Last night I attended my second Regional meeting of the ALIA National Advisory Congress (NAC). An improvement on last year’s, there were many more attendees. While I did think it didn’t quite stick to the desired outcomes (we didn’t pick a success story to send to Perth), I found that some of the governance discussions were quite interesting.

The association recognises a need for potential directors to have more experience in the running of boards, that library education needs to change, and professional development needs to be redefined. Meredith’s recent post on gender in library IT was still fresh in my mind at the meeting, and so it was great to hear the programmes run by Women in Technology recommended for those looking to attend events or upgrade their skills. The Institute of Public Administration (IPAA) was also mentioned as a source for skill development for those in government sectors.

Searching today, I also discovered Women on Boards which aims to increase the number of women serving on boards and skill them to do so. A few years ago I had the fortune/misfortune (your choice) of serving on the board of a Co-Operative for nearly 3 years. It was good on one hand to gain experience in running the co-operative and I got my opportunity to write policy, but on the other it was plagued by personality issues and the board did most of the work of the co-operative, which wasn’t so ideal. Still, should I ever have the experience of being on a board again, I’ll be much more aware of what can go wrong.