My Mother the Tourist

Yep, my mom's here. She's on her third week of a 6-month stay with us; enough time to see me through the last trimester of my pregnancy and childbirth. She's all the help I'm gonna need.

She's enjoying her stay so far although she hasn't seen much of Melbourne yet because since she'd been here, we've been to one birthday party to another every weekend and she's just so thrilled to meet fellow Pinoys. And she can only sigh, "Kainan na naman?". But my husband, who has been a very indulging son-in-law, takes her around the shopping centres and marketplaces whenever he has the time and she's just delighted at the sight of fresh fruits and vegetables. And everytime they go out to buy something, my husband always reminds her to stop converting into peso, otherwise she wouldn't be able to buy anything.

The cool climate and clean fresh air, to her, is a welcome respite from the summer heat of the Philippines. Funny thing was, the first few comments she made on arrival was "Hindi naman pala masaydong malamig dito" (It's not as cold as I expected). We simply laughed at her comment and told her to just wait. And there she was a couple of days later already wearing three layers of clothing and a beanie inside the house. 'LOL'.

On our way home from the airport, her two grandsons didn't lose any time telling their lola to cook their favorite food. And that is what she has been doing for the past three weeks - stuffing us with great food! And we haven't eaten take away food since she's been here. My two boys are just so happy their lola is here, they're just all over her. The three of them even share one bed using the cold weather as an excuse, haha. And of course, the doting lola couldn't be any happier.

My boys have their own plans of where to take their lola: to the Melbourne Zoo, to the Melbourne Aquarium, and to the other animal sanctuaries in Victoria but knowing my sons, she knows its more for them than it is for her.

We've planned a lot of trips for her: come winter to the snowy mountains an hour's drive away from us and in spring to the tulip festival and to the Royal Melbourne Show. But what I'm certainly looking forward to is spending a day with her on my day-off Friday next week.

So, does she miss home? I wouldn't know for sure but if the following conversation is any indication you be the judge. While finishing up with dinner last Sunday, I told her "Tawag tayo sa bahay" (Let's call home), to which she replied, "Wag na, wala naman akong kailangan e" (Don't bother, I don't need anything from them anyway).

National Library and Information Week 2007

From 21-27 May, Australia will be celebrating National Library and Information Week. Activities, events, contests, etc. will be held at the national, state and local levels revolving around the theme linking people with ideas @ your library®.

In our library, the Library Week Committee came up with the following activities, launch, and contest:

• the Biggest Morning Tea on Wednesday, 23 May, in support of the Cancer Council;
• students can Hire-a-Librarian for 30 minutes a day to help them with their assignments;
• students can Stump-a-Librarian by challenging us to answer bizaare, ridiculous or even obscure questions relating to hospitality, tourism and culinary arts. If we get stumped, the student gets a prize;
• Waive-Your-Fines Day for the whole week as long as the fine is less than $5;
• a Daily Spot Prize for students caught in their best behaviour and who wears a smile;
• and the highlight would be the launch of our new website which we all have been working on so hard for the last couple of months.

Prizes include book vouchers and movie tickets among others.

May is also Information Awareness Month and 22 May is National Library Technicians Day.

In Contrast

I had been to and had organized a lot of library-related activities and was resource speaker for a number of them back in the Philippines. And fresh from attending my first conference here in Melbourne, I was pleasantly surprised at the way it was organized and noticed some differences on the way things were done back home.

First was the absence of the registration table. Participants didn't have to sign on attendance sheets for the succeeding days of the conference except for the first day but were required to wear their badges at all times. In the Philippines, attendance is closely monitored and participants are required to sign their names before the start of the morning and afternoon sessions.

Second, there were no meal stubs. The conference badge worn around the neck was enough to be able to partake of the snacks and lunch. In the Philippines, no meal stub, no food. If you happen to lose your meal stub and bring this to the attention of the organizers, you will still be served food but only after officially taking note of it. (Because at the end of the activity, the organizers and the caterer will have to audit one another.) During forums where light snacks are usually part of the registration fee, a receipt has to be shown before food is handed out to the participant. This is a messy bit especially if there are multiple registrants in one receipt and since food distribution is done quickly there were times that food ran short. I've seen this happen a couple of times and it's embarassing for the organizers and the poor participants have to wait while the organizers run to the nearest fast food.

Third, there were social activities for the duration of the conference. There was a cocktail party, a dinner and dance party that lasted late into the night, and closing drinks. In the Philippines, only one night is reserved for socials and it's called "Fellowship Night" usually part of live-in, out-of-town seminars. For 8 to 5, 3-day seminars/conferences, participants can't and won't be bothered with social activities as their primary concern is to get home early and beat the rush hour traffic.

Finally, sessions started and ended on time. Well, I can't say much about the concept of "Filipino time" as applied to seminars and the like except that most of the time they don't start and end on time. I clearly remember this half-day afternoon forum sometime in 2005 where I was a speaker along with another one, a lawyer and author promoting his book. He spoke ahead of me and we were given an hour each but he got carried away with his presentation and ended an hour and a half later. Poor me had to beg the audience to stay a few minutes after 5 pm on a promise that I would make my presentation short but sweet and they were kind enough to oblige.

The stuff I've mentioned about the way Filipino librarians run their activities is really a culture thing and I'm looking forward to the day when they up the ante and break away with tradition.

A taste of an Aussie conference

Entrance to the exhibit hall

I had just attended my first ever conference here in Melbourne, notwithstanding the fact that I went on the last day of the Educause Australasia 2007 Conference held at the Melbourne Convention Centre. For the last day's programme, I was at the fifth plenary session and at the concurrent session on information management. Filipino librarians reading this post might wonder why I just attended the last day instead of the entire conference. Well, our library manager thought it was best to distribute amongst the staff attendance to the sessions that interested us rather than send two staff to attend full time. (This practice of sharing the badge while commonly practiced hereabouts is unusual in Philippine library setting and which merits a separate post.)

The fifth plenary session was on "Leading Beyond the ICT Conundrums for Scholarship 2.0" presented by Dr. Brad Wheeler, CIO of Indiana University. His presentation was as interesting as his visuals but much of it was directed to IT directors, academic policymakers and administrators. His talk was mainly on building an ICT infrastructure geared towards collaboration and the creation of a meta university. Throughout much of his examples taht he cited from his experiences, the library was a prominent figure in the bigger scheme of ICT in the campus.

For the concurrent session on information management, topics discussed were on knowledge management and wikis. Ainslie Dewe, University Librarian and KM Director of the Auckland University of Technology, discussed their university's efforts in coming up with a KM framework. Kate Watson, RUBRIC Coordinator from the University of the Sunshine Coast and Chelsea Harper, Electronic Services Librarian from the Central Queensland University, presented to an SRO crowd the result of their research project into blog and wiki use in Australian libraries citing the RUBRIC Project as a result of that study. Maryam Sarrafzadeh, a PhD student at RMIT and lecturer at the Persian Gulf University, Iran, presented a literature review on her current research on KM for library and information professionals which focused on the barriers that keep librarians from engaging in KM roles. These barriers are:

• the profession's focus on external information sources, as distinct from internal organization's knowledge assets;
• the lack of business knowledge;
• content ignorance;
• an image and name problem;
• personality issues; and
• the relative lack of the required management skills.

She concluded with some suggestions to overcoming these barriers addressed to library educators, practitioners, and researchers.