Current Projects and Reports
List of Current Projects
Annual 4 Q's Report
School Based Library Traineeships Project
Annual 4 Q's Report
Verve provides an Annual 4 Q’s Report to Skills Victoria, outlining the major trends and developments in the arts, culture, sports and recreation sectors and how these may impact on training needs. The material contained in the report includes both desktop research and industry consultations through out the year. To view a copy of this years report please click on the link below:
School Based Library Traineeships Project
Australian School-based Apprenticeships in School Libraries
Rationale
Verve through its research and industry consultation has identified that there will be a shortage of library staff in the next 5 to 10 years due to the large ageing baby boomer cohort currently employed.
According to recent ABS reports, library and information professionals are ranked highly when it comes to opportunities for ‘employment in growth industries’. However this does not mean that the profession is attracting young people and those that it does attract are not the right personality types. Additionally, library training has moved away from the traineeship model (the norm during the 1980s) to classroom based training and we feel there is an opportunity to revisit traineeships as they should overcome the issue of the wrong people enrolling in the courses.
During 2006, Verve along with Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and Jobs Plus Apprenticeship Services, undertook further research to establish the viability of using traineeships to engage a younger and more suitable cohort into library training. Our research indicated that this would be appropriate but in general there was a complete lack of understanding and confusion about traineeships.
However Teacher-librarians in schools do understand how the system works and also have an immediate need for trained and skilled personnel. The School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV) supports this initiative and through its membership can facilitate awareness and take-up of the initiative. Therefore it was felt that the best way to start was with school libraries.
The initiative - Why Australian School-based Apprenticeships in School Libraries:
- There are always one or two students in each year at each school that are interested in library work which when multiplied by the number of secondary schools (600) in Victoria makes it a viable program
- students are interested and are being involved in authentic learning projects with tasks that lead to future jobs.
- it is a captive market - the students are there and can be readily identified by teachers and teacher-librarians as having the right attitude and aptitude
- there is a shortage of qualified library workers in school libraries and will continue to be in the future, especially those that are 'digital natives' which is vital in this particular workforce, and
- there is a pool of willing supervisors in the form of teacher-librarians at schools
- there is already a model for delivering ASBA in schools (e.g. ASBA in IT in schools is a model that could be leveraged off).
What we are doing?
During 2008 Verve with Jobs Plus, ALIA, SLAV and Swinburne University will be piloting the project with a few interested schools. Once the project has been tested and tried, Verve will be seeking funding in order to run it throughout 2008 and 2009.