[LINK] Link List as a measure of Soft progress.

[Tom Koltai]

Tony’s announcement yesterday caught many of us by surprise.

I had no idea he was about to turn seventy, I though he was still a
sprightly 65


I personally am grateful for the original raison d'être email which
originated from Eric but was obviously a summary of the discussions from
the conferring library group.

As a check-list it is a valuable index to be able to measure “soft”
progress over the last 17 years.

As I looked down the list, I became concerned at the number of “X”es I
was mentally marking off the list.

> - Public access to electronic information/community networking
> - Effective access to government information
> - Intellectual property issues
> - Australian network support services
> - Standards/protocols development and implementations in Australia
> - Achieving communications infrastructure which will meet
education/information needs

Specifically:

Access to Gov Information
 And

> 3.	Intellectual Property issues
> 
> A difficult area as the interests of those in the chain may be in 
> conflict.  Some of you will have seen the Federal Government 
> announcement this month of review into the Copyright Act implying a 
> major new approach, so the public educational interest positions may 
> need to be developed fairly quickly.  This area has agreed to be a 
> priority topic for the new National Scholarly Communications Forum set

> up on October 12 as an outcome of the April Scholarly Communications 
> Conference in Canberra initial members are Academies, CAUDIT, CAUL, 
> CASL, NLA, ABPA, AS Authors, CAL Ltd., but other oragnisations 
> welcome, and a 'National Round Table is being organised by 
> ASA/CAL/ABPA next year on behalf of whole Forum.  Wide discussion is 
> important, but agreement may not be likely.  Recent AVCC report on 
> Ownership of Intellectual Property in Universities is also relevant, 
> and some lobbying needs to be done at AVCC level, and probably with 
> Schools authorities.

There would appear to be at least another seventeen years of work left.

That fact not-withstanding, it will be I consider extremely difficult to
replace Tony’s stewardship of the link list.

I have been drafting an advertisement for his replacement:

Wanted: Unbribable, uncommercial, apolitical, ex-academic, wanted for
non-paying job that ignores off-topic messages, minor flame wars and
expects no gratitude for the execution of the office of link list
co-ordinator.

Must have common sense.  [Damn
]
Apply in the first instance to Antony Barry [antonybbarry at gmail.com]

In the following format:

I think I could take over link because:

Shy persons should ask their mates to send an email to Tony stipulating;

I think XXX could administer Link because
...

I suggest that if only one nomination is received by the closing date
then that person be accepted.
If however several nominations are received I would suggest a secret
ballot with Tony as the counter, arbiter and announcer.

Now all we have to agree on is the Date
. Chinese New year might be an
appropriate List Co-coordinator inauguration day.