Looking for some lunchtime professional development this month?
Join ALIA for their upcoming panel discussion about AI, media and information literacy in libraries. The talk will cover definitions, applications, tools and authorship/copyright and the role of libraries across these areas.
Panelists include Jing Su; a doctoral student at the News and Media Research Centre, University of Canberra, with an interest in family digital technology use, HumanIoT interactions and everyday algorithms, Fiona Bradley; Director, Research and Infrastructure (Library) at UNSW Sydney, who is completing a PhD publishing on implications of AI for libraries, and Dr Kay Oddone, Lecturer and Course Director of the Master of Education: Teacher Librarianship, who has completed research in networked and connected learning, digital and critical literacies and teacher librarianship.
This event is held being held in conjunction with the Australian Media Literacy Alliance (AMLA) and National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA).
ALIA Library Applied Research Kollective (LARK) presented its final event for 2022 earlier this month; Reflections on Research Practice! The webinar hosted guest speakers who reflected on their research practice and approaches. The event was well-attended and discussed varied experiences with LIS research, with a broad focus on research processes and value.
Adrian Stagg, Manager (Open Educational Practice), University of Southern Queensland, Content Team – Library Services, spoke about privileging humanity through his research and situating practice in context.
Rowena McGregor, Liaison Librarian, University of Southern Queensland, Library Services, discussed the practice of integrating library staff into research, as reflective practitioners.
Rebecca Muir, Doctoral Candidate at Charles Sturt University, reflected on the value of research skills and the importance of such research for advocacy within the library sector.
ALIA Multicultural celebrated the launch of their group with their Come to the table Webinar.
Joseph Lo Bianco AM, Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, was a guest speaker.
ALIA President Vicki Edmuns shared that her presidential theme was diversity and that multiculturalism brings multicultural communities brings richness to our local libraries.
ALIA CEO Cathie Warburton shared that libraries play a role in supporting international students with multilingual resources.
Professor Joseph Lo Bianco emphasized the importance; that libraries have in promoting multiculturalism in their collections.
A few points from the chat:
Translation apps and software provide a general idea of the language but make mistakes.
London has the most multicultural languages in Europe.
193 United Nations States are multicultural.
There are 7,097 languages spoken across the world.
There are 2,464 endangered languages. 70% extinct in Australia, Canada and the United States of America compared to 10% in Sub-Saharan Africa.
40% of the world has no access to education in languages.
Young people in Australia spend less time learning languages than in other countries. Compared to first languages taught in Denmark and South Korea at 6%, Spain at 4% and Poland at 1%.
Professor Lo Bianco raised his concerns about schools not spending more time teaching languages.
You can catch up on the ALIA Multicultural conversation by following their #ALIAMulticultural hashtag and @MulticultuALIA Twitter account. Or follow ALIA Multicultural via
On November 17th ALIA Disability had their Disability and Inclusion Professionals Webinar. The forth ALIA Disability Webinar for 2022 that started with Training for library staff in May.
Panel guests included Caren Burns, Kerrianne Roberston, Lilly Sanchez, James Nicholson, ALIA CEO Vicki Edmunds and ALIA QLD State Manager Stephen Harris.
What can we learn from disability and inclusion officers?
How can we better support staff living with disability?
Caren Burns and Kerrianne Robertson spoke about their experiences living with a disability, studying and working with a disability.
Caren’s advice for library inclusion:
Libraries need to include Alt-text for all images on their websites and social media. As this makes library content accessible for people using screen readers.
Do not assume that all electronic formats online are accessible – some formats are not accessible for screen readers.
Libraries need to have have good lighting to be inclusive of people living with vision and hearing disabilities.
Libraries should have continued disability awareness training for new and current staff that discusses changes in trends and technology.
Lilly Sanchez shared her experience working with staff with different disabilities.
James Nicholson from Morton Bay Regional Libraries shared what Disability and Inclusion Programming available at MBRL.
James chatted about IDAHOBIT (International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia) and Next Chapter Book Club and SENSEational Play, All Abilities Playground Story Times.
Be authentic
Build trust in the community
Have fun
Stephen Harris, ALIA State Manager for Queensland from Bundaburg Libraries for inclusive volunteering and considering employing people with disabilities.
Stephen’s advice for employing people with disabilities is to craft the roles to the interest of the person.
Explore the ALIA Disability link below for the Disability and Inclusion Webinar.
ALIA Students and New Graduates Group 