Towards Federation 2001: Two Conference Reports

Convened by the National Library, held in Canberra at the Library and the Lakeside Hotel from 23 to 25 March this year and attended by some 150 invited delegates (described as senior staff, representatives and a range of specialists from major libraries and other organisations concerned with collecting, preserving and providing access to Australia's documentary heritage), this sequel to the 1988 'Summit' was, in ways I shall detail below, a memorable event.After a ceremonious opening reception and a quite lavish dinner (both paid for by the National Library, as indeed were all the conference running expenses) it went at a cracking pace, with packed agenda sessions mornings, noons and several nights: not a place for conference carouser types.Indeed, the no-nonsense tone was set by the Minister for the Arts, the Honourable Wendy Fatin at the reception, indicating that the Commonwealth government was highly unlikely to get into the business of funding public libraries and placing the responsibility for a national policy on libraries not with the government but squarely with the library community.From the planning stages almost a year before to the final session of Towards Federation 2001 the stress was on outcomes.What were they?As the question is too big to answer meaningfully in any but a personal sense, what follows is the view, from the margins, of an erstwhile librarian who has an unshaken commitment to the support of 'scholarly' (to use an old-fashioned word) bibliographic services in an age where technology, become indispensable, threatens to overwhelm scholarship.Recalling the conference as I write about it several weeks later, what first comes to mind are examples of leadership -quick-witted, decisive, articulate people.For better or worse (surely better), no signs of the stereotypical reclusive librarian of yore.Master-planner Eric Wainwright from the National Library teamed with dynamic Chairperson Margaret Trask to provide opportunity and platform.It is invidious to single out a few names, but impractical to do more.It was impressive that the Director-General of the National Library was present throughout the proceedings, giving voice and credibility to the leadership role which the institution is now claiming.The very active participation of state librarians, particularly from New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia, gave promise of new areas of fruitful cooperation.Colin Steele of the Australian National University had us confront electronic futures.Archivists made their voices heard.Linda De Silva from the Australian Copyright Council engaged in productive dialogue with librarianship's copyright expert Derek Fielding.Dr Amareswar Galla of the Cultural Heritage Management Program at the University of Canberra spoke cogently on sociocultural issues -for the most part skirted by the librarian delegates who stuck to practicalities.For me, and surely for others, Towards Federation 2001 was educative, serving to foreground and reinforce a set of concepts/techniques adding up to a theory/scheme of national documentary management: the Distributed National Collection (dispersed and comprehensive descendant of 1970s resource-sharing); the National Bibliographic Database (to date centralised, large and growing but not -yet -encompassing the DNC); the Australian Bibliographic Network ( a set of services dependent on the NBD).If not spelled out, the future of these interrelated entities was, I believe, the crux of the conference agenda.I was also introduced to new jargon, the keywords of the day: top of my list are 'peak bodies' and 'cross-sectoral' -the use of both terms being indicative of the consultative processes and mechanisms constantly being sought, and the need to pool resources.The conference gave me, as other delegates, a mountain of documentation.Three spiral bound volumes full of meaty matter which I shall find most useful: Background, Agenda and Working Papers respectively.Hopefully these, particularly the Working Papers, will be available to librarians who did not attend and to library schools preparing novices for service in the brave new world of the twenty-first century.