World Down Syndrome Day : high tea at the State Library of NSW

Extract from Julie Cromer's speech at the 2014 World Down Syndrome Day high tea, held at the State Library of NSW. Renaming of the Down Syndrome NSW library as The Julie Cromer Library Resource Centre was announced by the Hon. John Ajaka, NSW Minister for Disability:

"Our library has been growing for over 35 years and now houses a significant and comprehensive collection of books, journals and resources about Down syndrome. In fact the collection is the only major resource on Down syndrome in Australia, and numbers over 2000 items. And it has now been catalogued. 

You may well ask why the collection was not catalogued before? The library of DS NSW has never received any funding, not for staffing nor the purchase of resources: so we have creatively managed with support from a grant here and there and donations from user members. 

Recently, when Vice President of the Association I saw that the collection was in danger of fragmenting, so we had to catalogue this important collection, now, to preserve it and house it in appropriate library management software. So what was the way forward here? 

I phoned the State Library NSW. I was happily connected to Barry Nunn of Policy and Partnerships. Barry then contacted TAFE Sydney Library and Information Services Head Teacher, Jo-Ann Bathurst, who advised that two of their top cataloguing students had just graduated: Jillian Seymour and Yan Ling Fen who volunteered to take part in the project." 

We have just heard that Jillian Seymour has received the CreatIT Industry Achievement Award from Sydney TAFE for her work with us in the Library and has been nominated for the State Award as well. Down Syndrome NSW wishes to congratulate Jillian and thank her again for her outstanding volunteer contribution to our library.

Down Syndrome NSW e-Update: #1, April 2014