Traversing the traditional land and seas of the Wadawurrung peoples, Geelong Regional Libraries provides exceptional services across five local government areas. Read more.
Geelong Regional Libraries 2021
Western Sydney University Library aims to reinvent library spaces, collections, services and partnerships.
The Library Reimagined 2022 - 2023
A great regional city library now poised to stretch its wings. Read more.
Wagga Wagga City Library Review 2021
Read the latest from Project Sisu
The Sisu Salon Series offers three interconnected modules and an infinite variety of combinations. A targeted workshop here and there; an inclusive strategy development process; a service review or re-framing exercise. These skills-based workshops adopt a train-the-trainer mode.
My objective is to pass on, train, encourage and build confidence in teams of all shapes and sizes.
READ MORE
The Geelong Regional Library Corporation (GRLC) Strategy 2021-2025: Connecting and Thriving acknowledges and responds to the cataclysmic changes of 2020 and 2021. It celebrates and seeks new ways to support reading, learning, thinking, creativity, work, community cohesiveness and care for Country.
It brings to the forefront GRLC’s capacity to be an imaginative leader and partner in the region’s economic, social and cultural recovery.
Big Sky Libraries (BSL) is a regional library service comprising three north-western NSW shires: Moree Plains, Walgett and Brewarrina.
Black-soil plains and underground artesian water supplies have supported large scale cotton, canola, cereal crops, olives, pecan nuts, sheep and cattle industries across the region.
Opal mining around Lightning Ridge, hot mineral springs, abundant birdlife and significant Aboriginal cultural heritage sites support growing tourism opportunities.
The library is Wollondilly’s premier cultural institution. It is perceived as a lifeline, sanctuary, memory place and potential futures thinking hub. It is a trusted space and reliable partner in learning, practical skills, creativity and social connections.
Wollondilly Library Strategy 2020-2026 outlines what needs to be done to prepare for an expanded library experience as part of the proposed Community, Cultural and Civic Precinct.
It balances pragmatism with aspiration.
Opening in 1999, Wagga Wagga City Council’s $28 million architect-designed civic space, anchored by a purpose-built library over two generous floors, was ambitious.
The city library’s spatial design – high ceilings, generous light filled floors, expanse of windows and clear potential for expansion – has served the City well, although it still bears the architectural imprint of a 20th century book-centred philosophy.
The 19th December 2019 proved to be one of Wollondilly Shire’s most dramatic days, in a bush fire season that had already had its fair share of drama.
It was a hot day, 42 degrees; an angry red sun hovered above, shrouded by billowing smoke. The towns of Buxton, Balmoral, Bargo and Tahmoor had received catastrophic fire warnings. They were at the epicentre of the Green Wattle Creek Fire, one of the day’s deadliest.
Road closures were in place, and people were warned to avoid using roads in and around Picton.
Since it opened in December 2018, Oodi has welcomed over three million people. The 10,000 square metre building was a birthday present to the city to acknowledge 100 years of liberation from colonial rule, first Swedish, then Russian.
How apposite that Oodi looks out over a large civic square to Parliament House, an architectural relic from another era. This is the real ‘people’s palace’. This is where civic experimentation is taking place on an epic scale.
I spent five days at Oodi in September 2019.
‘If everyone can be creative, and if creative thinking and ideas already permeate Victorian public libraries, then what is The Creative Library? What could it be?’
In 2016, Creative Victoria’s Creative State Strategy was released. An investment of $115 million was attached to strategy implementation. Victoria’s 47 public library services were not referenced in the Creative State document. Not one cent of the $115 million available to “put creativity at the heart of Victoria’s future” would go to the extensive cultural infrastructure and programs embodied in the state’s public library network.
The Nambucca Shire is situated on the Mid-North Coast of New South Wales. From the coast to the hinterland, it spans the ancient and productive lands of the Gumbaynggirr Nation. The population is around 20,000, mainly Anglo-Celtic but with significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The Nambucca Library Service comprises two branch libraries; one at Macksville, the Shire’s administrative centre; and another at Nambucca Heads, a busy tourist town. Like the rest of the Mid-North Coast, the landscape is spectacularly beautiful.
‘History is buffeted by numerous variables; sometimes stationary, sometimes volatile, but always in flux.’
I wrote this sentence for Creative Melville, the City of Melville’s cultural strategy 2018 – 2022. It could describe the strategy development process itself. Working with a forward-looking team to craft a sensible and ambitious cultural strategy was a privilege. It took longer than anyone expected. We chose a highly participative strategy development process, involving everyone who worked in libraries, galleries, museums and arts programs, as well as broader community and arts-related groups.
People who inhabit the spaces between categories, who seek a form of creative expression beyond formulas, people who choose the road less travelled, invariably exhibit sisu.
People like Jane Siberry.
What’s the most radical form of civic inclusion we have NOT yet seen? Whatever it is, it will include public libraries.READ MORE
Of course, you can take the escalator from the car park up and into the cavernous ground floor of Dokk1. But, at least once, it is worth taking the stairs. Although vertiginous and narrow, the stairs afford sweeping views of Aarhus Harbour and the City’s ongoing reclamation of its waterfront. The crab-like ascension also gives you time to pause and reflect on the scale, commanding position, and ambition that frame this extraordinary public library and citizen centre. A bit like the external garden-facing stairs nestled into the Sydney Opera House, designed by that other Great Dane Jørn Utzon, climbing the stairs of Dokk1 feels like entering a temple. And it is a kind of temple; a 21st century temple to civic experimentation.
Using different words in place of our habitual corporate jargon can sometimes trick us into abandoning the knots that bind us to the same old thinking. READ MORE
Funding cuts, funding restored.
Joint ventures and partnerships that suddenly go sour. READ MORE
There are few municipalities in Australia as culturally and linguistically intense as the City of Canterbury. READ MORE
