Joe Wible
Hopkins Marine Station

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Day 4: The Banquet 
It was a lovely evening in Noumea. The air slightly warm and a light breeze rustled through the palm fronds. I had watched the sky meander through its sunset colors, pinks and oranges, with the sinking sun backlighting the clouds. Beautiful.

I wandered over to the hotel where the annual banquet was to be held. We walked along the beach, hearing the oceans rhythmic shoosh of water up the sandy beach.  Along the way we passed groups of people playing planque – quiet chatter, the thump of the balls hitting the packed earth with an occasional clink as one ball hit another. Low laughter.  Oh so pleasant.

We were early so we hung out by the pool as everyone gathered. Finally Mary-Clare told us to be seated.  As wait staff poured wine, we were told a buffet awaited and we should help ourselves. As you know if you have been flowing these posts that we have eaten quite well this week.  This buffet was spectacular, a true feast – a true ocean feast!  

Two kinds of sashimi, whole crab, shrimp, oysters, green lipped mussels, salmon, sushi (5 kinds), crab salad, a beef salad, tuna tartare salad, deviled eggs topped with caviar,  potatoes gratin, green beans, white rice, rice pilaf, chicken with mushrooms, veal with mushrooms, fish with almonds, rolls and butter. 

Then the entertainment began.  Tahitian dancers who were AWESOME!  I’d like to say we all lost weight just watching the intensity with which they danced, but hat would be a lie.  The dancing was very engaging, in fact Ataban and Mark (Amy’s husband) got to dance with the girls and Kristen LaBonte and Jeanine danced with the boys.  But if you have any real questions, you should ask Vere as she has more intimate knowledge of the outfits being worn!  We admired the tattoos on both the men and women.

So full and then the dessert buffet was opened with cream puffs, giant chocolate filled macaroons, chocolate mousse, fruit tarts, fruit salad… But the HIGHLIGHT for our group was the entrance of the a BIRTHDAY cake with candles indicating 40 years and led by the PIRG members we sang Happy Birthday to IAMSLIC!  A most EXCELLENT celebration!!!

Humbly submitted by Kris Anderson

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Day 4: Wednesday September 17
Welcoming remarks from the current Officer in Charge of SPC lead the day.  He had been unavailable on Monday but so pleasantly made up for that today.  I was most taken with his point that innovation happens faster where there is lots of communication between many people and how much more difficult this is in the Pacific Region where there are small populations widely dispersed.  I also reiterate his point that climate change has huge impacts on lives so closely tied to the ocean.  

Moses Amos of the fisheries division of SPC was the keynote speaker.  He summarized the importance of offshore and inshore fisheries – while offshore may provide 90+% of a country’s GDP, the inshore fishery provides 90+% of the protein intake of the local populations.  16,000 direct jobs from fishery industry in the region.  The SPC fisheries division does scientific research, advocates for sustainability (including aquaculture), does stock assessment, monitors the fisheries, produces and dessimates information to all levels of users and management in the region.  A lively question and answer session followed the talk.

Guillermina Cosulich moderated the poster session – the posters are in the hall outside the meeting room but only one of the poster presenters is physically present – so Guillermina just summarized the posters submitted.  Kathy Heil was the only poster presenter to discuss her poster in person.  The posters were all very well done and we quite appreciate them.

Tea Break!!  Better yet, some last minute bidding in the Guin auction! Tea this morning included a platter of fancy little delights – some sweet and some savory.  One of the savory was a mini croissant with an itty bitty little sausage inside! Cute and delicious!! We were a bit shocked by one of the darling little cakes with fruit on top which looked so innocent but turned out to have a fairly high rum content!!! Meanwhile, back at the auction, I hope some more bidding happens today because I just realized how many items I’ve bid on!  Better go count my pennies…

Back in my chair to hear David Baca proposing partnerships with those persons or entites who manage the coastlines in our communities. They have created a repository called the Beach Management Information Portal.  As librarians we can offer research support and serve as a source of dissemination and storage of data and educational information to the public. Some examples are: reports, wading depths, history, sediment studies, bathymetric data, economic impacts, inventories, management plans.  If you have any or know of any such items for your neighborhood, contact David about inclusion in the repository.

Next up Kristen LaBonte explained a study she concocted and performed regarding data citation rates in GIS data in the marine sciences.  She talked about what data you should consider citing and why you should cite it..  Then talked about her study to see who, what, and where data is being cited in scientific literature.  Michigan State University library has a guide on how to cite GIS data. Kristen finished her talk with some ideas how librarians can promote data citation.  Contact her if you have questions or wait and check out her paper in the proceedings.

Last presentation of the day was Janet Webster, who with Barb Butler, looked into the present and future of Open Access (OA). There is no such thing as a free lunch!  Articles, depending on publishers, can be open (you can deposit to an IR anytime), delayed or embargo on OA, or a hybrid where there is a delay or author can pay and have immediate OA privileges.  Janet then talked about the predatory sites and publishers and introduced this site which attempts to track all such predatory and fake sites:  http://scholarlyoa.com
I was quite impressed that our friend Barb Butler has been elevated to a doctor and invited to be an editor by one of those predatory publishers – be sure and congratulate our pal Dr. Butler.  
This really is an interesting topic.  It’s not always feasible for an author to pay the publishing fees and it’s often confusing to even determine what author costs and rights will be.  As librarians, we need to be knowledgeable about the journals, about OA, and speak honestly to our constituents.
As an aside, Dr Barb Butler thinks we should start our own online journal of general interest on marine science to appeal to the public.  If you have ideas or comments, you should contact her at OIMB.

Lunch!!  Today we were blessed with chicken, a starch gratin – sweet yam, pumpkin, banana, potato – tuna tartare, stuffed tomato, rolls and butter. A tart fruit salad was the dessert offering.  So for third day in a row I’m stuffed!  Hope I can stay awake for the business and exec meetings this afternoon.

The Guin auction ended just before the business meeting.  The was a GREAT last minute scramble to get in final bids.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that  I didn’t buy everything on the tables.  I do know that I did NOT get the ketchup chips as David made a preemptive bid of 5000 cfc ($50US)!  After all the bantering and handling of product, we remember that this auction benefits a great service and Mr Baca those will be the most appreciated tasty potato shards in IAMSLIC history!!!

See minutes and reports for the wildly exciting 1st business meeting.

Second Exec Meeting, see the website.

Brian will be showing interested participants how to navigate and post to the IAMSLIC website and blog.  Joe will be demonstrating and promoting the Aquatic Commons. Steve will be showing off the Z39.50 database and Helen Wibley will be helping with folks with ASFA.

Humbly submitted by Kris Anderson

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Could it be because she will become “past president” in a few more days?

Joe Wible
Hopkins Marine Station

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City tour of Noumea on Le Petite Train

The tour of Noumea was quite fun and very informative. The tour guide had great stories and provided insight to the history of the country. The driver would toot the whistle from time to time and people would wave – this was especially fun when little kids would wave!

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Day 3: Tuesday September 16
Back at it, starting on time.  Today’s presentations are sort of a mixed bag of topics useful to librarians everywhere. Uh, true confession, I did arrive early enough to puruse the items in the Guin auction.  There were some new additions that tempted me to add a bid.  And those ketchup potato chips are still hot item.  I was chastised for not mentioning that the chips are from CANADA!! This is the official notification to IAMSLIC members that Canada’s contribution to our world good include: potato chips (ketchup and dill pickle are my favs), maple syrup, moose, squirrels, Mounties, and hockey (a sport which can not compete with rugby so Fiji and New Zealand remain vital to us as well).

David Baca was lead off speaker and told us about how their library provides writing assistance to students on his campus.  They do this by having student counselors do peer-to-peer training.  They use the TutorTrac software (http://www.tutortrac.com/subpage.php?go=tutor)
to track the service. It makes monitoring the counselors easy.  Counselors are offered flexible schedules and giving lots of training.  They take referrals from faculty and as a bonus the program helps build personal relationships with faculty.  They really promote the program and they have been successful In improving the writing and have the documentation to prove it.  Would be something to look into for those of us concerned about retention on our campus.

Next up Steve Watkins generated a discussion about about how to deliver digital content to those with poor or no internet access.  Besides rural Pacific Islands, research vessels were identified as experiencing such difficulty.  Steve talked about LibraryBox which consists of a portable wireless router and a USB stick to hold the data (aquatic Commons doc files =31GB and metadata records were harvested from the repository to create user interface tools). Cost for router and 64GB USB was about $70US.  He then did a trial where he had two routers and had half the room link to each.  We were able to link up. The data Steve had loaded was the contents and interface for Aquatic Commons and we were able to do searches and download articles.  Router could be used at any remote site and any updates could be mailed or carried on USB whenever needed.  Very Cool!! Ah the potential!!!!

Samuela Nakalevu instructed us next on the value IAMSLIC adds to our libraries.  I loved his explanations to understand the Pacific regions.  The ocean and the land are the drivers of life!  Travel is always a challenge but that too is part of life.  Open willingness to provide service to clients.  IAMSLIC has added networking opportunities, sharing resources, financial and technical assistance, participation increases visibility of home institution = customer satisfaction!

Tea break!  Excuse me, I need to go shop the auction!  BTW food was as good as yesterday, instead of pizza there were squares of egg & ham quiche.  I’m much revived by two cups of coffee as well.  Refrained from more bidding until lunchtime.

Now for a panel on IAMSLIC’s 40th anniversary!  Janet Webster, Joe Wible and Steve Watkins made up the panel. Steve opened with a presentation that mapped its way through the conference locations over the years.  Interesting to see how the organization started on US east coast and then expanded across country, on into Canada and then truly international.  Joe then gave a personal account of what IAMSLIC has meant to him over the years.  Janet spoke about the 2014 survey of the membership – we want to remain viable and useful and vibrant.  Then a challenge went to the group to throw out ideas on what we can do to stay viable but also to better at serve members.  If you have ideas you can contact any of the officers or post something here on the blog.  Looking for ideas regarding communication, training, capacity building, and resource sharing.

Auction!!!!  Gotta go push up price of those chips and whatever Joe is bidding on…

Lunch:  oh my goodness, I’m so full!!  Let me just start with dessert because it was awesomely delicious!  Light creamy dreamy puff of delicate mango yummyness with a few sliced almonds on top.  It followed stir fried mixed veggies, sliced pork, sashimi, shrimp, sliced meats, pickles, rolls and butter…all I can say is OINK!

Group photo taken, always a test of herding cats! Surprise surprise this was actually the most organized photo in IAMSLIC history! And you will be able to see everyone.

You all missed it!  We got to tour the city on “Le Petit Train”. I may have additional comments later.

Humbly submitted by Kris Anderson

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For you old timers, you may remember the flamingo shower curtain that was the hot item in the Guin Auction when IAMSLIC met in Iceland. This year the hot item looks like it will be the bag of ketchup potato chips.

It has been suggested that we allow proxy bidding for Guin Auction items.

Joe Wible
Hopkins Marine Station

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Day 2 – Monday September 15
Opening session in SPC 
After opening remarks, welcomes, and thank yous by Mary-Clare, Sally, and Guillermina, Franck Magron, SPC IT technician, spoke about the difficulties of managing and distributing fisheries information to the fisheries managers in Pacific Island nations.  While a site might have a library they may not have a librarian and many have no catalog.  So the researchers working there don’t even know what they have.  Proposing online storage and dessimination to fishery officers but have to consider copyright and limits on public release.  Questions centered on how to make the metadata publicly available and how/who outside SPC might access the documents.

Kathy Heil then explained the Guin auction, distributed secret names, discussed payment (Kristen LaBonte thinks she may have PayPal set up by conference end – we are so progressive!) and opened the auction.  Some fun and interesting items appear to be available.  First big bid was on small bag of ketchup flavored potato chips – 1000 cfp or about $10US!

Morning break: coffee, tea, orange and mango juice, platters of pizza and small pastries (Danish, croissants, and chocolate croissants). Yum!!  No need eat breakfast if can wait for morning tea…

Next session begins!  Lead off speaker is Stephanie Watt of SPC.  Great description of SPC library and their charge and accomplishments.

Stephanie was followed by Ataban Kapule from Solomon Islands, Ministry of Fisheries library.  Ministry of Fisheries mostly concerned with inshore fishery.  Ataban talked about how difficult it is to run a library in the Solomon’s as there is little internal support. They are currently having problems with their Koha catalog but are being assisted by technicians from SPC.  Their library burned but PIMRIS is their backup and has been assisting them with replacement of their collection.

Hannah Russell from NIWA, New Zealand was last of morning speakers.  In 2011, a review of NIWA focused on centralization.  All physical services and collections were moved to Wellington and admin staff at other sites were delegated to serve as library liaisons.  Staff now reduced to 3 and changed the LMS from Sirsi/Dynix to Koha with Ebsco discovery layer. Ah, the demise of our libraries…

LUNCH! We sure are being fed well!  Served buffet style on a covered outdoor deck: lovely whitefish in a light sauce, saffron rice with pineapple and golden raisins, coleslaw, a ceviche, rolls and butter.  There was a light cream cake was offered for dessert.  Burp

Afternoon session started off with description of the current platform for the digital platform Univers NC and the problems faced and dreams for future.  Isabelle Gasser and David Aymonin also talked about importance of collaboration.  Startling number of scientific organization in a country of 300,000.  

I’m very interested in PIMRIS so I was quite looking forward to Susana Macanawai’s presentation.  She didn’t disappoint.  PIMRIS is regional network of marine/fisheries libraries or information centers.  The library is a branch of USP Laucala Library in Suva.  Major partners are USP, SPC, FFA, and SPREP.  Foster collaboration!  Funding is from USP and proposals written by Susana to international donors. Job is communication & delivery. Staff in various countries are employees of their ministries of fisheries.  The collaboration with PIMRIS is above and beyond their regulR work.  Funding raised is used to train these people.  Opportunities to contact people, deliver materials, invigorate the network are identified by knowing who is traveling where or who is working where that the PIMRIS staff and members can contact to continue the work to strengthen the network throughout the region. “Better together”

  Break time!  What’s not to like?  More tea… And oh my, cookies (aka biscuits) but I’m still full from lunch!  David Baca is not what one might call adventurous as he wouldn’t try a cookie until someone else tried one and gave him a taste description.  All I can say is, ” Mr Baca, I’m done being your canary!”

Dorene Naidu from SPC brought us back from break with an explanation of the library twinning project that brought some specialized knowledge training to participants from Pacific libraries by librarians from various Australian libraries.  Training included new computer skills, repositories, disaster planning and visits to major Australian libraries.  Great experience for everyone involved.

Last of the day but certainly not least, Lyra Pagulayan who, while working on her library degree, is the sole source maintaining Fishbase.  She did a study to see which organizations in Phillipines are sharing resources collaboratively.  Results: libraries usually collaborate, join partnership on project basis, limited sharing resources, limited level of trust, and low level of communication. SEAFDAC is only institution really in a position to share.  Really well designed study!

PIRG meeting and dinner in the evening.

Brought to you by Kris Anderson

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For most members it’s quite a trip to arrive at the 2014 conference city of Nomea, New Caledonia.  However, it’s always worth the trip! This year appears no different as on arrival, all registrants received the gracious and exuberant welcome for the opening day events.  The SPC planning crew led by Mary-Clare Ame greeted us with Bon Jour and Bula!

Many joined the optional tour to the Jean Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center.  A short bus ride from SPC, we arrived at a gorgeous architectural tribute to the circle of life based on the 3 local regions and the 28 local dialects.  It was fascinating to see local agricultural resources, medicinal plants, and building styles and techniques.  The stories our guide Jorge added greatly to our visit.

Back to SPC, found a place for lunch and then I attended the first executive board meeting. The day ended with the opening reception at Chateau Royal where we had beverages, assorted hor d’oeuvres (I was most intrigued by the use of slices of pink and green jello as toppers on some of the tiny sandwiches as well as decor on platters.  I sampled both but sad to say they just tasted like sugar.), and a lively introduction party.  We were divided into teams of 3 and directed to find out enough information about our teammates to introduce them. We then gathered in a circle and introduced one another. It was quite fun and funny.

This report brought to you by Kris Anderson

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Forty Years of Sailing: Connecting Islands in a Digital World

Regarding our 40th celebration, special activities will be held. We invite you to join us personally or send a poster !

* There will be a Special Poster Corner for the History of IAMSLIC, open during the whole Conference,   for all those who would like to remember and share images and thoughts of people, moments, conferences, Guin Auctions and achievements, and to celebrate how IAMSLIC connects all of us members. This Corner will be especially dedicated to the retired ones and those that sailed from the very beginning of this Association.

Posters- paper version:

Option 1- bring the poster yourself to the Conference.

Option 2- if you are not attending the Conference, send it by snail mail – regular post office- but note it will take some time, so send it very much in advance addressed to: IAMSLIC Conference c/o Mary-Clare Ame, Librarian, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), 95 Promenade Roger Laroque,  BP D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex,  New Caledonia

Option 3- send it to a member who is going to attend the Conference and lives close to you (see list of attendees in the website).

 Posters- pdf version:

Will be included in the website once the Conference is over. Send it to: Guillermina Cosulich gcosulich@inidep.edu.ar

* Within the Conference there will be a Special Session on: Importance of library associations: IAMSLIC. We already have an oral presentation by Samuela Nakalevu from SPC-Fiji, a panel with experienced and active IAMSLIC members, and two posters.

Share with everyone your experiences !  Thank you!

On behalf of the planning committees, Guillermina Cosulich, Conference Convener;
Mary-Clare Ame, Local Host; Sally Taylor, IAMSLIC President

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