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VALA has had yet another busy and successful year in 2010/11.

During the year, our general meetings have continued to provide stimulating speakers on a wide range of topics (often followed by an enjoyable social event for those able to join speaker and Committee at dinner). The VALA Award, a Travel Scholarship and the VALA Student Awards were announced in November.


Prior to beginning work on the sixteenth biennial conference, VALA reviewed its professional conference organisers, seeking expressions of interest from several relevant companies. The outcome of this review was that Waldron Smith Management was again appointed VALA's conference organiser.


Planning for the conference is now well under way, and the Main Announcement and Registration brochure for VALA2012 will appear by September. Special thanks to the members of Programme and Conference Committees for their hard work on this. The last of the keynote speakers are now being finalised, and there was again a gratifyingly high response to the call for abstracts. VALA2012 will again be held in the new Convention Centre. Following the success of the Exhibition at VALA2010, the number of booths being offered has increased, and more than 60 have already been sold.

Work has also continued on the development of a draft strategic document.

General Meetings

As always, the Association is grateful to the speakers who give of their time and expertise for our general meetings, and also to the University of Melbourne for continuing to provide the venue for most of our meetings.

June 2010 Metrics – meaningful or make-work? Anne Beaumont, State Library of Victoria
August 2010 m-libs QR codes Kat Clancy, Deakin University, Craig Anderson and Rowan Mangan, RMIT University Library
October 2010 There's an App for That! Bart Rutherford and Stuart Bush, Wesley College
November 2010 RFID in the library: Work flows, efficiencies, and the Internet of Things Panel, facilitated by Alan Butters, Sybiz
April 2011


 Libraries After the iPad and Top Technology Trends Christine Mackenzie, Yarra Plenty Regional Library, and John Blyberg, Darien Library, Connecticut
May 2011 Mapping the past: how new technologies are changing the way we view historical records Asa Letourneau and Daniel Wilksch, Public Record Office of Victoria

Awards

  1. The VALA Award was presented to Willoughby City Library, for iBIMs - The Digital Link @ Willoughby City Library.
  2. A Travel Scholarship was awarded to Tristan Badham, from RMIT University Library. Tristan travelled to the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States in order to investigate the use, implementation, maintenance, and various possibilities for expanding the use of QR codes in libraries. A paper reporting on his investigations will be presented at the 2012 VALA Conference next February.
  3. VALA Student Awards were presented to Carrie Thomas, who was a student at RMIT University, and to Debra Dorfan, from Monash University.
  4. The Robert D. Williamson Award is only given in Conference years, and nominations for this award are to be sought shortly.

Committee

The 2010/11 committee has been:

Kim Tairi Swinburne University Library President
Lian Todd Sage Vice-President
Jeremy Taylor St Vincent’s Hospital Secretary
Julie Gardner Parliament of Victoria Treasurer
David Feighan

Lynette Lewis Zenith Information Management Services
Alison Morin eLibrary (from November 2008)
Bart Rutherford Wesley College Library

I would like to thank my colleagues on the VALA Committee as well as the Programme Committee members for all their hard work and assistance. I would also like to thank Alyson Kosina and Petra Sorensen, from CSE Systems Pty Ltd, and the team from WaldronSmith Management, for their support during the year.

Kim Tairi
22 June 2011