Friends of the University of East Timor Library (Vic Branch) Newsletter No. 2

The Friends of the University of East Timor Library (Vic Group) Inc. is now two years old; time to give our members and supporters an update on our activities. Friends of UNTL Library meets monthly at the University of Melbourne's Baillieu Library. Meetings take place at 6.00 pm on Mondays; all members are welcome to attend our meetings.

Library shelving to Dili Institute of Technology

At the end of 2003 we sent via Rotary a container-load of library shelving that had been requested by DIT and was sourced from RMIT by committee member Lyle French. DIT is one of a number of small tertiary institutions established since Independence. Its Director is Joao Cancio Freitas, who completed a PhD at the Victoria University and is a regular visitor to Melbourne.

Library training in Dili
FUNTLL member, Alarico de Sena, ran a week-long intensive workshop in basic library skills in Dili in January. Eleven library staff attended from the UNTL Library, Dili Institute of Technology, the Xanana Gusmao Reading Room, the Presidents Cabinet Library, the Catholic TeachersCollege in Baucau and the Universidade Dili.

This was made possible with the invaluable assistance of APHEDAs Dili-based officer, Angela, and Jill Haynes, the then UNTL library volunteer, who between them undertook all the East Timor coordination.

Alarico's course covered an introduction to library set-up, cataloguing using Dewey Decimal Classification and AACR2 and LCSH. The course was conducted in Tetum and was a great success; so successful that the Catholic TeachersCollege in Baucau have invited Alarico to return for three months. Unfortunately, Alarico's work and commitments in Melbourne prevent him from taking that offer up at the moment. See the photograph in pdf version.

Sets of Dewey Decimal Classification Edition 21
As a follow-up to Alaricos training, the librarian staff who attended requested sets of DDC to be sent them. FUNTLL member Jan Maslen collected and sent nine sets of DDC 21 to the course participants. Many thanks to LaTrobe University Library for making this possible.

Venceslao do Rego in Darwin
The Chief Librarian at the University of East Timor Library, Venceslao do Rego, recently visited the Charles Darwin University Library (formerly the Northern Territory University) in the first part of a two part staff development project with funding obtained by the Friends of UNTLL from the Myer Foundation, in partnership with the Charles Darwin University. He arrived on 25th January for a 5-week period during which he attended English language classes in the mornings from Monday to Friday, and then spent some time observing some of the activities in the Library in the afternoons.

Library Director Ruth Quinn who arranged the program, reports, Venceslao spent time with staff working in the areas of Acquisitions, Serials, Cataloguing, Lending and Reference Services. His main area of interest was in the utilisation of technology in the technical services areas, so he found the program we'd arranged very useful. Luckily between his limited English and our limited Indonesian, we managed to communicate with him quite well, and he managed to get some hands-on experience using some of our systems. We also arranged for him to visit both the Darwin Public Library and the Northern Territory Library (our equivalent of a State Library), which he found very valuable.

We hope to have Venceslao return for the second part of his visit in August or September this year. Already he has been exposed to a wide range of services in an academic library, but would like to spend some more in-depth time in the technical services area."

Other News

Jill Haynes at UNTL Library
Canberra librarian Jill Haynes spent 8 months working at the Library and returned in December 2003. She reports that despite being under-resourced in every aspect, the library is highly used by students, who are often queuing waiting for opening times. The English language books are used if appropriate but the greatest priority is for books in Indonesian. Improving IT infrastructure and re-wiring the library building are priorities. As the power supply is subject to frequent breakdowns, UPSs (Uninterrupted Power Supply - a battery back-up to save data when power suddenly dies) for the computers are still on the Library staff wish-list. (They cost $250.00 each).

Patti Manolis, manager of the Maribyrnong City libraries, and new FUNTLL member, gained a grant from the State Library of Victoria in 2003 to investigate and survey public libraries in East Timor. She leaves on May 6 and plans to visit all thirteen districts during her six weeks there. Patti had the brilliant idea of taking a large cheque with her to give to existing public libraries to purchase new books and to this end organised a very successful Trivia Night at Hawthorn Town Hall on April where more than $27,000 was raised. The money will be transferred by Australian Volunteers International to the Xanana Gusmao Reading Room for purchase of library materials for the Reading Room and other public libraries in East Timor.

Melbourne librarian Nicole Wiseman is doing a two-year stint at the Xanana Gusmao Reading Room in Dili. FUNTLL Committee members met her when she returned to Melbourne briefly over Christmas. When we met her, the future for the Reading Room looked bleak as its funding had all but expired; however since then they have received funding from the Sydney City Council. She recently reported that on April 15 a meeting was held in Dili to determine if a Library Association should be established in East Timor. Representatives from ten organisations attended and decided yes they should establish an association. Since then each organization has submitted their ideas regarding the objectives of such an association.

FUNTLL : future directions
As you may have surmised Friends of UNTLL (Vic) has made the decision to support and assist other educational libraries in ET as much as we are able to. Our priorities in 2004 are to make funding submissions to enable training for East Timorese library staff, and to source and supply specific book materials and equipment as requested by East Timor. We also aim to liaise effectively and share information with all people working towards the development of libraries in ET.

Film Night Fundraiser
Pencil in 6.00 pm, June 10th to come to our fundraiser Film Night at the Cinema Nova in Carlton to see a much-acclaimed new French documentary, To be and to have.
Tickets are $20.00 and include a pre-screening cocktail party. Well be sending out a flyer shortly but if you want to book early, contact Mary Ann Gibson on 8344 7793.

Present committee members
At the AGM held in November last year the following people were elected as office-bearers:
Secretary: Jane Ellen (janee@unimelb.edu.au)
Treasurer: Sarah Brown (bros@unimelb.edu.au)
Membership: Mary Ann Gibson (ma.gibson@unimelb.edu.au)
Donations co-ordinator: Lyle French (lylefwor@bigpond.com)
East Timor Liaison: Alarico de Sena (shomebiz@tpg.com.au)