Busting stereotypes

There is a fabulous video on YouTube featuring the song "My Generation" performed by The Zimmers [Released: 28/05/07] If you feel the need to challenge some stereotypes it's recommended viewing!

Financial information for Aussie retirees, or people who will be retiring soon

Australian Securities and Investments Commission provides information for retirees, or people who will be retiring soon. The website includes a range of useful calculators as well as a variety of topics including:

• Planning for retirement
• Getting a clear picture of what your current super fund offers
• Retirement income products
• Reverse mortgages and other equity release products
• Insurance
• Warnings
• ASIC research report into decision making at retirement

Go for your life!

What a fabulous title for a health and fitness program for the over 50's ... Go for your life! This is a Victorian Government initative and includes tips on simple ideas and activities to help older adults improve their eating habits, become more physically active and involved in their communitites. The tip sheets are also available in five community languages [Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Italian and Vietnamese].

Baby Boomers and the age wave

Australian economist, Ross Gittins has some interesting observations to make about the much maligned baby boomers and their effect on the imminent age wave.

"increasing longevity and declining fertility are the two dominant influences over population ageing... had there been no baby boom, population ageing would have started a lot earlier than it did, with the age dependency rate (the ratio of those aged 65 and over to those aged 15 to 64) higher than projected until the mid-2030s... so the main effect of the baby boom has been to defer population ageing and make its onset more pronounced."

For a fuller and much more eloquent explanation see Ross Gittins (2007) Gittinomics, Chap 10 "Our ageing population" ISBN 978 1 74175 0928

Boomers in the library

Beth Dempsey's article "What boomers want" in Library Journal [ 15/July/2007] draws attention to the opportunities that libraries must seize to effectively reach and serve boomer clients. When she says "Rather than believe our years are advancing, we boomers simply redefine: 60 is the new 30." there's a key message for both programming and marketing library activities - boomers may not relate to library activities branded in any way to appeal to 'older adults', 'the elderly' or 'retirees'.

Even more useful is her summary of "What boomers need"

• Help plotting retirement that includes work (maybe an entirely new career), volunteerism, leisure, travel, and continued learning
• Retirement extends to the business community at large—businesses need help preparing for the “brain drain” that occurs when boomers retire
• Financial planning and job training for women at risk of poverty
• Healthy living and fitness workshops
• Arts, culture, lectures, and programs for mental agility
• Genealogy and support in capturing life stories

What's in a name?

One of my 'hobbies' is chasing down the more positive terms used to describe older people in our communities and their engagement. When Active, engaged, valued: older people and NSW public libraries was published I deliberately chose the ambiguous "active, engaged, valued" to describe both the people and the libraries.

The US based Purpose Prize uses the tag "Leading with experience" but the best one I've seen was in the July issue of the Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association Newsletter - "YOPPIE" - A youthful older person positively interested in everything.

Super senior!

Olive Riley is the world's oldest blogger at a spritely 107 years young. Her blog All About Olive is very popular with about 10, 000 hits a day. Olive is an Aussie, born in the outback town of Broken Hill in 1889 and now lives in a hostel in Woy Woy which is about 80 kilometres north of Sydney.

Olive also co-directed a film with Mike Rubbo "All About Olive" (2005).

Mature employment options

Mature workers have much to contribute to the workforce, yet many still find 'ageism' is an issue when job seeking. There are a number of resources that target mature workers seeking paid employment or volunteer work.

• Adage is a careers centre and job board for mature age professionals in Australia.
• Fido provides a skilled volunteer search
• Australian volunteer search
• Seek volunteer
• Go volunteer
• The centre for volunteering (NSW)
  

Ageing is a verb

A new campaign has been launched by the Aging Services of California which highlights that "Aging is an active verb". It includes TV public service announcements featuring astronaut John Glenn returning to space at 77 and Mother Teresa receiving the Nobel Peace Prize at 69. One of the aims of the program is to encourage people of all ages to plan now to help ensure their future will be healthy, safe, independent and active. Learn more at http://www.aging.org.

Aging and spirituality

Almeda County Library ran an intriguing program entitled: "Aging and spirituality: my neighbor's faith" which focused on healing through diverse faith traditions. Perhaps it's an inevitable part of aging that we become more interested in faith and health?

Everything old is new again - or is it?

Public libraries have served older clients for decades, catering for their needs with large print, talking books, hearing aid loops and housebound library services. It's easy to think that the ageing of the baby boomers is going to mean more of the same.

But the real question is, will they be like the older adults before them? Will libraries have to adapt to a new type of "older client"?

These are some of the issues that this blog will consider, along with the services, collections, programming, building design and other ways public libraries are catering for the specific needs of older adults.