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East Gippsland Shire

� Size – 21,800 sq kms approx 75% Crown Land

� Geographic profile - Mountainous

� Population – 39,804

� Demographic profile –affluent pockets

on the coast – severe social

disadvantage

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Executive Teams –

simply opportunistic or

impressively

visionary?

The Portfolio!

� Libraries – 4 static, 1 mobile

� Citizen Service – frontline

customer contacts

� Community Services

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The Indian philosopher and

the fish market

A Fish market..

� A meeting place

� A place to do business

� A place to exchange ideas

� A place to find out about things

� A community place

PerceptionPerceptionPerceptionPerception

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Library/Business Centres

� Lakes Entrance

� Orbost

� Paynesville

� Omeo

� Mallacoota

Community services:

� Home and Community Care contracted out

� Maternal and Child Health contracted out

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Some slightly different

building blocks….

The foundations…

� The Indian Philosopher’s perception

� The Library/Business Centres

� Position of advocacy and leadership in

Community Development or

Community Building

� Mindset

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Synergies:� Story time

� Youth program

� ABS,

� Lifelong learning

� Information navigation

� Access for all

abilities

� Volunteers

� Early Years Project

� Youth development

� Community profiles

� Capacity Building

� Community Information

� Access for all

abilities

� Volunteering

Asset based approach within Unit

� Strengths

� Linkages

� Opportunities for leverage

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Gaps:

� Skill level

� Understanding

� Capacity or time to do

� Technological insufficiency

Strategies:

� Re-structure to Re-position

� Un-encumber to create more time

for…

� Up- skilling and…

� Re-focusing

� Explore technological opportunities

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New structure

Community Building and Citizen Service

Community Library Co-ordinator

Community Library Collections Co-ordinator

Community Contact Co-ordinator

Community Information Co-ordinator

Community Engagement Co-ordinator

Branches

Operations

Manages collection and contract

Frontline

community contacts

Traditional library reference

On-line DB’s

Community profiles

Community

knowledge bank

Establishes links across council

Policy

Projects

Un-encumber

� Selection

� Purchasing

� Cataloguing

� Processing

Backlog…

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Up –skill and re-focus

� Electronic information retrieval

training in-house

� Community training for non-users

� Participate in our partners activities

seeking new roles in our

community

Technological opportunity

� Unconnected Remote communities

� Service challenges – geography

� Clarify our thinking on what we need to

do

� Better position ourselves

� To seek funding

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Joint ventures….� Young legends. Aboriginal Best Start

Program. Early Years forum and Early

Years Reference Group, Project “wot

tha”

� Gulliver database training for

community groups

� Board maker software training

Joint ventures…

� Buchan Bus n’ freight

� Positive Aging Strategy

� Our approach to Citizen Service is that we are a user friendly inter-face between the rather formal Local Government and the community

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Partnerships across Council

� Infrastructure

� Health Unit

� Economic Development

� Events

Partnership across agencies

� Kilmany Uniting Care

� The Gippsland East Local Learning and

Employment Network

� TAFE

� Gippsland Lakes Community Health

The Neighbourhood Houses to offer some great opportunities for partnering

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Measured approach

� The management of our Local Studies Collection

� The capacity to apply skilled search

techniques for information retrieval

� The capacity to interpret demographic

and economic data

� Cash handling expertise

Future Bairnsdale Library

� Gateway to information in East Gippsland

� Designed to cater for more needs in more ways

� Operate in a virtual space supporting remote community access

� Be a facility that community members use throughout their lives

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Critical Points

� Whilst preserving library capital we must be in a position to partner with others for improved service delivery

� Be prepared to vigorously exploit any opportunity for leverage

� Be prepared to Un encumber

To return to the Executive Team and the Indian philosopher!

They were prepared to accept a vision and see libraries as a

strategic opportunity. They didn’t

know the Indian Philosopher but they glimpsed the fish market !