SLA Heart of America Blog

Save the Date: November 9th!

HOA Annual Dinner and Business Meeting 

This year, we’ll have even more surprises than last year’s annual meeting! Back by popular demand is a catered dinner and a dynamic guest speaker from the University of Missouri- Columbia. Formal invitations will go out to HOA members during September, but here are the basic details: 

Theme: Intellectual Freedom in Special Libraries

 
Location: Californos in Westport
4124 Pennsylvania, Kansas City, MO 64111

Start time: 6:00-7:00 Networking (appetizers & cash bar) and Silent Auction
Dinner: 7:00-7:45 Salad, entree, and dessert
Business Meeting: 7:45 - 8:00
Speaker: 8:00 – 8:45 Dr. Charles Davis (see below)
Door Prizes: 8:45 - 9:00

Cost: Members $40, Guests/Nonmembers $50, Students $30

Registration details will be announced in a subsequent posting. 

Dr. Charles Davis is Associate Professor of Journalism Studies at Mizzou and Facilitator of the Media of the Future Initiative for Mizzou Advantage. Davis' scholarly research focuses on access to governmental information and media law. He has published in law reviews and scholarly journals on issues ranging from federal and state freedom of information laws to libel law, privacy and broadcast regulation.
Davis has been a primary investigator for a research grant from the James S. and John L. Knight Foundation for the National Freedom of Information Coalition and another from the Rockefeller Family Fund for the study of homeland security and freedom of information issues. In 2010, Davis spoke at the Missouri Library Association’s annual conference on “Information and Media Freedom”.

The silent auction will feature some special items donated by HOA members, and a list will be available soon. Proceeds will go to educational programming and leadership training. If you would like to donate an auction item, please contact Ashley Fick, HOA Vice President.

Mary Odom
HOA President

Mining Public Records

How to find everything there is to know about “Mr./Ms. X”

SLA 2011 Conference presentation By Bridget Gilhool and Jennifer McMahan 

I went to this session at the annual SLA conference to find resources on real property records because my library supports the people that actually create all of the public real property records in the country. I gleaned much more from the session than I expected and have summarized the major points below:

There are a variety of free and fee resources for finding the following records:

• birth and death
• marriage and divorce
• social security numbers
• addresses including former ones
• property owned
• professional licenses
• corporate affiliations
• court filings
• web sites and email addresses
• colleges attended
• news media coverage
• voter registration
• campaign contributions
• criminal convictions
• and so much more!

I was impressed with the long list of resources for finding company and charity organization information too, including tax returns of nonprofits. (free resource: Foundation Center) If you want to vet an expert witness, or find an unpublished phone number, or get a list of excluded contactors with which the government has been barred from doing business, go to the presenters’ “Resource Guide” and check out all of the links to these and other resources. The slides are also available on web site of the Government Division of SLA.

Here’s what I will be using to find Real Property Records:

NETR Online http://publicrecords.netronline.com/  Property tax assessors have the most complete information! (Thank an assessor today. Does it show that I'm the librarian at the International Association of Assessing Officers)

Vision Appraisal http://www.visionappraisal.com/databases/  These databases have the New England states by city. (Data is also provided by assessors and is the most complete available!)

Public Records Directory  http://publicrecords.onlinesearches.com/

If you know of a great resource for finding public records, please share it with us in the comments below!

Mary Odom
Heart of America Chapter President

Creating Client LUV Summary

What “Phenomenal Results” Look Like 

This presentation by Mary Ellen Bates at SLA 2011 Annual Conference was sponsored by the Solo Division, Legal & Management Division, and the KM Division 

Client loyalty is established when expectations are managed upfront and deliverables consistently meet and exceed those expectations. If you missed Mary Ellen Bates’ presentation, she has posted it on her website along with many of her other excellent presentations. Here are the main points she covered:

•  A value-added deliverable starts at the beginning of your transaction with the client. During the interview process, get to the “why” of the research question. Ask the client “What’s the ultimate purpose of this project?” and “What can I do to help you get there?”
• Then after you do the research, make sure you leave time for analysis and packaging your results. Look for patterns, trends, gaps, outliers, and make judgments based on your findings. Distill the information down into the core data and play around with various formats to organize it.
• Summarize results in as visual a way as the client wants. For instance, use presentation slides, spreadsheets, graphs, charts, and executive summaries on a branded template that you’ve created for your library. The Future Ready Toolkit on the SLA website has examples and templates in the Tools section.
• Other structured output formats that you can use are the SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats, or try using the Five Forces Analysis to determine the attractiveness of a particular market.
• Include a cover letter with a description of the project and the next steps.
• Stretch yourself in creating a bank of samples and templates that you have branded and stored for creating the WOW-factor that keeps your clients coming back for more.

I was challenged to re-evaluate my services to clients and to restructure my time to allow for the type of presentation that will create loyalty.

By Mary Odom, MLS
Heart of America Chapter President