LIANZA members recently voted to pass a new constitution, which comes into effect from April 1, 2022. The association has been working since February 2020 to review its strategic governance leadership and organisational structure. Governance, advisory and organisational changes were been proposed and aim to position the association and its members for the future.
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Two working groups, five in-person regional meetings, and three online member consultations over July-August 2021 and two member surveys contributed to the development of the proposed organisational structure and new constitution.
 
Thank you to everyone who contributed to the review either on a working group, attending a hui or responding online. Thank you also to all members who e-voted over the month prior to the AGM.
 
The draft minutes of the LIANZA 2021 AGM are available to read here and the new constitution is available here .
 
New council roles
Under the new constitution there will be four elected councillors and two appointed councillors on LIANZA Council. The transition plan means that the three regional councillor roles for LIANZA Te Whakakitenga aa Kaimai, LIANZA Ikaroa and LIANZA Murihiku will cease from June 30, 2022.
 
Nominations for the first two elected councillors and one appointed councillor will be sought in early April, with elections closing in early May, 2022. The three regional councillor roles for LIANZA Hikuwai, LIANZA Te Upoko te Ika a Maui, and LIANZA Aoraki cease from June 30, 2023. Nominations for the next two elected councillors and one appointed councillor will be sought in early April, with elections closing in mid-May, 2023.

The Te Rōpū Whakahau Tumuaki will cease to be an officer of the Association from June 30, 2022 and the Te Rōpū Whakahau councillor ceases to be a councillor on that day too. The new constitution requires that one of the two appointed councillors has skills in Tikanga and Mātauranga Māori knowledge and allows for one appointed councillor to be sought from beyond the library and information sector.
 
If you have not checked out the summary of the governance, advisory and operational changes proposed by the review of LIANZA’s strategic leadership governance and organisational structure can be found here.
 
Future incorporation
This governance review has also been conducted to ensure our Association is prepared for the introduction of the new Incorporated Societies Act.  LIANZA is currently incorporated under the Library Act (1939). The new Incorporated Societies Bill has not sought to ‘repeal’ the Library Act (1939), but has made provision for our act to be amended. LIANZA members supported the remit for LIANZA to take legal advice about whether to remain incorporated under the New Zealand Library Association Act 1939 or whether to incorporate under the new Incorporated Societies Act, when it is passed into legislation.

Librarians of the world – unite! This is the core message and sentiment from IFLA WLIC 2021 presentations this year says Neda Zdravkovic, Auckland Institute of Studies Librarian. Neda attended the online conference for the very first time thanks to a LIANZA grant. She re-connected with her colleagues from overseas university libraries, institutes and organisations to hear about the key challenges all LIS professionals across the world are currently facing during the pandemic.

I am truly grateful for this fantastic opportunity to re-connect with my dear colleagues from overseas university libraries, institutes and organisations and hear about the key challenges all LIS professionals across the world are  facing during the pandemic. These are  issues of operational, acquisitions, research information management (RIM), resourcing, budget cuts, digital access, open access and resourcing, systems and practices that bring creative solutions and innovations in the library sector. But most of all – the wealth of opportunities for international and worldwide collaborations - both locally, nationally and overseas- brought about by the necessity to find fast and effective solutions in terms of funding, systems, resourcing and ensuring growth (survival?) in the future.

Knowledge sharing and professional exchange communities of practice (CoPs) are one of these collaborations and I have been fortunate to network and ZOOM meet with our colleagues from OCLC (US and Netherlands), from the Dutch Libraries (Advisory Committee from the Dutch National Library and public libraries) and CILIP (ECIL & MILA groups, UK) which resulted in recognising the shared need to learn from each other and for mutual on-going collaborations.

As a result, the LIANZA TELSIG Committee has hosted our very first webinar with our international guests Dr Rebecca Bryant and Titia van der Werf, both of whom are Senior OCLC Research Programme Officers. We are currently networking with Dutch Libraries and CILIP team to organise more LIANZA TELSIG webinars in early 2022 with guest presenters from the UK & Netherlands.Thank you LIANZA and thank you IFLA WLIC 2021 for this fantastic experience and the opportunities brought by the conference event. 

​Rauhine Coakley (Potini Ngāi Tahui) and Michelle Kupenga (Ngati Porou) are this year’s Helen Zwartz Scholarship recipients. The scholarship provides funding for librarians or staff working in a public library serving one of NZ’s smaller communities or Māori and Pacific communities, to undertake a residency at the National Library of New Zealand.

Rauhine is a community engagement librarian from Hokitika. Her role is funded by the National Libraries Partnership Programme. She’s helping to make her library a more bicultural space and to take Te Ao Māori programmes out into the community. Michelle is from Tairawhiti and works at the HB Williams Memorial Library in collections and customer services.
 
Together they recently spent an amazing and intense week in Wellington. “It’s been really eye opening, everyone’s really passionate about what they do here and friendly,” says Michelle.

Their week started with a mihi whakatau at the Alexander Turnbull Library with the Māori staff. The team had pulled out artefacts from the collection from each of their local areas. “That was a beautiful welcome,” said Rauhine.
They met with Cellia Joe Olsen and heard more about the Alexander Turnbull Library and Te Rōpū Whakahau. Their tour around the library allowed them to see a Goldie and Lindauer painting as well as some of the collection and the history of our nation. They visited Newtown Library with Zoe Miller and met with some of the younger team members, hearing about how they were engaging with their communities.

Rauhine says, “Our National Library visit was tailored on what we wanted to learn. I wanted to hear more about the Ngā Upoko Tukutuku, also the Māori delivery of programmes and what the library does in that context, and to find out how the National Library supports public and school libraries over the country.”

Michelle said her goals were similar. “We have a significant Māori community and I wanted to see what I could take back, what National Library does and how they do it. I wanted to find out new ways that we could work with our communities that might be successful for us.”

“I wasn’t aware of the schools programme before I came here, where they bring schools in to see Te Tiriti, whakaputanga and the He Tohu documents held here,” says Rauhine.

“We’ve been able to look at the rooms (I could call them halls) where the conservators work. We got to see the restoration of a really old book. Just seeing the amount of effort that goes in to preserve these books and paintings was amazing, the paintings they worked on looked brand new.”

“It’s really amazing going through all the different rooms housing these taonga. The rare books area – it’s phenomenal,” Michelle says.

“One of the storage areas we went into is kept at two degrees. You can only stay in there for 20 minutes at a time and you must wear a coat in there. That’s where they store the film negatives,” Rauhine commented.
If you love your job as a librarian Michelle and Rauhine encourage others to apply for the Helen Zwartz Scholarship in 2022.- The experience is amazing, they say.

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Rachel Esson National Librarian Te Pouhuaki with Michelle Kupenga (left) and Rauhine Coakley. Image credit Llewelyn Jones, Imaging Services, National Library

In June, $1.5 million was granted to a LIANZA and SLANZA partnership through the Department of Internal Affairs New Zealand Libraries Partnership Programme (NZLPP). This fund will be used to aid a qualification uplift across the entire library and information sector.

The aim of the funding is to upskill the workforce, attract new people to achieve tertiary qualifications and to ensure the workforce is qualified and future-ready, and positioned to demonstrate the value and impact of library and information services in Aotearoa New Zealand. A joint project advisory group was formed in late August and significant progress has been made towards achieving these aims. 

• Of key importance is appointing a funding agent to prepare and manage future grant rounds. The advisory group are in the process of finalising this agent to act in the role. 
• The advisory group is developing an evaluation framework with key outcomes to measure the success of the project and guide the development of the selection criteria and applicant eligibility.
• A warm thank you goes to Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, Kuratini Tuwhera - Open Polytechnic and Te Wānanga o Raukawa for engaging so openly and positively about this project.

 
Grants will be available to all library professionals and those interested in gaining library and information qualifications. Further information on the grant’s application process and selection criteria will be available early in 2022 with the first tertiary grant round aiming for Trimester Two enrolments.

The library sector is concerned that the Government has agreed to extend the term of copyright for another 20 years. Libraries foresee this having a significant impact on their sector.
 
New Zealand and the UK have reached agreement in principle on the key elements of a free trade agreement (FTA). The details of this agreement have still to be finalised and legally verified, and the domestic approval processes must be completed, but the FTA will affect copyright terms here once it is enacted.
 
“Copyright terms differ depending on what is being protected. Books, for example, are protected for the life of the author plus fifty years. This will be extended to the life of the author plus seventy years and a new scheme will be established to restore to authors income from copyrighted works that are on sold,” says Melanie Johnson, chair of LIANZA Copyright Standing Committee.
 
The Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA) has members from across the library and information sector and museums and archives.
 
“One of the costs to New Zealand of greater access to the UK for our primary produce under the FTA, is the extension of the term of copyright, for authors, performers and producers. This means not only books, but films and music will be locked up for a further 20 years after the death of the authors, delaying the entry into the public domain of culturally significant New Zealand works and the creation of new works based on those works. 
 
“The most significant cultural works produced by New Zealand artists and writers will be delayed from entering the public domain until 2040 at the earliest. Professor Roger Horrocks observed in his 2011 publication that it was only during the Depression and the Second World War that a critical mass was reached of serious thoughtful work in poetry (Allen Curnow and ARD Fairborn), painting (Colin McCahon, Toss Woollaston and Rita Angus) fiction (Frank Sargeson, John Mulgan and Dan Davin) and music (Douglas Lilburn). While Rita Angus is now in the public domain, most are not.
 
“Early New Zealand films, television and radio shows are starting to emerge from copyright. Locking them up for another 20 years will impact on cultural institutions without the resources to source permissions to use these materials.
 
“The impact of this on our libraries and library users will be significant. Australian researchers compared the availability of books in countries which had copyright terms of 70 years plus life, with countries such as New Zealand which had 50 years plus life. They showed that books are less available and more expensive where they are protected by copyright than when they are in the public domain. The result is that libraries are obliged to pay higher prices in exchange for worse access.[i]”
 
When looking into the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2016, the New Zealand Treasury found that the net cost of copyright term extension to New Zealand consumers would be $55 million per year.[ii] 
“Research conducted in the US has also shown that ownership of copyright by publishers does not ensure availability of works, rather works disappear after their initial publication and do not reappear until they are out of copyright[iii].
 
Extending the term of copyright means less New Zealand content will be available, say LIANZA. It will also exacerbate the ‘orphan’ works problem for collections of music, films and sound recordings, artistic and literary works in libraries and archives. Orphan works are generally works of little or no commercial value, but they can provide valuable pickings for historians and artists.
 
“It seems that agreeing to extend the term of copyright will come to be seen as a retrograde step if we heed developments overseas. Independent reviews, such as the Hargreaves Report in the UK in 2011, and the Productivity Commission Report in Australia in 2016 have noted the negative impacts of overly long terms. Further, reportedly the Authors’ Guild in the US has said it is against term extension and would likely support a roll back to a term of life-plus-50. This is consistent with research showing that term extensions only benefit copyright owners and not authors. 
 
“Given the Government has 15 years to implement the change, we can only hope that the  slow reform of the Copyright Act will result in the full 15 years being taken to incorporate this into law and to counteract the negative impacts on users and creators, an expansion of some of the exceptions to encourage the creation of new works by New Zealanders, says Ms Johnson.”


[i] [Flynn, Jacob and Giblin, Rebecca and Petitjean, Francois, What Happens When Books Enter the Public Domain? Testing Copyright’s Underuse Hypothesis Across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada, June 10, 2019). University of New South Wales Law Journal, Vol. 42, No 4, 2019, U of Melbourne’s Legal Studies Research Paper No. 878 Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract+3401684]

[ii] : https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2016-05/ris-mfat-tppnia-may16.pdf

[iii] .[Heald, Paul, How Copyright Keeps Works Disappeared

Public libraries and readers across New Zealand and Australia participated in the latest Together We Read digital book club. From 1-15 September, public library patrons enjoyed Australian author Chris Hammer’s award-winning crime novel, Scrublands, as an ebook or audiobook for free. Readers accessed the digital book exclusively with no waitlists or holds by downloading the Libby app.


“I love Australia’s and New Zealand’s libraries and I love book clubs!” Hammer said in a press release announcing the program. ”In these times of COVID and lockdowns, what could be better than an online, digital book club?”

The Together We Read digital book club connects readers through participating New Zealand and Australian public libraries with the same ebook for two weeks and only requires a valid library card to get started. This free program is facilitated by OverDrive, the leading digital reading platform for ebooks, audiobooks and magazines and creator of the award-winning Libby app.

A book club discussion guide and letter from Hammer to readers were included in this most recent Together We Read event. Hammer also discussed Scrublands as a guest on the Professional Book Nerds podcast.

Previous Together We Read titles have included:                                               

• The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone by Felicity McLean
• Cedar Valley by Holly Throsby
• The Love That I Have by James Moloney
• Once Lost and Worlds Apart by Ber Carroll

For more information visit https://togetherweread.com/aunz/
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