My week in Perth … so far!

Coming from the other end of this wonderful country, I’ve been one of the early risers everyday this week! I arrived late on Sunday night, only to wake on Monday at 5 am!

My fellow Tasmanian colleague and I took an early morning stroll around the city on the way to our respective workshops.

I spent an interesting day at the ACOC workshop, where we looked at the future directions OPACs are taking, managing that change and learnt about some new expressions for me – RDA and FRBRisation!

Tuesday morning I had been nominated to attend the NCIP workshop. I thought a lot of it would go over my head, but John Bodfish did a good job of demystifying the jargon. The NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol will be a great tool for the automation of many routine tasks, although implementation still sounds challenging.

I am staying in Mounts Bay Road, so after lunch did the obligatory trip up Jacob’s Ladder and long walk around King’s Park and the Botanic Gardens. It certainly is a beautiful place!

I then visited the National Native Title Tribunal for a tour of their library and a talk by Rod Stroud from AIATSIS.

Tuesday night was enjoyable. First the Welcome reception – catching up with people I knew and meeting others. Then I went to the AGIA dinner with a bunch of BHP Billiton librarians and met the inimitable Dr Click (but I didn’t know that then!).

Another early morning on Wednesday! First I caught a bit of the Steve Irwin memorial before going to the Virgin’s breakfast, where I met lots more interesting people!

I loved the Welcome to Country from Mort Hanson, especially poignant given yesterday’s Federal Court decision to grant native title over Perth to the Nyoongar people.

I won’t go into detail of all the keynote and other papers presented today, but just comment it was a busy and stimulating day.

See you tomorrow!
Sandy