Vicnet awarded Australia and New Zealand Internet Best Practice Award

Vicnet, a division of the State Library Victoria, has been named the Best Diversity Initiative of 2009 in the inaugural Australia and New Zealand Internet Best Practice Awards.

The Awards, organised by .au Domain Administration in collaboration with InternetNZ, recognise organisations, businesses, groups and individuals that have embraced the challenge of making the Internet a more secure, open, accessible and diverse place for all users.

This prestigious international award recognises Vicnet’s significant body of work in promoting and facilitating use of the Internet by the many communities that have a limited presence online.

The judging panel reported Vicnet rated highly across all selection criteria. The panel specifically recognised the clear benefits of Vicnet’s projects for the community of Internet users whose first language is not English. They continued saying, Vicnet’s initiatives deliver outstanding benefits towards the promotion of diversity among the Internet population.

Vicnet manager Brendan Fitzgerald said he was ‘delighted Vicnet had been recognised with this award’.

‘Vicnet has a tremendous team working hard to help the diverse Victorian community access and engage with information technology. Being able to access information in a practical and understandable way is vital to building inclusive communities. I’m proud of the work we are doing in this area and honoured to receive the recognition of this award.’

Vicnet’s award winning activities include:

• The development of the MyLanguage, Open Road and culturally and linguistically diverse Senior Surfers Program initiatives which facilitate access and delivery of multilingual content online
• The Community Languages Online, New Communities Emerging Content Report and the Vicnet/ Monash University Translation and Technology Projects which researched Australian multilingual web content and recommendations on how to improve multilingual online communication across government
• The delivery of social inclusion information and communications technology projects for government including the Skills.Net Roadshow, and Public Internet Access Program

About Vicnet

A division of the State Library of Victoria, Vicnet helps the Library to meet its goal of providing 'access to information for everyone', strengthening communities through the use of information technology.

Vicnet enables people to access the internet and information technology. It does this by delivering programs and services for the community, on behalf of clients including government, corporate, community and philanthropic organisations.