My Brisbane Trip: A rural librarian reflects on the RLQ and Small Libraries workshop

It will never cease to amaze me how quickly the years go by. Once again, I found myself boarding a flight from Townsville to Brisbane on my way to attend the State Library’s Rural Libraries Queensland (RLQ) and Small Libraries workshop.

The three-day event provides a wealth of knowledge and I was eager to gather more information to bring back to the bush. Of course, the social aspect of meeting up with previous acquaintances, and meeting new ones, cannot be ignored.

Each year the workshop is based around a different theme, this year’s being, Realising our potential . On day one, after becoming acquainted with all the other attendees, I was thoroughly impressed with the line-up of informative speakers who had many great ideas to share with us.
One of my key take aways from the first day was how much more we can do with our library.

The second day saw us venturing on a field trip to the State Library’s office at Cannon Hill, where books are dispatched for our library.

This was by far my most favourite activity of the workshop as I am from a small rural library and I have found this day to be filled with practical content that I can implement at home. It was also on this day that I was able to choose books to be shipped home for our local readers.

How quickly the time went and day three was no less informative. What I found of most interesting from this day was the information relating to the First Five Forever program.

This program has been a great success in my home town and warmly welcomed by parents of younger children, and I was able to come away with a mass of new information and ideas that I’m eager to implement.

Another thing that was of real value to me was the information on family history. I often have people ring the library looking for ways to track their family and now I am better equipped to assist them.

Though the time in Brisbane was short, I gained much information and new ideas that I will be putting into effect at my own local library which will be of great benefit in helping my community realise its full potential.

About the author

Wendi Furber is the Tourism Officer / Librarian at Etheridge Shire Council.

About the workshop
Thirty-three library staff from 20 councils attended the Realising our potential - 2019 Rural Libraries Queensland and Small Libraries Workshop at State Library from 30 April - 2 May 2019. The workshop builds skills and capabilities, and provides information and program ideas related to the four objectives from Realising our potential – A vision for Queensland public libraries.