Hear from our 2024 ALIA Board candidates 

How can library and information professionals fight mis and disinformation? What do you believe ALIA’s role is in this?

I believe that ALIA’s role in fighting misinformation and disinformation, is to continue to advocate for Libraries to be recognised as the antidote to ‘fake news’.  Our role is to help society to sort fact from fiction, and to educate and support the community to make well informed decisions. However Libraries cannot do this successfully, if ALIA does not continue to advocate for the recognition of the professional skillset and the professional mindset of LIS professionals.  We need to be recognised as enablers in the fight against false information, whether it is intentionally produced and circulated or whether it emerges organically, and ALIA has a strong role to play in this recognition.  I believe that the Professional Pathways project is a stepping stone towards increased professional recognition and increased awareness of the value of the LIS sector.

As a Board Representative, you represent the LIS sector as a whole. How will you ensure that all voices are heard (eg. health, law, schools, public)?

I would seek to ensure that all voices are heard, by first listening to those voices, and seeking to understand.  We are stronger together, and that strength comes from collaboration and from proactively engaging with all LIS sectors in an authentic way.  My background is in public libraries, and I choose to serve the community as a whole, however through my work in public libraries I have frequently developed partnerships and collaborations with other LIS sectors and recognise their invaluable contribution to the whole profession.  I have also worked at a national level through APLA and NELLC, and have experience in navigating complex issues that listening to and acting on input from other sectors.  As an LIS professional, my focus in on the elevation of the whole library industry, and as an ALIA Board member I would seek to represent our diverse voice.
 
Many of you have expressed support for the recognition of people with disability, including advocating for inclusion and representation in our sector. Could you provide an example/s as to how this might look in action for you?

Inclusion in action means taking proactive steps to ensure that our sector represents the whole communities that we serve.  Approximately 18% of Australians live with a disability.  Our sector should ensure that we provide opportunities for employment within our industry that are as inclusive as possible, and that people living with disability are supported and encouraged to apply for roles.  I recently recruited for young trainees to join the library service that I lead, City of Moreton Bay.  Part of the criteria for applying for these roles was identifying as a person from a First Nations background or identifying as living with a disability.  Of the six roles, two young people have joined our library service who live with disability and two First Nations trainees have also been onboarded.  Once recruited, we have built in supports for our trainees to set them up for success.  We have seen some of our previous trainees become leaders within our library service, due to the inclusive pathways that we have created.  I am committed to ensuring that our customers are welcomed into libraries by industry professionals from diverse backgrounds and communities, because our customers come from these same diverse backgrounds and communities, and they deserve to be represented.

How can library and information professionals fight mis and disinformation? What do you believe ALIA’s role is in this?

LIS professionals need to be proactive and informed in addressing mis/disinformation, including understanding the societal impacts and disparities around information and digital literacy. Engaging in community outreach and developing partnerships beyond our field is important. It enables us to strengthen our knowledge of emerging issues and develop resources and services that reflect community needs, locally and nationally.

ALIA’s role is three-fold. First, ALIA can support the upskilling of LIS in evolving information and social landscapes, ensuring professionals are equipped with the skills to adapt to community needs and engage with new technologies. Second, ALIA can champion LIS research and its translation to industry, investing in evidence-backed approaches to mis/disinformation challenges. Third, ALIA plays a critical role in representing and advocating for libraries as information and digital literacy leaders, contributing expertise and LIS perspectives in national submissions and discussions.

As a Board Representative, you represent the LIS sector as a whole. How will you ensure that all voices are heard (eg. health, law, schools, public)?

I’m passionate about building connections and not leaving people behind, and this includes across different sectors. I will ensure that valuable insights from all sectors are heard. This means acknowledging and responding to barriers that may impede this. Having worked across multiple library sectors and contributed to committees that were not limited to a single sector, I’ve engaged with concerns and priorities that go beyond my sector and industry.

Collective impact initiatives offer a way for us to engage stakeholders from multiple library sectors around a shared agenda that is of mutual benefit. While events and social media platforms offer opportunities to start conversations and exchange ideas and experiences, they aren’t a stand-in for representation in decision-making and governance processes. As an ALIA Board Director (and highly collaborative professional), I would continue to foster connection and meaningful engagement. I would actively engage with sector priorities and concerns outside of my own and seek to involve and empower different sectors in developing solutions that are not in isolation.  

Many of you have expressed support for the recognition of people with disability, including advocating for inclusion and representation in our sector. Could you provide an example/s as to how this might look in action for you?

As co-founder and President of the Association of Neurodivergent and Disabled GLAMR Professionals Australia (ANDPA), I’m co-leading advocacy efforts for people with disability and am committed to championing inclusion and representation in our profession for marginalised groups and identities. My leadership of ANDPA, and similar initiatives, is community-based, fostering the connectivity, visibility, and support needed for representation, and I would continue my multi-sector approach to strengthening this. I aspire to see ALIA's strategy reflect a contemporary understanding of intersectionality for diversity in our industry, with clear objectives that go beyond updating previous reporting initiatives without intentional action. Additionally, there is a need to build support into mentoring programs for library professionals with disability (including training for mentors) and encourage the development of inclusive leadership capabilities across other programs.

How can library and information professionals fight mis and disinformation? What do you believe ALIA’s role is in this?

The rise and prevalence of mis- or dis-information are as complex as they are problematic. Increasingly, the ability of stakeholders to access vast data sets through social media and other data collection channels and advances in behavioural science means that information can be targeted to very specific audiences for maximum effect, think Dominic Cummins and Brexit, and therefore any attempt to control the flow of such information requires a multi-agency and industry response. Unfortunately, many of us set up our phones and smart TV’s to filter feeds to those issues that interest us and thus create an echo chamber making us susceptible to information, correct or otherwise that resonates with our own innate bias.

 
How library professionals and ALIA deal with this is equally complex and likely requires a tiered approach. Firstly, ALIA must be one of the agencies that provides feedback and shapes Government policy around mis- and dis-information and secondly, ALIA must provide industry level policy that shapes the research undertaken by specialist librarians and awareness around mis- and dis-information and finally, by providing guidance or educating library users on the use of information.

How can library and information professionals fight mis and disinformation? What do you believe ALIA’s role is in this?

 The core function of library services is to support information literacy in communities. Information literacy allows people to think critically about the information they are consuming and to have an understanding of what information sources are trustworthy. This is increasingly complex with the vast amount of information that we are all navigating at any moment. I see campaigns like ALIA's 'where's the source?' a good starting point for LIS professionals in working through this challenge as it provides a mindset to inform our practice, programs and own research. 

As our national association, I see ALIA needing to keep a strong role in this topic through continuing to promote and facilitate this professional mindset so that LIS professionals maintain skills to support information literacy in communities.
 
As a Board Representative, you represent the LIS sector as a whole. How will you ensure that all voices are heard (eg. health, law, schools, public)?

I understand that Board membership brings with it the responsibility to represent the different elements of the LIS sector, their challenges and perspectives. While I currently keep up with some parts of the sector, I am aware that I need to build up my knowledge of others. Engaging with the sector is the way I build my own understanding of the different voices and I see great opportunity to do this as the new secretary of ALIA NSW and by increasing my professional networks. 
Board membership also brings with it the responsibility to represent and acknowledge different voices in decision making. This is something that I practice in my role within the public libraries sector, considering the diverse communities that use the service. I am adept at maintaining awareness of a range of perspectives and bringing them to the table for informed decisions and will bring this skill to my role as a board member. 
 
Many of you have expressed support for the recognition of people with disability, including advocating for inclusion and representation in our sector. Could you provide an example/s as to how this might look in action for you?

I am proud to be working at a time where we are seeing some really positive social changes around inclusion and representation of different lived experiences. I have experience with developing and working with guiding documents such as Reconciliation Action Plans and Disability and Inclusion Action plans. A really important part of developing any plans like this is engaging with people with a lived experience to hear the needs and ideas directly from those impacted by any actions. I'd be looking to the ALIA Disability group to inform future directions based upon the conversations and research they have been working through on supporting conditions and employment for people with a disability, along with considering how this lens informs the ALIA Professional Pathways framework in action. 
 

How can library and information professionals fight mis and disinformation? What do you believe ALIA’s role is in this?

Library and information professionals can fight mis and disinformation by supporting information literacy initiatives and programs in all library and educational settings. Well-developed library policies related to access to materials and collection development are also vital to support library staff and underpin a professional approach to information management. I believe that ALIA’s role is to provide quality support in relation to professional development and increasing the confidence of library staff to deal with situations where misinformation can present challenging interactions with library users. This support understandably is required in both in-person and online environments and contexts.
 
As a Board Representative, you represent the LIS sector as a whole. How will you ensure that all voices are heard (eg. health, law, schools, public)?

As a member of the ALIA Board, I would aim to listen to the different experiences, ideas and concerns from professionals across the sector. I have been fortunate to have had a career that has taken place across a number of different library environments, including public libraries, private industry, special libraries and the education sector. While there are different challenges in different library environments, there are also many more aspects where there are shared and similar experiences. As a member of the Board I would seek to focus on providing advice and guidance that can be adapted to all library settings.
 
Many of you have expressed support for the recognition of people with disability, including advocating for inclusion and representation in our sector. Could you provide an example/s as to how this might look in action for you?

It is important to recognise that consideration and advocacy for people with disabilities continues to evolve and develop across the community. It is important that, in its work, ALIA also continues to evolve and develop in its own operations and in its development of guidelines and support for libraries through ongoing and meaningful consultation with individuals and with the library and disability sectors. A continued program of amending ALIA’s suite of guidelines would be a positive action, particularly if inclusiveness for people with a disability is at the heart of these reviews. Government agencies and other organisations have benefited from Disability Inclusion Action Plans and this may be another consideration for ALIA.

How can library and information professionals fight mis and disinformation? What do you believe ALIA’s role is in this?

In the ongoing battle against misinformation, library and information professionals, supported by ALIA and the Board, play a central role in countering deceptive narratives.

Library and Information professionals empower communities by guiding them to critically evaluate sources, underscoring the importance of peer-reviewed information and educating on research practices. ALIA's commitment to continuous learning ensures that Library and Information professionals are well-equipped to navigate the evolving information landscape adeptly.

Advocating for open and accessible libraries, ALIA plays a crucial role to support all Libraries to provide communities with uninterrupted access to reliable information and information literacy.

Furthermore, ALIA's efforts in fostering partnerships strengthen the collective response against misinformation challenges.

As a dedicated researcher, my unwavering motivation is to champion access to accurate
information for all through libraries, education, and public programs. ALIA's role is instrumental in uniting information professionals to combat misinformation effectively.

As a Board Representative, you represent the LIS sector as a whole. How will you ensure that all voices are heard (eg. health, law, schools, public)?

As a Board Representative, my approach to ensuring representation and inclusivity across the LIS sector involves several key actions. I will strive to be easily approachable to the LIS sector, creating channels for open communication. This accessibility is crucial in understanding the contemporary challenges faced by professionals in different fields within LIS. By being accessible, I seek to bridge communication and facilitate a collaborative approach to addressing sector-wide issues.

I recognise the importance of continuous research and development within the library an information fields. To stay informed about evolving trends and challenges, I am dedicated to ongoing research efforts. This commitment ensures that my decisions and advocacy on the Board are well-informed, reflecting the current needs and advancements in the broader LIS sector.

My role as a Board Representative will involve actively listening, being accessible, and staying informed through continuous research. Through these efforts, I aim to ensure that all voices within the LIS sector, including those from health, law, schools, and public libraries, are heard and considered in decision-making processes.

Many of you have expressed support for the recognition of people with disability, including advocating for inclusion and representation in our sector. Could you provide an example/s as to how this might look in action for you? 

In my role as Director of Community & Corporate in local government, I actively advocate for the inclusion of people with disabilities. I ensure our community projects and programs are designed with accessibility in mind. Concrete steps include supporting Disability Advisory Committees, deliberative panels, and creating accessible communication channels and materials. Staying informed, I engage with disability advocacy groups and stay updated on inclusive design practices. 

Supporting ALIA's advocacy, I will contribute by sharing my knowledge and proven practices in community development, networks and connections. Leveraging personal and professional experiences, I will work to support libraries to continue to be responsive to evolving needs, fostering genuinely adaptive and inclusive environments for all.

How can library and information professionals fight mis and disinformation? What do you believe ALIA’s role is in this?

The first point to make is that misinformation and disinformation are different things, and need different approaches:

- misinformation is false information, it may or may not be intentional, it’s incorrect, and can be refuted;
- disinformation is deliberately misleading, this is the dangerous propaganda end of the spectrum – I don’t want to sound conspiratorial here, but it does demand serious attention because its intention is to deceive.
 
Re misinformation –
Finding correct information is our bread and butter, it’s our raison d’etre, and we’re good at it. It’s Reference services 101 – the first step is to refine the question, then find the evidence from reputable and authoritative sources, and document your evidence base. So in a sense, the answer is to do what we do as the guardians of good evidence-based information, the information warriors of this age, and do it well. We can be proud of the role we play in a democratic society, which depends on free access to good information.
 
Re disinformation –
You have to first ask why and how there is deliberate dissemination of false information, and then, what can be done? There are different motivations, the most obvious is the spin used by marketers and others aimed at making a commercial profit, gaining political power, or increasing social influence; at the other extreme are the sinister and destructive campaigns that undermine the fabric of civil society.

·        There are “esmart” tools and programs available through government agencies and other organisations, to alert consumers to disinformation threats; libraries can be proactive in disseminating this information;

·        I realise that “more training” is often invoked as the solution to difficult problems – and we already do information literacy and media literacy training for our clients. On top of that, I believe that we should be teaching people to think critically and logically, able to call out fallacies of argument. For example, it’s not ok to “argue against the person” (not the issue), but how often do we see this done? It’s not ok to draw a comparison of “moral equivalence” to argue a case for an unsavoury course of action. If fallacies of argument can be identified, it’s less likely that people will be sucked into believing spurious claims.
 
 One of the outcomes of the proliferation of mis- and disinformation is a loss of trust in the authority of professionals and integrity of organisations. Information is at the core of this debate. While not able to combat the insidiousness of disinformation on its own, ALIA, as the peak body for information professionals, has an important role to play in the information infrastructure needed for a functioning democratic society.
 
·        ALIA must model sound information governance and evidence-based practice. It’d be a powerful statement to be able to point to our professional association and say “do it like this”. 
·        An advocacy campaign along the lines of librarians are guardians of evidence, information warriors, champions of the truth, purveyors of knowledge, would bolster trust in our profession – we, the library professionals, are our best promotion.  

 
From a strategic planning perspective, the modus operandi I would be suggesting would be to conduct broad, multi-sector consultations on all major strategic issues, e.g. creating a Diversity Strategy; strengthening accreditation of LIS schools/courses using a Quality Improvement framework; implementing a structured system of CPD. (I can elaborate more on any of these issues.)  

The Professional Pathways Project was an interesting example of how ALIA can engage with all sectors in a broad and representative consultative process. The LIS Workforce Framework is the main outcome to date, and it is the basis for more work. I think it has benefited from having cross-sectoral input.
 
I believe there is a role for a “chief insights” officer within ALIA to analyse the data which is already collected from the various sectors, and to design reporting parameters where these are lacking e.g. workforce and employment data, industrial awards. This could be packaged to add value for institutional members and organisational partners. As a Board member I would be looking at opportunities to engage with such a role. 

I have a couple of suggestions on this topic.

- Workforce diversity needs affirmative action. This starts with accreditation of LIS schools, which can include a diversity metric to encourage enrolment right from the start; ways for ALIA to support students with a disability at the Work Integrated Learning (WIL) or internship stage to help to get their first “foot in the door” and gain experience that is often difficult to get prior to landing a first job, could be looked into. 

- Regarding the delivery of library services to people with disability: some research has already been enabled by ALIA’s Twila Herr research grant. The first step would be to find out what topics have already been looked at, check the evidence that currently exists, and assess what’s practically implementable, and design projects to support libraries especially to address the needs via digital service delivery models.

How can library and information professionals fight mis and disinformation? What do you believe ALIA’s role is in this?

Misinformation and disinformation is a complex issue for society. A simplistic treatment would be to just counteract the information with campaigns promoting authoritative sources. However, as proven during the pandemic, this was an insufficient remedy to the problem, and perhaps made it worse. The best treatment, in my view, is for information professionals (and ALIA as a LIS advocacy organisation) to take on the role of educators, not propagators. It’s not our role to push an agenda (which can feed into mis/disinformation narratives), but to equip patrons with the ability to navigate information, building out the fundamentals of information-handling behaviour to encourage independent thinking and fact-checking. ALIA can assist in this both through their advocacy, but also helping its members (and others) to professionally develop these best-practice educative approaches to patron growth and empowerment.

As a Board Representative, you represent the LIS sector as a whole. How will you ensure that all voices are heard (eg. health, law, schools, public)?

As an academic librarian who has worked with hospital librarians, law librarians and teacher librarians as well as those with previous public library backgrounds, I am aware of wonderful diversity across our profession. I agree with the question that to access this diversity we must ensure that all members feel they can contribute. I will work to do this in four ways: through advocating for inclusive decision making through ALIA’s other committees; encouraging regular outreach with the ALIA community for all board members and decision-makers; seek or create opportunities to get different parts of the LIS community together through joint-events, collaborations and consultation; and lastly, champion the diversity of our sector at the board and committee levels, working to ensure fair representation for all community voices.

Many of you have expressed support for the recognition of people with disability, including advocating for inclusion and representation in our sector. Could you provide an example/s as to how this might look in action for you?

I see support for people with a disability as an essential component of diversity and inclusion. I’ve always been proud that our libraries (and library-adjacent organisations) reflect the communities they serve, and that includes providing a welcoming space for staff and patrons with disabilities. The perspectives and challenges of people with disabilities should be better recognised and I am committed to advocating for greater inclusion and acknowledgement within LIS. This entails ensuring the implementation of accessibility measures across all of ALIA's programs and events, promoting diversity amongst the leadership, delivering training for library professionals (to increase awareness, but also tools for community impact), running events with disability advocacy organisations to build rapport, and sponsoring supportive policies and initiatives across ALIA. Through these actions, I aim to ensure equal opportunities and access to information for individuals with disabilities, fostering a more inclusive and equitable library community.

How can library and information professionals fight mis and disinformation? What do you believe ALIA’s role is in this?

The current Board of Directors, of which I am a member, has recently considered a draft Code of Ethics for the Australian library and information sector. This will go out for public consultation in the coming weeks. I personally suggested the need for more explicit support for library and information professionals to lead the way in combatting misinformation and disinformation through the development of literacy skills and through effective application of explicit collection management policies. ALIA’s role is to ensure that these capabilities and values are documented and fundamental to the knowledge framework of the profession.

 
As a Board Representative, you represent the LIS sector as a whole. How will you ensure that all voices are heard (e.g. health, law, schools, public)?

My career in libraries has spanned several sectors including public, state, and university libraries as well as a supplier, consortia manager and educator across several states and regions.  This has provided me with an extensive personal network of colleagues who contact me directly with their concerns and opinions.  In addition, I make efforts to listen to those from across the sectors in ALIA-hosted forums and have been privileged to be the Board’s liaison for the Health Libraries Australia since 2022.  
 
Many of you have expressed support for the recognition of people with disability, including advocating for inclusion and representation in our sector. Could you provide an example/s as to how this might look in action for you?

Our Australian Library and Information sector has a history of exclusion and discrimination against people from non-dominant sectors.  This includes those with disability, preventing access to a full range of published materials ( e.g. print) or to a range of in-person library services and especially to a voice on our governing and decision-making bodies.  Over the years that I have managed library services, I have overseen the introduction of technology to support access for people with visual impairments, to remediate the description of library collections, to improve accessibility to physical events at library locations and worked with representatives of community organisations to enable those with lived experience to have a say in the design and development of library and information services. I strongly believe that diversity in decision-making improves the outcomes for all in the community enhancing the library’s role ‘at the heart of democracy’.