SLA Social Science Division Blog

Conference Preview

DSOC has a great lineup of programs for this year's Annual Conference in New Orleans. Early Bird Registration ends April 9. Here is the list of conference programs for Monday, June 14. Stay tuned over the next couple of days for information for Tuesday's and Wednesday's events.

 

MONDAY    June 14, 2010

 

8:00 – 9:30 a.m.  DSOC Annual Business Meeting   Convention Center 221

    Marilyn Bromley, DSOC Chair

    Graciously sponsored by BNA, Inc. Ticketed event (Ticket #425)

 

2:00 – 3:30 p.m.  Labor Law for 1.1 Billion People: Canon Law     CC R08

and Catholic Labor Principles

Moderator: Larry Guthrie, Coving & Burling

Speaker: Father Sinclair Oubre, J.C.L., Catholic Labor Network

Father Oubre, a noted labor scholar, will describe how Catholic labor principles apply  in the 21^st century workplace.

Presented by the Social Science Division Labor Issues Section

 

 

4:00 – 5:30 p.m.  New Orleans Garden District Walking Tour

Ticketed event (Ticket #445)

Please check the Division’s discussion list or website for location information.

 

6:00 – 7:30 p.m. International Reception 

Meet at the Convention Center, outside of Lobby B

Follow the band –literally… from the Convention Center to Generations Hall, just a block away. Be wined, dined, and serenaded while you network with the global crowd. See the SLA Europe Information Professional 2010 Award bestowed. Party on!”

Presented by the Social Science Division International Relations Section; SLA Europe Chapter; International Information Exchange Caucus; Washington, DC Chapter.

Graciously sponsored by Dow Jones & Company.

 

7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Poster Session/Open House

Location: The Historic New Orleans Collections, 533 Royal Street.

Enjoy dessert or an after-dinner drink while viewing your colleagues’ poster presentations in the beautiful setting of The Historic New Orleans Collections’ French Quarter townhouse. The theme of the poster session is “Entering SLA’s Next Century: Let the Good Times Roll – How Info Pros Use Social Media or Social Events to Reach Out to New Clients.”

Presented by the Social Science, Museums, Arts & Humanities, Education, and Academic Divisions.

Sponsored by EOS International; John Wiley & Sons.

 

posted by Elaine Bergman with information from Lyle Minter

Kudos to member Brandy King on book publication!

Finding the Concept, Not Just the Word: A Librarian's Guide to Ontologies and Semantics

Many of you already know Brandy, our division's webmaster extraordinaire. She has taught CE courses on ontologies aand semantic search at several SLA annual conferences and has brought her profound knowledge of the subject to a book co-authored with Kathy Reinold and recently published by Chandos Publishing. Brandy is a librarian at the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston, MA, responsible for their website, blogs, e-newsletters, social media communications and maintenance of a taxonomy for all things having to do with children's exposure to media and its effects on their health and development. Even though the hardback edition of the book was published in 2008, it is newly released in paperback. Congratulations Brandy! Here is the Amazon link if you want to learn more or perhaps purchase a copy:

 http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Concept-Not-Just-Word/dp/1843343185/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

 

Submitted by Iris Anderson.

It's no April Fools Day Joke, April 1 is Census Day

As you probably have heard, the “long form” of the decennial census has been “replaced” by the American Community Survey.  The short form is alive and well, and now is the time to complete it.  While the 10 minutes it should take to answer the 10 questions is nothing in terms of civic responsibility, the Census Bureau’s newest tool can easily chew up more time than Farmville.  The Take 10 map (http://2010.census.gov/2010census/take10map/) shows participation rates by state (for now, presumably more specific data will be available soon) and allows you to compare from 2000 to 2010.

 According to the census bureau “For every 1 percent increase in the national participation rate by mail, the Census Bureau can save taxpayers $85 million by not having to send census takers door to door to households that failed to return the census form.”

If you are interested in more information about the American Community Survey (ACS), you may be interested in the Information Outlook article I wrote on this topic last year.  It can be found at http://www.sla.org/io/2009/04/688.cfm

Blog post submitted by Elana Broch

New DSOC members, Dec. 2009-Jan. 2010

Please join me in welcoming our division's newest members!

Kreg Purcell, Rockville, MD

Rebecca Altes, Pittsburgh, PA

Michele DeLia, Brooklyn, NY

Kim Edwin, Washington, DC

SLA Leadership Summit: Day Two

This is the fourth and final report from your division leaders who attended the SLA Leadership Summit in St. Louis, January 27-29, 2010.

Chair Marilyn Bromley reports on the second full day of the summit, Friday, January 29:

The first session on Friday was a presentation by PR chair Jill Strand on what she learned from  setting up SLA’s  Alignment Ambassadors last fall.  One important lesson is to make sure you have a clear vision and message, and train your ambassadors on delivering that message, while making sure they have the skills to engage the audience and allow time for dialog.  She said it’s important to be outward focused, listen to your audience, and pay attention to non-verbal signs (which can provide additional insights).

Liz Blankson-Hemens then presented five cool chapter ideas- all of them to be found in the Chapter Idea Bank.  Mary Ellen Bates was next – she highlighted cool division programs in New Orleans.  Some of these are:

• Your personal/professional brand and social media
• Knowledge continuity and opportunities
• Tenure: how to get it and what it does for your career
• Negotiating up: achieving your goals with internal clients
• Real-time search
• The science of hot sauce [on my must-attend list!]
• Ask the CI experts panel
• Negotiating content purchases

The rest of the morning was taken up with two Hands-On Experience Panels.

The first panel consisted of members of the First Five Years Advisory Council, talking about engaging new members so they stay members.  Each panel member (all active in their respective SLA chapters) was asked:

1. How do you recruit/retain new members?
   Answers:  Have a variety of programs, some just social to draw in non-members, follow-up with those non-members, mentor programs, speak to local LIS schools
2. What does your chapter do for new members?
   Answers:  Set up an active liaison program to the LIS schools with a recent grad as chair, have a recent grad be on the programming committee, award an SLA student membership at every chapter meeting, award one graduate with a full SLA membership
3. What advice do you have on the nominating process?
   Answers:  Start developing members early before you need to ask them to accept a position or run for office, be open about what the position entails and the Board’s expectations, reassure them that they have experienced members ready to help

The second hands-on experience panel discussed the process for creating/merging chapters, and creating a new division.  Members from the Philadelphia/Central PA chapters offered their insights on their recent merger into the expanded Philadelphia Chapter.  Then, members of the new Academic and Taxonomy divisions spoke on that process (petitions, funding, finding officers, program planning the first and second years, and more). 

At the Division Cabinet Friday afternoon we learned:

1. Alignment work will continue, with an alignment toolkit being developed.  The  Ambassadors will also continue their work, exact role to be determined
2. A task force will be created to look at SLA revenue streams and the allotment structure.
3. A Division structure task force (with Iris Anderson, DSOC past-chair, as member) continues to look at how new divisions are formed, the conference planning process, the division annual report, and questions of division viability.

There were no major issues to discuss or vote on at Joint Cabinet.  SLA was asked about progress on using Drupal for unit websites/contact management, and SLA Board member Daniel Lee said he will be working with unit webmasters to consider WordPress as an alternative.

The Summit concluded at 3:30, and I got to the airport in time to get home before the first snowstorm of 2010 on Saturday January 30.  Many thanks to the St. Louis chapter, our hosts for the meeting.  It was stimulating and fun (especially the reception at Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals)!