by Rob Penfold | Jan 5, 2026 | Events
📔 Event Description
Join ALIA HLA and VHLC (Victorian Health Libraries Consortia) for an insightful session on navigating the complex world of publisher negotiations. Learn practical approaches to securing better deals, managing costs, and building strong partnerships that benefit your health library and community. Whether you’re new to negotiations or looking to refine your skills, this event will provide actionable tips and real-world examples to help you achieve the best outcomes.
🎁 Presenters
Cass Gorton – VHLC & Monash Health
John Prentice – VHLC & ANZCA
Juliet Marconi – SA Health
Gnana Segar – Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District
Cass is the Manager – Access and Discovery at Monash Health Library and the Chair of the Victorian Health Libraries Consortium (VHLC). Cass has a background in librarianship, archives, and records management in health, government, and higher education.
John has been the library manager at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists for over 9 years, and has been a VHLC committee member for much of that time working on deals with Springer, McGraw-Hill, Taylor and Francis and Elsevier. In a previous life at Victoria University he worked on licensing as part of the library e-services team.
Juliet is the Knowledge Manager for SA Health Library Service (SAHLS), responsible for the strategic directions for the Service and enterprise-wide procurement of online resources. Juliet rejoined SA Health in March 2021 when she returned from Cairns, Queensland. She joined the SAHLS team as Manager Library Services for the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network team in late 2022. Juliet was permanently appointed to the SAHLS Knowledge Manager role in January 2025. Since qualifying as a librarian, Juliet has worked in various health library management roles within both South Australia and Queensland, including project management roles in digital health, online services and information & knowledge management services. She is passionate about strategic planning and empowering staff to achieve their professional goals.
Gnana was educated in India and possesses 36 years of experience across three countries. He has dedicated his career to the evolution of Academic and Hospital libraries. Gnana is a specialist in leveraging technology to bridge the gap between complex information and user engagement. His career highlights include leading the creation of the first union catalogue across five universities and implementing the first open-source catalogue within NSW Health. His mission is to champion evidence-based clinical decision-making by providing timely, high-impact information services. Alongside his team, he focuses on empowering health practitioners with the skills to find, appraise, and apply research. By ensuring the best research is at the fingertips of those who need it, they directly contribute to superior patient outcomes and the long-term vision of healthy people and resilient communities.
✅ ALIA HLA Competencies
C3: Resources
C5: Digital, ehealth & technology
View HLA Competencies
🕑 When
Wed 25 Mar 2026
1-2 pm (Vic/NSW/TAS/ACT) / 12-1 pm (QLD) / 12:30-1:30 pm (SA) / 11:30am-12:30 pm (NT) / 10-11 am (WA) / 3-4 pm (NZ)
🗺️ Where
Online webinar Zoom – a link will be sent the day prior.
This event will be recorded and sent to attendees following the event.
💵 Cost
ALIA Members – Free (one of 14 reasons to consider HLA membership)
Non-Members – $30
📝 Register
Register / Additional Information
🧗♀️ Professional Development
One CPD hour towards Health Professional Development Scheme
by Rob Penfold | Dec 8, 2025 | Events
📝 Event Description
Looking to level up your grey literature skills? This interactive event brings health librarians together to:
* Share practical strategies
* Explore real-world examples
* Discuss challenges in finding and using grey literature
You’ll gain actionable techniques to:
* Improve your searches
* Enhance your training sessions
* Deliver better results for your clients
Connect with peers, learn proven approaches, and walk away with tools you can implement immediately
🗣️ Presenters
Rachel Davis & Sonny Chandra – Canberra Health Services Library
Rachel is a Senior Client Services Librarian at Canberra Health Services Library. Having moved to health libraries after 15 years in public libraries, her passion is empowering people through critical literacies, quality information and lifelong learning. Rachel draws on her background in government and library services to navigate complex information landscapes, including grey literature.
Sonny brings over 26 years of experience in library services across Fiji and Australia, with a strong focus on academic and special libraries. His expertise includes library leadership and management, digital and information literacy, teaching, training, and research support. A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Sonny is passionate about enhancing learner engagement and interaction. He specializes in designing, delivering, and evaluating library training programs that empower learners and improve learning outcomes.
✅ ALIA HLA Competencies
C2: Reference and Research Services
C6: Health Literacy and Teaching
C7: Health Research
View HLA Competencies
🕐 When
Wed 18 Feb 26
1:00-2:00 pm (Vic / NSW / Tas / ACT)
12:00-1:00 pm 👑 QLD / 12:30-1:30 pm 🍷 SA / 11:30-12:30 pm 🐊 NT / 10:00-11:00 am 🐟 WA / 3:00-4:00 pm 🥝 NZ
🌐 Where
Online webinar Zoom – a link will be sent the day prior.
This event will be recorded and sent to attendees following the event.
💲 Cost
ALIA Members – Free (👉 one of 14 benefits of HLA Membership)
Non-Members – $30
🖥️ Register
Register
Additional Information
🧗♀️ Professional Development
One CPD hour towards Health Professional Development Scheme
by Rob Penfold | Oct 29, 2025 | Events
🐘 Event Description
In this session, we’re shining a spotlight on the creative and impactful ways hospital libraries are reaching out to their communities. You’ll hear from passionate professionals who are doing fantastic work through pop-up libraries and outreach services in their health settings. Each speaker will share their unique approach—how they’ve brought library services beyond traditional walls, connected with staff in new ways, and made health information more accessible and engaging.
Whether you’re looking for inspiration, practical ideas, or just curious about what’s possible, we hope you come along and learn from others and share your own successes with us all.
📢 Presenters
- Cherish Mcdonald – Hunter New England Local Health District
- Megan Giles & Sue Bethune – Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service
- Michelle Pitman – Grampians Health
Cherish a wearer of multiple hats, she can wax an eyebrow (was a beauty therapist in a past life) while doing a literature review (poorly, area of PD) and whip up a smart-looking CANVA graphic to market library services. Cherish is passionate about equity of access to health information and library services, a good espresso, the collection and maintenance of organisational history, and library marketing. She recently completed a Master of Library & Information Science at CSU, and is on the organising committee for the Hospital Librarians COP. Most importantly, she has an honorary PhD in snack collection for her two chaotic children and French bulldogs, in the words of Em Rusciano, a “maximalist power queen” and very tired.
Megan is a librarian with a special interest in hospital librarianship, committed to partnering with clinicians, students and partner organisations to enable improved health outcomes through evidence-based practice, research and collaboration. Coupled with extensive experience as a psychologist (organisational) and health professional, she is passionate about creating a welcoming learning environment, enabling access to contemporary evidence, and leveraging ‘teachable moments’ to build capacity and confidence amongst library clients.
Sue is a passionate health sciences librarian who uses her extensive background in education to foster self-efficacy and independent learning in library clientele. This is achieved through recognition that all learning environments must be non-threatening, relaxed, and based on hands-on activities if new skills and ideas are to be embedded. Sue particularly enjoys the intricacies of specialised librarianship and has worked in law, music, health and university libraries.
Michelle qualified as a late-in-life librarian from Curtin University in 2019 and has worked at the Horsham campus of Grampians Health since November that year. This role has her straddling the vicissitudes of being, simultaneously, a “solo” librarian, while also being part of the library team at the Ballarat campus. She’s however, very grateful for this support or it would get very challenging very quickly! Her professional interests are library marketing, health history and generative artificial intelligence in health and scholarly communications. Her personal interests are her cat ‘Lola’, sourdough bread making, reading Sci-Fi & epic fantasy novels and watching endless YouTube chateau renovation channels!
✅ ALIA Competencies
C2: Reference and Research Services
C6: Health Literacy and Teaching
🕐 When
Wednesday, 26 November 2025
1:00-2:00 pm (VIC / NSW / TAS / ACT)
12:00-1:00 pm (QLD)
12:30-1:30 pm (SA)
11:30-12:30 pm (NT)
11:00-12:00 (WA)
3:00-4:00 pm (NZ)
🌏 Where
Online webinar Zoom – a link will be sent the day prior.
This event will be recorded and sent to attendees following the event.
💲 Cost
ALIA Members – Free
Non-Members – $25
✍ Register
Register | Additional information
by Rob Penfold | Oct 21, 2025 | Events
👉 The webinar will be recorded so registrants can view later / Not an HLA event
📝 Register
Speaker: Dr Farhad Shokraneh
This free session will delve into the most recent developments in the field of using AI in evidence synthesis, highlighting the gaps between research and practice. The session will include a summary of research, useful tools with brief practical points, guidance on responsible use, and reporting guidelines. Since it is expected that most participants will have expertise in library and information science, there will be a greater focus on using AI in information retrieval for systematic reviews.
Health Technology Assessment international (HTAi) Information Retrieval Group (IRG)
by Rob Penfold | Oct 21, 2025 | News
The latest issue of JoHILA is now available, with articles on:
🎓 Doing a PhD
👑 Prince Charles Hospital Library
🏥 Hospital history project
& more
Like to be published by writing up a project / improvement / process / anything of interest to health librarians?
Send an email to Daniel McDonald who will guide you through the process
