Whitsunday Regional Libraries are on the ball

Whitsunday Regional Libraries are on the right track, judging by a couple of recent ALIA mini-Conference presentations. Leela Wittmer’s How Libraries are saving the world: an Introduction to libraries and our role in action on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG), reinforced our decision to include, where applicable, several Goals that aligned with elements of our Whitsunday Regional Libraries Business Plan 2018-2022.

The United Nations document was initially advocated by Marian Morgan-Bindon at the 2017 Queensland Public Library Association (QPLA) LEaD Conference in Noosa, which I attended. Our Business Plan was still a work- in-progress; after much discussion and reviewing of the UNSDGs, we identified Goals that provided both substance and vision to our achievable long-term goals and objectives.

Christine Ianna’s presentation Challenging the status quo: safeguarding digital collections reiterated the necessity for library disaster management planning with a focus on safeguarding all-things digital. Christine had presented her paper at the Asia Pacific Conference on the Gold Coast earlier in the year, which Robyn Batman, Team Leader Proserpine Library, had attended, and promptly returned with suggestions to improve our draft Whitsunday Regional Libraries Disaster Management Standard Operating Procedures. With first-hand experience of a recent major disaster (Cyclone Debbie) and the impact on buildings, infrastructure, and operational capability, we researched and adapted plans from several agencies, including Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), to create a starting point. We highly recommend libraries in disaster zones create working documents to facilitate meaningful recovery.

About the author

Terry Mills-Edward is Team Leader of Bowen/Collinsville Libraries. Terry has been in this role for four years, focusing on creating vibrant and twenty-first century community hubs in the Whitsunday region.