Our first topic of discussion this month was to talk about how we can set up a virtual library for our group - the idea was to find something that would allow us to find books that other local IAs have and borrow rather than buy. Fairly simple concept and a good idea given that many of us have big, diverse libraries.
It didn’t take much effort to find and agree on a solution. LibraryThing is just what we needed. The premise of this site is that it allows you to list what you have, find books that you may like (either by your social network or other similarities). It also has a group function - we can create a group that allows us to see what *we* have. Problem solved.
We’ve set up a group called iacanberra.
So what we’d like to do is:
- If you are interested in being involved, email Andrew (facibus at gmail dot com) with your username and he’ll send you an invite
- List your books
- Tag any books you think are suitable for our group with iacanberra
- When you want to borrow a book, browse the group, find out who has it and arrange to borrow
Simple!
Tonight at IA Cocktail hour, Ruth Ellison gave us a great case study about accessibility challenges at Organisation X, a place where she has worked sometime during the last 5 years or so. She talked about the:
- different types of accessibility/disability they had to work with
- differences between designing for a custom-built and COTS product
- challenges working with different roles
- challenges involved when there is no management support or funding for accessibility
It was a really good talk, and I’ll link her slides if she makes them available.
After Ruth finished presenting, we were talking about different types of accessibility and how to work with them. We were talking about dyslexia and Matt pointed out something that I hadn’t thought about - people with dyslexia are often well-served by an audio version, either one you create or an automated version.
But the funniest bit was when he related it to Heroes (something I’m completely addicted to) - he said (something like) “it’s like Matt Parkman - when he reads minds he can understand it, but when he looks at it on paper, he can’t figure out out”. Fancy Matt making a connection between real-world accessibility and a TV series 
I was digging through some old paperwork today and found a page I wrote during the very first Canberra IA Cocktail hour - way back in 2002.
It was a list of topics we wanted to discuss. This is what we wanted to talk about back then:
- Storytelling
- What is KM?
- Deliverables
- wireframes
- site maps
- personas and scenarios
- Faceted classifications
- Content management systems
- Creating controlled vocabularies
- Data modelling
- Difference between websites and intranets
It makes me think of how much has changed in that time. 5 years ago we were all talking about day-to-day, tactical challenges. In recent months we’ve talked about much more theoretical and strategic topics.
What do you think? What should we be talking about now?
Ruth Ellison from DIAC will present on Accessibility. Accessibility is often one of the last things to be considered when developing a system. This can happen for many reasons, including the organisational context and general misconceptions about accessibility. We will be looking at a case study of the challenges and learnings of implementing accessibility in a Government organisation.
We follow a meet’n’greet/presentation/chat format, with the emphasis on information exchange at practitioner level. This is a great opportunity to talk with other IAs in Canberra, have a few drinks, and chat about work.
Time: 17:30-19:00
Day/Date: Thursday 30 August 2007
Venue: SMS Management & Technology
Ground Floor, 8 Brindabella Circuit
CANBERRA AIRPORT ACT
Please RSVP to Andrew (contact details here) as soon as possible for catering purposes.
Parking: please remember that Brindabella Park has different parking arrangements than those found in many parts of Canberra - there is free parking for the first hour adjacent to the entrance of 8 Brindabella Circuit. After that you have to move your car or pay for parking (and this applies past the end of the meeting).
PS: there is a contact list for the Canberra IA Cocktail Hours: you can join via http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/canberra_ia_community or subscribe to updates via this blog (http://iacanberra.org)
I was hoping we managed a photo of the Canberra crew at Oz-IA, but I think we forgot it. So here’s the best I could find for some of the regulars:
Ruth’s spoiler t-shirt:
Caronne, Nigel and Ruth at dinner:
Matt Hodgson:
Stephen Hall:
Donna Maurer:
Andrew Boyd:
Stephen Collins:
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