meeting:
Brendan – Presented conference paper, VICNET: 10 Years Online., with Darren Ryan from YMRLC at the Information Online Conference in Sydney.
Andrew Cunningham - Presented papers at the Information Online Conference in Sydney, Towards a Multilingual Content Infrastructure and the FECCA Transformations 2005 conference in Canberra, Utilizing technology for new and emerging language groups.
Frances Savage - Presented conference paper, Victorian Rural Libraries Online, at the Information Online Conference in Sydney
Additional Statistics relating to Victoria’s Virtual Library
Table 1 – Hits on Victoria’s Virtual Library since launch– Raw Data
Month / 2000 / 2001 / 2002 / 2003 / 2004 / 2005 / TotalJanuary / 143,601 / 192,285 / 768,164 / 525,843 / 641,763
February / 170,014 / 203,634 / 836,926 / 587,523
March / 198,500 / 245,347 / 1,083,752 / 801,402
April / 178,375 / 261,650 / 923,944 / 669,771
May / 205,086 / 263,412 / 1,186,002 / 818,377
June / 62,851 / 176,641 / 200,431 / 876,328 / 711,667
July / 80,570 / 198,481 / 243,931 / 1,019,282 / 854,526
August / 102,944 / 230,480 / 270,577 / 692,953 / 840,851
September / 137,633 / 204,060 / 241,195 / 545,065 / 707,275
October / 113,655 / 203,489 / 248,609 / 553,476 / 707,212
November / 130,024 / 192,009 / 238,883 / 501,718 / 699,457
December / 101,438 / 156,593 / 369,095 / 401,341 / 536856
Total / 729,115 / 2,259,330 / 2,979,049 / 9,388,951 / 8,460,760 / 641,763 / 24,458,968
Table 2 – User Sessions (Visits) on VVL since September 2001 – Monthly Usage
Month / 2001 / 2002 / 2003 / 2004 / 2005January / 7,952 / 11,195 / 11,170 / 17,548
February / 8,501 / 11,211 / 11,760
March / 9,572 / 13,241 / 16,004
April / 10,036 / 12,241 / 13,540
May / 10,646 / 14,678 / 16,271
June / 8,505 / 12,253 / 15,573
July / 9,861 / 12,253 / 16,507
August / 11,078 / 12,724 / 18,658
September / 7,637 / 10,079 / 12,805 / 15,691
October / 7,336 / 10,281 / 12,896 / 18,029
November / 7,732 / 9,718 / 11,668 / 17,522
December / 6,795 / 8,521 / 9,829 / 15987
Total / 29,500 / 114,750 / 146,994 / 186,712 / 17,548 / 495,504
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