Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Celebrating Gillian Currie’s 3 decades at the NGA Research Library





Celebrating Gillian Currie’s 3 decades at the NGA Research Library

After working at the National Gallery of Australia’s Research Library for well over 3 decades, Gillian Currie (Acquisitions Librarian) retired on 11 March 2015 to enjoy some much-deserved relaxation (and some library volunteering!).  J. Margaret Shaw, former Chief Librarian from 1978 - 2004, reflects on Gillian’s time at the Gallery.
In February 1979 a newly qualified and very young Gillian Currie joined a small team located in a warehouse at Fyshwick.  In Gillian’s words we were
“…in the round spaceship building in Fyshwick that had as its neighbours various sex shops and other salubrious businesses.  For a 22 year old straight out of library school it was quite an experience”. 
The task facing this group was to create a research library for the National Gallery of Australia, then known as the Australian National Gallery.    Initially and officially, Gillian’s appointment was as a cataloguer/reference librarian but of course in the early days, no-one was strictly limited to their defined duties whether in the Research Library or beyond.  Panic stations could cover anything from filing ephemera, re-shelving or moving the entire library or helping to mount works for an exhibition.  It was not unheard of for the Chief Librarian to find her entire staff missing when an emergency arose.  With the move to the new building in Parkes things became more formal but those with Fyshwick memories felt very privileged.   Between 1979 and 11 March 2015, Gillian went on to hold virtually all senior positions in the Research Library at one time or another.   In particular, her contribution to collection development, particularly to the rare books collection, greatly enriched the holdings of the Research library.
In addition to showing signs of becoming a notably talented librarian, Gillian brought with her considerable political experience and knowledge of work-place relations and related matters gleaned from her role as National Secretary of Australian Young Labor. This proved to be a great benefit both to the staff and the management of the Gallery as her emphasis on negotiation for the good of all parties rather than confrontation worked to everyone’s benefit.  Nevertheless, the sight of Gillian and colleagues demonstrating outside the building did awaken the awareness of some managers. 
For me these skills had particular appeal as, again in her words:
[T]he then union delegate of the Professional Officers’ Association (which covered Librarians, Curators and Conservators in the Public Service), dumped the role of union delegate on me.  As she was my boss, I could hardly say no…. ”.
Outside the Gallery, her participation on behalf of all government librarians was to prove of great benefit.  Gillian was immediately drawn into the initial moves by the Librarians’ Group of the POA to increase wages and conditions for government librarians.   This developed into a full scale and successful Librarians Work Value case, the first of a number of moves to improve the position of librarians during the 1980s with Gillian at the helm as President of the Canberra Branch of the POA and later CEO and Federal President over-seeing the amalgamation of the POA with the CPSU to form the PSU.
As well as her professional and political skills, Gillian brought to the job personal qualities which made her a pleasure to work with.  The most noticeable of these were loyalty, both to her colleagues and to the Gallery, sympathy for her fellow staff members throughout the organisation and willingness to take time to assist those with problems. 
Above all, I doubt if any of her colleagues will fail to miss her sense of humour and the infectious laughter which could help make a tough day better.  This last quality helped her to deal with some of the more outrageous queries which do, at times, face an art reference librarian or the demands made on staff in a new building with a few teething problems such as mushrooms in the reading room which she crawled under a bench to remove.
She leaves behind many friends all over the building – some of whom have shared picnics at which frustrations could be taken out on a piƱata (really meant for the children in the party but enjoyed by all).
Gillian’s professional reputation is not just known to her colleagues.  She has been admired, respected and sought out by those external users of the Research Library as a most knowledgeable, skilled and determined reference librarian whose in depth familiarity with the Research Library’s collections will make her sorely missed – although the National Gallery’s loss is the National Portrait Gallery’s gain as she has joined the voluntary team of librarians, including me, working to create a focussed library for this institution.   She has already started to expand my cataloguing skills by passing on her experience!
J. Margaret Shaw, Volunteer Librarian, National Portrait Gallery

Bibliography
(2011, May 5). Shows cut as gallery faces age of minimalism. The Canberra Times. p. 6.
Fulltext available via EBSCOhost.

Currie, G. (2010). Art exhibition teams. Incite, 31(8), 27.
Fulltext available via EBSCOhost.

Currie, G., & Shaw, M. (2002). What price art librarianship in the twenty-first century?. Art Documentation: Bulletin of the Art Libraries Society of North America, 21(2), 32-34.
Fulltext available via EBSCOhost.

Switzer, M.A., Jakimow, R., Currie, G., Beasley, L. & Roost, K. (1996). Why benchmarking?: benchmarking and Commonwealth cultural/heritage agencies. [Canberra], Joint Middle Management Development Project.

Currie, G. (February 1992). Merger set, now the real work begins. The Professional: the federal industrial news of the POA.

(1991, April 11). ANG to review salary blowout. The Canberra Times. p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article122356144
(1985, July 2). Social workers lift bans for office space investigation. The Canberra Times. p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article127205941
Currie, G. Demonstrating the Library’s value at the National Gallery of Australia Research Library, in Abid, A.B. (2007). Art Museum Libraries and Librarianship.

Currie, G. (1992). A nice job for a lady: industrial issues for librarians in the 90s. Australian Library and Information Association Conference Proceedings, no. 2. pp 80-86.

Currie, G. (23 August 2006). Integration of bibliographic and research information into museum objects collection management system: web based bibliography on photographic resources relevant to the Asia/Pacific region. In Art libraries: Bonding past and future. Ancient cultural heritage and information technology, World Library and Information Congress: 72nd IFLA General Conference and Council, Seoul, Korea.

Currie, G. (2007). Paris Salons catalogues. http://www.nga.gov.au/research/Salons.cfm


Tuesday, July 14, 2015

ALIA Active Midwinter Dinner 6:30pm, Thursday 27 August 2015

ALIA Active   Midwinter Dinner

6.30pm, Thursday 27 August 2015












Event details
When:                  Thursday 27 August 2015
Time:                    6:30pm start
Guest Speaker:    Dr Stuart Ferguson
Where:                 CIT REID Restaurant
Location:              K Block First Floor
                            Constitution Avenue, Reid
Bookings:             karna.o’dea@naa.gov.au

Cost:                    $30 per head for a 3 course meal

Thursday, July 2, 2015

The Descendant project exhibition: a must see Exhibition at the UNSW Canberra Academy Library 1 June - 30 August 2015


On Wednesday 17th June on a dark, wet, wintery Canberra night a fabulous exhibition opened at the University of New South Wales Canberra Academy Library to warm our hearts and minds.

The Descendant project exhibition contains 20 beautiful portraits by Mertim Gokalp and related material designed to ignite the curiosity about who we are in relation to our past.

The Descendants Project was designed to create a personal identity journey, commemorating Anzac History, honouring the past and celebrating our future by exploring reflections of a 100 year old war on the generations of the present. It reflects the intertwined relationship of Turkey and Australia connected almost a century ago, by a war. Through the Gallipoli War both nations suffered enormous change, one uniting around the loss and destruction while the other was falling apart, yet to be born as a new nation from its ashes.

The Project website, http://www.descendantsproject.com.au/#!home/mainPage, reflects on the documented history of the experiences on individuals, from the Anzac letters the soldiers wrote to their loved ones, to exploring the reflections of a war on the generation of the present.

Descendants is a personal identity journey, creating a very personal insight into Anzac History, honouring the past and celebrating our future.

Portraits of descendants from both Turkish and Anzac sides have been created for the project. The website notes that “descendants, selected to be a part of the project, were asked to either wear or hold on to a representative in order to build the bridge between today and the past. These representatives may be their Grandfather’s uniforms (or part of the uniform), medals, watches, boots, etc., an object to represent their connection to the past.”

Emir Ali Emirlioglu, great grandson of Gunnery Officer Mustafa Niyazi is the subject of one of the beautiful portraits. He is shown with a gas lamp which is a family heirloom. The website quotes his voice”100 years after the Dardanelles War, in which my great grandfather served as a gunnery officer, The Descendants Project has been a moving project for me as it traces the friendship forged during the war between the two nations and reveals the undiscovered documents, veterans, and martyrs…I was proud to be part of this project”




 Photo of Ali in front of his portrait by Mertim Gokalp – you can see the portrait at http://www.descendantsproject.com.au/#!Emir-Ali-Emirlioglu-by-Mertim-Gokalp/c3nf/55587a380cf23d01649f1ae9

It was lovely to see Ali and his family at the launch sharing thoughts and memories. I am very pleased to work with Ali at the Australian National University where his IT skills, passion and humour are much appreciated.


The artist Mertim Gokalp will be returning to the UNSW Canberra Academy Library on July 2 for an Artist’s Talk – RSVP details can be found at: http://lib.unsw.adfa.edu.au/exhib/descendants/index.html


Roxanne Missingham
University Librarian
The Australian National University

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Libraries in the semantic web Professor Marcia Lei Zeng

Professor Marcia Lei Zeng Professor, School of Library and Information Science, Kent State University (http://marciazeng.slis.kent.edu) gave a fascinating presentation on Libraries in the semantic web at ANU Library this week.. She challenged us with questions include:


    
  • How can we do more with what we have? 
  • How can we do more with less? [We do not want to buy another system.] 
  • How can we use these LOD data?


In looking at projects she had led focused on turning metadata into linked data she took us through a project on AGRIS that uses controlled vocabulary to link with resources – a brilliant combination of data and text. She suggested that the library catalogue was no longer the central access point and described a flipped model which allowed exploration of external data sources such as DBPedia-Wikipedia, statistical collections and more. She described how hidden access points in the catalogue can bring in much richer information and knowledge through library data, with the example of 5xx fields.

Positing “big text” as the library “bid data” source, she looked at oral history integration through www.unmulitmedia.org which could include hyperlinking automatically in the transcript – an example she used to describe the difference between findability and accessibility. In exploring the concept of the “Internet of things” she used the COGNITO intelligence API as an example of contextual linking of data and opening up of finding aids to connect rich data. She described the work of the Linked Open Data-- Libraries, Archives, and Museums (LAM) Research Group http://lodlam.slis.kent.edu/.

Recent research projects included:
  • Connecting LAMs to the unfamiliar data and metadata resources in the Linked Open Data (LOD) Universe
  •   fact mining, where the team has use automatic semantic analysis tools, testing and compared 3 tools using of 45 archival finding aids drawn from 16 repositories and build the workflow into a tool
  •  Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) with deliverables including creating local KOS by creating micro-thesaurus, handling special cultural heritage situations (e.g., unknown artists, unidentified creators, un-named objects) for LOD data and Guidelines for creating local name authorities for archival finding aids
  •  Smart big data – with innovation and LCI (Liquid Crystal Institute) researcher-related datasets


She illustrated her big text data use scenarios with the brilliant Nature Video. (2014, July 31). Charting culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gIhRkCcD4U – do have a look at it.

In summarising her talk she said that we need to embrace the new and changing concepts of the Semantic Web in LAMs – to move:
  •         from "Web of Documents" to "Web of Data”
  •         from linking strings to linking things
  •          from "On the Web" to "Of the Web”
  •          from machine-readable to machine understandable/processable



Professor Marcia Zeng, Ying-Hsang Liu, Charles Sturt University and me

Roxanne Missingham
Australian National University  Librarian