Major keynote presenters

Dr Karen Brooks BA(Hons) La Trobe, CertEd W’gong., PhD W’gong.
Senior Lecturer Australian and Cultural Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of the Sunshine Coast Qld.

Dr Karen Brooks will deliver the opening keynote address on Monday 25 September 2006.

Karen was an actor and an army officer in the Royal Australian Army Survey Corp before becoming an academic and, subsequently, an author. She joined USC in its inaugural year, 1996, and developed courses in popular culture and, eventually, the successful degree in Popular Culture. Published extensively in Australia and overseas, Karen is also a columnist for the Courier Mail, and a social commentator on local, Brisbane and national radio as well as working with Channel 7 Sunrise and Today/Tonight. She is also a fantasy novelist and her fifth novel was due out this year.

Ms Lyn Hay BA DipEd Macq, MAppSc CSturt
Lecturer, School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga NSW

Lyn began her career as a teacher librarian in NSW Department of Education and Training central and high schools in the mid-1980's before moving into academic life in 1994. Lyn's teaching, research and writing has focused on the role of the teacher-librarian in developing an information literate school community; principal support; integration of ICT in organisations; information leadership in schools; and information policy issues. Lyn has written a number of journal articles, book chapters and papers, and presented at numerous conferences both nationally and internationally. She is also the recipient of a number of professional awards including the ASLA (NSW) John Hirst Award and the IASL/SIRS Commendation Award.

The Inaugural Roy Lundin Memorial Address -- Tuesday 26 September 2006.
School libraries and student learning: Our challenge is connecting with kids
In the second half of 2004 just over 7000 students and teachers from 46 public schools across the states of Queensland and Victoria completed an online survey as part of the Student Learning Through Australian School Libraries' project. In this address, Lyn presents some key findings from her research, shares with the audience what students from Years 5 through to Year 12 had to say about how the school library has supported their learning, and explores the challenges ahead for the teacher-librarianship profession in meeting the needs of digital kids both at school and beyond.

Ms Narelle Oliver

Narelle Oliver will be one of the breakfast speakers on Wednesday 27 September 2006.

Narelle grew up in Toowoomba in a family who spent every spare moment pursuing interests in performing or visual arts. Her childhood trips into unusual countryside to gather ideas for artworks continue to inspire Narelle's exploration of natural environments in her picture books.

Her majors in design and printmaking for a Bachelor of Education degree, ensured her committment to the world of contemporary children's pictures books. Original illustrations from Narelle's books - including Baby bilby, where do you sleep? and Sand swimmers: the secret life of Australia's dead heart - have been exhibited nationally in group and solo shows. Narelle now lives in inner-city Brisbane

Behind the scenes... (workshop W2b)
Narelle provides an expose of the process of creating a picture book from first thoughts and inspiration through to research, storyboarding, editing, final writing of text and completion of illustrations. Following this, Narelle will discuss the many considerations and influences which affect decisions at every step of this process - market focus, visual interpretation skills of children, requirements of editors, and moral dilemmas (to name a few).

Burrowing bilbies, boom-cha-chas, and a flicker of feathers (workshop W3b)
A smorgasbord of hands-on learning experiences for primary students based on the real-life processes of writing and illustrating a children's picture book. Over the past 20 years, Narelle has written and illustrated 11 picture books (a number of these award-winning). With a Bachelor of Education and early teaching experience at the Queensland School for the Deaf she has also conducted countless writing and illustrating workshops for students in places as diverse as the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre, under a bark shelter in the desert at Harts Range, NT, Elcho Island off Arnhem Land, and Tanglin Trust International School, Singapore. In this session she shares some of the activities she has developed to assist and inspire students in areas of thinking, writing and visual literacy.

Mr Michael Bauer

Michael Bauer will be one of the breakfast speakers on Wednesday 27 September 2006.

Michael was born in Brisbane. After surviving school, he attended the University of Queensland where he enjoyed the social life while making brief and half hearted appearances in a variety of courses. After completing his Arts degree with a triple major in English Literature, Michael enrolled in a Diploma of Education and has taught English and economics at a number of secondary schools in the Brisbane-Ipswich area. In 2004 his first novel for young adults The running man was published and subsequently won the 2005 Children’s Book Council of Australia Older Reader’s Category. It was short listed for the 2005 NSW Premier's Award. His second novel Don't call me Ishmael! was a comedy set in an all boys' school.

Minor keynote presenter

Karen Bonanno, BA, GrDipT, GrDipTLib, MAppSc (Teacher Librarianship)
Director of KB Enterprises (Aust) Pty Ltd

Karen is the Director of private company, providing administration, management and clerical services to not-for-profit professional associations. The Australian School Library Association (ASLA) and the International Association for School Librarianship (IASL) are two major clients. Karen is a qualified teacher-librarian and has work experience in private and public secondary schools as a teacher, teacher-librarian and administrator. She has held executive positions in SLAQ and ASLA and was awarded the ASLA Citation in 2001 in recognition of her contribution to teacher librarianship in Australia. Her professional interests are information and knowledge management within professional groups, and information literacy in the learning community. Karen recently upgraded her qualifications in teacher librarianship and graduated, in 2005, with a Master of Applied Science (Teacher Librarianship) with Distinction. She was awarded the Capra Ryan Australian Teacher Librarianship Prize for the student with the highest grade point average for this course.

Information management and emerging technologies (Information strand)
Students of today are the natives of a digital, hi-tech, virtual environment that entertains and informs. Personal Digital Entertainment devices (PDEs), MP3 players (iPods), Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, laptops, TabletPCs, USB memory sticks, gaming devices, digital cameras are, for some, a digital toolkit. These devices allow them to access and/or create Blogs, Chat, email, MUDs, MOOs, MUVEs, Moblogs, Photoblogs, Podcasts, SMS, Wikis, Vlogs and VoIP. This presentation will focus on issues of information management and policy development as essential preliminary areas requiring immediate attention.

Last updated 16 July 2006