The Shire of Paroo, and in particular its libraries, is fortunate to have the caring, fire-cracker of a librarian Tammy on their side! Listening to her speak, there doesn’t see to be anything she won’t put her hand up for. Staff have transformed the Cunnamulla Library into a colourful, easy to navigate space running constant activities. The attendees at the RLQ workshop were rightfully impressed!
Also impressive was the way SLQ’s Katie plotted a course through the day – with no phone/internet service to start the morning, putting a kibosh on connecting with her team in Brisbane, whilst all the while contemplating how to circumnavigate flood waters to attend her next south west meetings! But all’s well that ends well…connection back up, awesome IT support, and coffee to be had 😊. In the words of Miranda and her mother: “Such fun!” (YouTube this good old British comedy!)
Participants from Paroo, Quilpie, Bulloo, Murweh, Maranoa and Balonne Shires (we missed you Goondiwindi!) attended this meeting. For those of you we meet around the traps who ask where’s that? Cunnamulla, Yowah, Quilpie, Thargomindah, Charleville, Surat and St George library staff shared Cunnamulla’s hospitality.
We learned of interesting new rollouts occurring now or coming soon from State Library – the new look PLC website; changes to reporting; RLQ wage subsidy; editable Love Your Library resources; digital inclusion; Aurora; great discussion on RLQ library exchanges. Of course, the networking opportunities are so valuable, with our south west rural librarians sharing what they do best – activities for the older members of the community both in the library and on the road; a new Kitchen Library in Surat; cooking demonstrations; F5F; sourcing grants; provide morning tea and people will come!!
Thank you Tammy and Katie – we learned and shared a lot, and had a ball in the process!
Melanie Mills, SW Regional Rep
