“Resourcing Our Changing Communities” allowed speakers from different organisations to share how they support their communities, driven by understanding, passion and drive. Our Southern Regional Manager Leigh Rout attended the event and shares some of her observations below. “I signed up for this as a professional development opportunity, to learn more about the lower South Island region and their projects involving cultural heritage. I was keen to engage with the people and communities to enhance my understanding of the region and their changing environments. Gore Mayor, Tracy Hicks opened the gathering by welcoming us all and mentioning how libraries have influenced him a great deal in his life and what wonderful people librarians are! Due to some last-minute changes in the programme, I was asked to fill a session and spoke about “Our Changing Landscape”, discussing a few projects the wider NZMS team have been involved in. Most of our projects incorporate a large portion of collaboration and partnership with organisations that results in some very exciting achievements. I focused on the mass digitisation projects with LINZ and The Black Maps Project that have been very significant projects completed by our team. Download my presentation slides here.
Resourcing Our Changing Communities
The keynote speaker on Thursday was Sue Kini, Regional Coordinator from Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa, a not for profit organisation, discussing “Digital Inclusion Management”. She discussed the Stepping UP programme sponsored by Spark which offers an affordable solution for families with children under 18 who are unable to sustain a monthly fixed line internet connection. In a nutshell, they can visit a library and receive a training session, then receive a free modem preloaded with 30GB of data with no fixed term contract. They can then purchase Skinny vouchers and pay only $10 per 30GB per top up at their convenience.
Next up was “Engaging With Refugees/ Recent Immigrants” presented by Fiona Kerr, Youth Librarian at Waitaki District Council and Mihaela Erdelyi, Migrant Services Coordinator at Gore District Council. It was enlightening to learn the impact the community can have to ease immigrants into the community from different cultures and perspectives.Fiona talked about the need for librarians to break past the surface of transactional conversation and to learn to engage with the people, understanding feelings of being isolated and the challenges they have when people don’t engage with them. Mihaela spoke about immigrating to New Zealand from Romania and how New Zealand is one of the only countries who offers family packages. She shared some of her experiences of being in a foreign community and how it had affected her, praising libraries as being an open space where families can come and feel supported.
Following this, Jay Coote and Kayla Davidson from Invercargill City Libraries talked through “Developing A Successful Social Media Profile”. They talked through the libraries 5-year social media plan that began in 2013 and how it has evolved over time through constant planning, inspiration gathered from Reddit (and a little bit of trial and error) to become the success it is now. Especially with some of their posts being recognised and engaged with on an international level. If you would like to see what they are up to, check out their Facebook Page.