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SLV seeks community feedback to help ‘plan for the next decade’

The State Library of Victoria (SLV) has launched a new community consultation program and is asking Victorians for their views and ideas about the library to ‘aid in its planning for the next decade’.

The ‘Your State Library, Your Say’ initiative is an ongoing project that will involve a number of surveys of Victorian residents. Victorians have until 24 October to complete the first survey, which can be accessed from the SLV website here. Visitors to the website can also submit ideas and feedback to the library, or ask the library questions.

A SLV spokesperson told Bookseller+Publisher that there is ‘no fixed conclusion date’ for the consultation project, which is a first for the library both in terms of form and scope. The spokesperson said the library will collect and analyse the information it receives through the first survey, and then design subsequent surveys to address key issues raised and the interests of different community groups such as children, non-users of the library and people living in regional Victoria.

SLV CEO and state librarian Sue Roberts said in a statement that the library wants to collect a wide range of views, from ‘people who use us now and people who have never used us’. ‘We are hoping to receive a wide and creative range of ideas and feedback that really explores what a library can be,’ she said.

Roberts said that ‘understanding the needs of the Victorian public was vital in successfully planning for the future’. ‘The library landscape has changed radically in the past decade and continues to evolve at an amazing pace,’ she said. ‘Being a part of that change is exciting. We need to understand what services and programs the community values and wants from us now and in the future. We need to plan to make them possible.’

For more information or to complete the survey, click here.

 

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Category: Library news