Home....

I made it back home to Australia on Thursday 12th and back to work today. I'll start going through my notes an add some thoughts and reflections on the conference.

Some general thoughts first...
LIANZA conferences are amazing! I was lucky enough to attend LIANZA 05 in Christchurch, and it set a pretty high standard, which Wellington lived up to. The conference was well organised, the keynote speakers were excellent, and by good luck or good management the themes of each keynote speaker complemented and contrasted very nicely with each other.

The social program was good, and a few vendors I spoke with (who attend a million such things each year) said that NZ librarians are always a very social, friendly group.

There is a lot that Australian public libraries can learn from their NZ colleagues.
I hope the word gets out and more Australian librarians can cross the Tasman to experience either a LIANZA conference or a tour of NZ libraries.

Here at work we were first alerted to the status of NZ public libraries in 2004 when John Stanley and Fiona Emberton took a party of librarians from the USA, Australia and the United Kingdom on a library tour of New Zealand.

Since then I've kept an eye on developments in NZ and the two visits to LIANZA conferences have been great to build relationships and make new contacts.