22 May 2020,

A message from the ALIA Board

Next week is Library and Information Week and whatever is happening in your workplace or at home (if you are still in lockdown), we hope you will manage to take some time out to celebrate with us. The theme this year is ‘Create’ and it has some relevance to the situation in which we have all found ourselves.

We have had to create new ways of delivering services to our library users, new ways of connecting with colleagues and new ways of sharing information. We have had to pull on our inner strength to create a new way of living, studying and working in a vastly reduced footprint. We have had to support students, families, researchers and other library users as they create their own ‘new normal’, given the necessary constraints on movement and activities.

However the theme resonates with you, we hope you will use next week as positive reinforcement of the way we are all finding a way through COVID-19.

ALIA’s National Simultaneous Storytime is a major event within Library and Information Week and we are delighted to confirm that the number of registered participants has passed the one million mark, for a fully online reading. We are grateful to our partners, Scholastic, LIANZA, Australia Post, StoryBox Library, author Lucinda Gifford and our VIP readers, who are helping us to make this an unmissable event.

Of course, it’s not all positive news. With libraries reopening there are concerns about data privacy and we have added this guidance to our website. We are also monitoring the situation in university libraries, where the impact of fewer international students is being keenly felt. There are many other issues for our personal and institutional members. If we can help in any way, please contact us through ALIABoard@alia.org.au.

Viv Barton, ALIA President, and Vicki Edmunds, ALIA Vice-President