The History Wars: Customer Service in Multicultural Australia
Synopsis:
Inga Clendinnen’s well-received Quarterly Essay entitled ‘The history question’ is used as inspiration to examine ways we can positively represent our culture to International students dispersing to our tertiary institutions. Attention is drawn to the relevance of libraries and as a consequence library customer service workers to the successful integration of the students into our way of life. An attempt is made to look at the difficulties International Students are facing and to also look at the sorts of customer service responses we can employ to facilitate their safe transition into the Australian way of life. Relevance is drawn to the fact that we do have a history we can be proud of; that this history can give us confidence in our interactions; and that sharing our histories is one way of overcoming the alienation between us and of developing good International relations over the longer term.
Objectives:
· To highlight our cultural strengths and how we as library customer service workers, can communicate this to international students contributing to their induction and welcome.
· To examine problems relating to the arrival of International students specifically from an international student perspective.
· To acknowledge problems experienced.
· To look at ways we can assist their integration into tertiary and Australian life, at the same time enhancing our own experience as library workers.
Intended outcomes:
To examine the International Student experience from an Information Literacy perspective and to examine ways of dealing with problems arising from their displacement.
To acknowledge the huge role academic libraries play in the social life and settlement of International students and how profoundly our attitudes can impact on their integration into Australian life.
To understand that we all have histories and that our histories are important to each one of us and that they are all different and that it is our histories that define us as people.
To improve international relations by improving the international student experience.
Intended audience:
This subject is relevant to all library customer service workers who deal with International citizens but most particularly relevant to those employed in tertiary libraries.
Activities for participants:
Although the PowerPoint show has not yet been devised, it is hoped to have a series of possibly 8-10 slides illustrating different aspects of the talk and with a proportion of the slides representing the International student body at RMIT.