Item 3.1

On 10-11 July I chaired the July General Council meeting. As well, on 10 July we held the ALIA Annual General Meeting which I also chaired at ALIA House. That evening General Council was invited to join the ACT Branch at their Winter Dinner held at the Kurrajong Hotel. It is during this evening that the Branch makes a number of presentations to students and recognises ACT members. I was very pleased to present a Merit Award to Roxanne Missingham.

On 30 August I headed to Copenhagen and IFLA for the week leaving Perth at the same time Lady Di met her demise in the ill-fated car ride. Immediately upon arrival with missing baggage I headed out to the conference centre to find Alex Byrne who expertly escorted me around the exhibition and introduced me to many of his colleagues. It was not until we were wandering along the canal around Nyhavn that evening looking for a place to eat that I heard a chirpy Aussie 'Kerry - over here' and I found Virginia. The conference was a most rewarding experience and I would recommend that ALIA consider sending its president to future IFLAs. As many of you are members of the IFLA List you have probably caught up with the official reports on it. I mentioned in a recent Frontline that amongst the highlights for me were the two plenary speakers who gave outstanding though quite different presentations on their field of expert knowledge; the variety in international delegates many of whom had been assisted by the Danish government Danida grants; the way in which the conference programme focussed on and for the most part addressed today's library issues. Of course there was much more and I think between us Virginia and I have covered most events in the reporting we have done thus far. I look forward to attending future IFLAs under my own steam.

The next cultural experience for me was as she who wears many hats attending the New Norcia Library Lecture in WA on 18 September where Dr Andrew Theophanous gave a passionate address on multiculturalism. While I primarily attended as Head of Department at Curtin, my ALIA President's hat came out for a dusting when I participated in the closing panel session at the conclusion of the day.

The ALIA National Local Studies conference held in South Perth followed on the 20th and 21st September where I chaired the closing session of that conference. This was a lot of fun though I am now obliged to remember the serious parts because I have been asked to write the session for their proceedings! I also attended a literary breakfast on the morning of 21 September where local WA Author Tom Hungerford delivered the most delightful ramble around the South Perth area.

25 September saw me in Melbourne for the first of the ALIA/ACLIS Leadership Committee meetings, the next of which is to be on 28 October in Canberra. The first meeting was held in the new Board Room of the State Library of Victoria and was quite a happy and enthusiastic meeting. Derek Whitehead, president of ACLIS, and I signed the Memorandum of Understanding at the commencement of the meeting.

It was over to Canberra from 7-10 October for the Education Forum and the Board of Education meeting. The Education Forum was quite well attended and many of the educators took advantage of their gathering to hold their own meeting after the two-day forum. I headed down to Hobart on that day (the Thursday) and met with a lively bunch of Tasmanian members over lunch. I made it back to Canberra in time for the Board of Education dinner that night to farewell Margaret Findlay who had been on the Board for a number of years. I also joined Virginia for a meeting with Cliff Law for preliminary discussions on The Australian Libraries Network - a grant project to be run by the NLA.

Back in Perth and 12 October saw me opening the 7th National Specials, Health and Law Librarians' Conference, On the edge. It was my initial intention to head to New Zealand towards the end of that week for their national conference, but fortunately common sense got the better of me and our immediate past president Helen Tait, who was already to be in attendance, was able to undertake most of the official duties (and there weren't many) on behalf of the Association. As it was, I was kept fairly busy at the Specials Conference as parliamentarian for their AGM, chairing a session and somewhere in the midst of it I gave a paper on one-person libraries. I attended the OPALS birthday party during the week where their sponsors, Globe, presented each current and new member with one year's membership to OPALS, along with some rich mud cake and champagne.

On the horizon is the PubRaiss conference in Brisbane during the week of 10 November and during this visit I shall be chairing a session and also closing the conference. As well, the Queensland Branch have asked me to meet with them. The Western Australian public librarians have organised a library tour trip on the last two days of the week and I shall be a member of that.

The following week I head to Melbourne to meet with the Victorian Branch then up to Canberra for General Council. The last trip (at the moment) is a trip to Sydney for the NSW Branch Christmas gathering on 16 December.

My frequent-flyer point count is being run down and my marking is piling up. But we shall manage. And who said the non-conference year would be a quiet one? It has certainly been a most enjoyable and rewarding one for me.

Any issues which have come from these visits have either been dealt with during the normal course of my liaison with ALIA National Office and other members, or have been raised elsewhere in these papers.