ACAL Conferences down the years

We are fortunate that many conferences produced printed proceedings giving us a record of the issues of the moment. We are doubly fortunate that many of these are readily available through VOCEDplus, the free, locally based international research database for tertiary education.

Cover First ACAL conf < Early ACAL Conference Proceedings were physical publications - printed, bound booklets - containing the papers as presented. They were perhaps kept on bookshelves and eventually cardboxes in the shed. Many of the early listed proceedings were actually voice recordings which where then typed up as transcripts, edited, produced and distributed. Years later they were scanned to PDFs and loaded on to VOCEDplus. These early PDFs may be printed documents subsequently scanned and are not necessarily searchable text. (Optical character recognition was another technological advance!)

Gestetner-ed!

They look like they were printed on a Gestetner using a wax-coated stencil which was typed on, the keys cutting the wax. The stencil was then wrapped around a drum on a machine, ink was pressed through the holes in the stencil onto paper fed from below, producing copies. It would be another 25 plus years before photcopiers where affordable.

Cheaper colour

2012 TCAL conf booklet cover Cheaper colour printing also impacted the physical program booklet. Often they had selected colour pages, welcome messages, venue maps, speaker details and session outlines. They eventually gave way to near paper-less events and sometimes a conference app.

Photos also jumped from rolls of film – to be taken to the chemist and returning a week later to collect them – over to digital cameras and easily reproducible quality photos.

And then there was the internet

We also had internet developments offering widespread promotion, communication, frequent updates and reminders and online registration. Behind the scenes, conference management changed enormously. However those new-fangled PowerPoints killed, or at least badly wounded, formal printed conference proceedings. Some events were videoed and the long-term record of the conference became a series of videos or PowerPoints/PDFs.

Striking venues and all the trimmings

Across the years we’ve had conference mugs, conference bags (long before a shopping bag was a common item), printed programs, sponsorship freebies, ‘proceedings’ on a CD, dress-up dinners and even a dance! Some conferences had vice-regal and parliamentary welcome receptions and pre-conf forums, others had unusual venues for a full sit-down dinner.

Here’s some venues we’ve been to.

Government House (Hobart)
Parliament House (Darwin)
Under the stars (Alice Springs)
Melbourne Museum (close to Phar Lap)
New Zealand
Mindil Market (Darwin)
Library at The Dock (Melbourne)
Adelaide Zoo (including tiger feeding time)

Which other ones do you recall?

What the … then along came COVID

The immediate impact was cancellation of conferences. Much activity moved online, webinars became more common. Zoom moved from being a word youngsters used when playing with toys to peeking into homes and offices.

What’s next in conference developments?

Do you know more?

Can you correct or add to this conference list? Contact us.

Pre-2000 links are generally to VOCEDplus, the free international research database for tertiary education. Later links are usually to ACAL resources – video clips, PowerPoints or extracts.

Here’s the list we have

Additions or corrections? Come on you must have some. Contact us.

1977 Canberra

First national conference on adult literacy

1978 Melbourne

Second national conference: ‘To produce teaching programs and policies for adult literacy services’

1979 Sydney

Third national conference: ‘Adult literacy the Australian way’

1980 Adelaide

Fourth National Conference

1981 Brisbane

Fifth national conference: Griffith University

1982 Hobart

Sixth national conference

1986 Adelaide

A Google search told us this

Google search ‘Tenth national conference focusing on adult literacy and tafe review 1986’

www.austlii.edu.au
https://share.google/rZFQdJjjAM89h37FM

SEPTEMBER 4-7 10th National ACAL Conference. The conference will be held at the newly opened Adelaide College of TAFE, 20 Light Square, Adelaide.

Do you have any more knowledge of this event? Contact us.

1987 Perth

Adult literacy – Bridging the distance

Do you have any knowledge of this event? Contact us.

1988 Brisbane

‘Literacy for living’ 12th National Conference

We only know about this through ...

… the State Library Queensland and Trove.

Ir was at Mount Gravatt Advanced Education College. Speakers included Justice Marcus Einfield, Dr Ian Lowe and Terry O’Gorman.

Do you have any more knowledge of this event? Contact us.

1989 Hobart

We know this from ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image)

13th National Conference in August 1989, coinciding with International Literacy Year, focusing on literacy issues, with a film titled From Grass Roots to Green Papers documenting proceedings, highlighting adult literacy’s importance and sharing strategies for skill-building in the “digital age” alongside other library/information tech conferences happening that year.

https://www.acmi.net.au/works/86729–from-grass-roots-to-green-papers/

Do you have any more knowledge of this event? Contact us.

1990 Canberra

Fourteenth Annual Conference ‘Adult literacy in Australia: towards the agenda for the 90s’

1991 Melbourne

Fifteenth annual conference

1992 Sydney

Sixteenth national conference: ‘The right to literacy: the rhetoric, the romance, the reality; University of Sydney

1993

This was the first cancellation until the COVID years.

Why was it cancelled?

From the 1993 Annual Report

1993 marked a deviation from an ACAL practice. A number of contributing circumstances informed the decision taken in 1992 that in 1993 the annual conference would be replaced by a series of State based forums that would investigate key issues in the field