Its been a few weeks since the SLA Annual Conference in Washington, DC, and I'm sure some of you are still playing catch up at the office. It was a great conference, filled with informative sessions, plenty of chances to talk to the vendors, and great event, including the Mid-Atlantic Chapters Reception!
Check out photos from the conference at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30762689@N05/sets/72157620766041012/
I attended the 31st Annual SALIS Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia on May 5 – 8, 2009. The annual conference is an opportunity for this small, specialized group of librarians working in the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs (ATOD) field to hear about research and other developments from experts in the field and to network with librarians and other professionals who share their mutual research focus. Sessions were held at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and the conference included a tour of Nova Scotia’s Legislative Library in historic Province House and a personal tour and dinner at Pier 21, Canada’s equivalent of Ellis Island.
The conference included a panel presentation, “Web 2.0: Let’s Get Social!” which highlighted innovative ways SALIS members are using social networking tools in their libraries and professional organizations. My presentation titled “Blogs: Creating an Online Newsletter” http://salis2009web20blogpresentation.blogspot.com/ described how blogs are increasingly being used as replacements and/or supplements for print newsletters. I used SLA Maryland Chapter’s Blog as one of my case studies to illustrate the rationale and process of a successful transition. Among the success factors I noted were: the president’s recognition of the potential of the medium, making the decision, and shepherding the process; appointing a chair to lead an ad hoc committee and letting her take the lead, and who in turn facilitated group participation and let the group decide how they wanted to contribute and how and when to meet. As a result, the blog was quickly implemented and has proven to be a successful and timely communication tool for the quarterly newsletter it replaced; it was announced in April 2008 and the first post followed in May.
In order to include a variety of tools, conference presentations were allotted fifteen minutes each. As I was doing my background research and creating the presentation, I quickly realized that I was going to have much more than fifteen minutes worth of material. I was mulling over how I was going to trim my presentation while keeping the background information I had discovered when I realized the answer was obvious – create a blog! There were a number of advantages of using the blog format as my presentation platform; I was able to include background information that puts Web 2.0 in historical context, links to 23 things-style sandboxes, and bibliographic references that my limited time-frame wouldn’t allow me to highlight during the presentation, and I was able to refer to this sidebar information when the audience asked questions. Another advantage was that the presentation would be available online and participants would be able to access it at any time after the conference without the necessity of taking extensive notes. In addition, it would demonstrate how simple it is to use commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) tools to create a blog. I used Google’s Blogger and incorporated a few widgets/gadgets that illustrate how easily the layout can be customized to include supplemental material in sidebars that can be explored in a non-linear fashion. For example, because of limited time, I opted not to show the Common Craft video “Blogs in Plain English” during my presentation, but because I created the presentation using blog software, I directed attendees to the Web where they could find it easily to view at their convenience. Other sidebar items include a bibliography and a list of books on LibraryThing where conference participants can scan citations of relevant references they may be interested in obtaining.
The Web 2.0 panel was an informative session where presenters shared the inventive ways they are using social networking technologies to enhance library services within their library communities.
In addition to consuming information, I enjoyed the world’s best ice cream (according to Tauck World Discovery) at Cows, just a few blocks from the conference venue.
Reported by Pamela Scheuermann, Chapter Member and The Cutting Edge logo/header designer
The SLA in Virtual Worlds Advisory Council invites us all to join Janice Lachance, CEO of SLA, and Gloria Zamora, SLA President,
for a "post-conference unconference" at the SLA space in Second Life! Chat with them and other of us SLA members about the highlights of the SLA
2009 Conference. Here's a unique, post-conference chance to share what you learned at SLA 2009, or ask questions about the conference if you were not able
to attend!
Getting started: Haven't been into Second Life (SL) yet? This is a great reason to jump in and join the conversation! The SLA in Second Life wiki has a helpful section on what you need to do to get started: how to get an avatar, how to get to the SLA space in Second Life, how to download the software, how to join the SLA Group in Second Life (Special Libraries Assoc. in SL), etc. See http://wiki.sla.org/display/SLASECONDLIFE/Getting+started+in+Second+Life
Second Life help: Members of the SLA in Virtual Worlds Council will be in Second Life one hour prior to the session on the 26th to help you with some Second Life basics, answer any questions, etc. Drop by the SLA Site in Second Life as early as 7am SLT (7am PT / 10am ET) if you need some additional help prior to the session.
We hope to see you there!
Sean Henry
(relaying/repackaging the invitation from the SLA in Virtual Worlds Advisory Council)
Coming to SLA?
You won't want to miss the SLA Mid-Atlantic Chapters Reception on Tuesday, June 16, (8:00 PM - 11 PM) in the Congressional Hall B at the Renaissance Washington DC Hotel (across the street from the Convention Center).
The Maryland Chapter has a special sign-up offer for information/library students. Sign up in person during the reception and you will be eligible to attend the Maryland Chapter's stimulating programs for FREE (a $35 per program benefit) until the end of 2009. Upcoming programs include a visit to the National Electronics Museum in October and a Holiday Gathering in December with two guest speakers: Janice LaChance, Executive Director of SLA and Susan Fifer-Canby, the Chapter Cabinet Chair of SLA. We look forward to meeting you at the reception.
For more information contact Judith Tapiero at judith@theorganizedlibrary.com.
Enhance your career skills! Meet great people! Have fun while giving back to your profession! Volunteer a few hours of your time to your SLA Maryland Chapter!
Our chapter’s 2009 Nominations Committee is looking for volunteer leaders to fill the following Executive Board positions starting in January 2010:
These are all elected, voting positions on the Executive Board of our Chapter.
President-Elect
Description
This is a one year position that actually takes 3 years. The first year you learn the in’s and out’s of being President while leading the Program Committee. The 2nd year, you are President (hurray!). The third year you mentor the incoming President, participate in chapter business as Past-President, and lead the Nominations Committee. Throughout this time you attend Board meetings (most of which are conference calls) and Chapter programs, provide input on issues, and assist with guiding the chapter’s business. The official term of office is three years: January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2012.
Here’s how the years fly by:
2010 - President-elect and Program Chair
2011 - President
2012 - Past President and Nominations Chair
Obligations
As the President-elect and President, you are asked to represent our chapter at 2 SLA events: the SLA Annual Conference in June and the Leadership Summit in January.The 2010 SLA Leadership Summit is in St Louis, in January, and annual the 2010 annual conference is in New Orleans in June. The 2011 Leadership Summit location has not been determined, however the 2011 SLA annual conference will be in Philadelphia. Both the President-elect and President of all SLA chapters are required to attend both the SLA Annual Conference and the Leadership Summit. These meetings provide an excellent opportunity to grow in your job, get invaluable leadership training, and network with your peers. The Maryland chapter will help defray reasonable receipted conference expenses if your employer does not.
Treasurer
Description
The Treasurer keeps the financial records for chapter, reports the current financial data at each Executive board meeting, and collects and processes attendee payments and disbursements for Chapter events.
Treasurer must attend the programs and events where a check or payment is required the day of the event, or make arrangements for payment of those events.
SLA requires Chapter Treasurers to keep data and report chapter financial standings bi-annually in Quicken. SLA provides the software, training and support to any Treasurer requesting assistance. The reporting functions for Treasurer are very important to the Chapter, and adhering to deadlines and requests for payments are critical.
Obligations
The position of Treasurer is a two year commitment. The treasurer attends Board meetings (most are conference calls) and Chapter programs, and assists with Chapter business. The term of office is two years: January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2011.
The treasurer is not required to attend the SLA annual conference and/or the Leadership Summit, but all SLA volunteer chapter leaders are encouraged to do so. SLA frequently offers on-site training for Chapter Treasurers usually with other leadership training sessions on the Sunday when the annual conference begins.
Director (2 Director positions are open)
Description
Directors attend Board meetings (most are conference calls), give input on issues, help guide the chapter’s business, and may be assigned other duties or projects by the President or the Executive Board.
Obligations
The term of office is two years: January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2011.
Directors are not required to attend the SLA Annual Conference and/or Leadership Summit, but all SLA volunteer leaders are encouraged to do so.
For additional details about any of these positions, please review the Maryland Chapter’s Recommended Practices document at: http://units.sla.org/chapter/cmd/pdfs/CMDPractices.pdf. We suggest that if you are interested in any of these positions, you should ask your employer for a commitment of support for the time and/or travel involved in attending the required Chapter programs, events, and Board meetings, especially if you would like to be nominated for the President-elect/President position. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at Tracy.Landfried@us.army.mil.
Many thanks,
Tracy Landfried
Chair, 2009 Nominations Committee
Maryland Chapter of SLA
Lesley Ellen Harris is currently a copyright lawyer/consultant, author and educator. Her daily tasks include consulting on various copyright matters (often for libraries), teaching online and in-person courses on copyright, writing books on copyright, and writing articles for, and editing, The Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter. She also contributes to her blogs: www.copyrightanswers.blogspot.com and www.copyrightlawscom.blogspot.com.
Lesley has a law degree and her first job was in a law firm. Her position there concerned trademark and copyright law. She has had her own copyright consulting business since 1991. She graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Canada in 1985. Since 1998, Lesley has been living in Annapolis, Maryland. Her hobbies include writing, cooking, reading, tennis, walking and most importantly, hanging out with her two young sons and husband.
Lesley has been a member of SLA for several years. She contributes a regular column in Information Outlook, called Info Rights, which deals with various copyright issues as they relate to special librarians. She has developed and also teachers the SLA Click University 7-course Certificate in Copyright Management. The course consists of 5 online courses and two in-person courses at the SLA Conference each year. This year at the SLA Conference in DC, on June 13, she will be teaching Managing Copyright Issues, and on June 14, Copyright Education. See www.clickuniversity.com.
Lesley's newest book, Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians was just published. Information on the book and the book's blog is at www.licensingdigitalcontentblogspot.com. She will be doing a book signing on Sunday, June 13, 2009 in the Expo Hall at the SLA Annual Conference.
May 2009
Greetings and Salutations!
On May 14th our chapter hosted a program about strategic planning presented by Betty Jo Hibberd of Dialog. The event attracted a lively group who had fun exercising their planning skills on a case study. If you weren't there you missed a good time learning and sharing with colleagues representing diverse settings, including the information services of the National Academies of Science, Univ of Maryland Libraries, Inova Fairfax Hospital, and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center .
The full Chapter Board met for a business meeting on May 5th. Our guest was Dr. Trudi Hahn, the new faculty advisor to the SLA Student Group at the University of Maryland iSchool. During the meeting we drew the name of a current LIS student for our chapter's free ticket to the SLA Conference. Leia Dickerson, a first year MLS student at the iSchool, was the lucky winner! She'll be attending the full conference compliments of the Maryland Chapter, and will be sharing a photo essay and written article with us about her experience and what she learned while at the conference.
Our chapter blog, The Cutting Edge, has an article about Leia, as well as other chapter news. Take a quick read at http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/maryland/
Congratulations go to Lorette Weldon, our Chapter Archivist who has an article published in the May issue of Information Outlook. "The 'Googlization' of the Library Collection" is an interesting read with an innovative approach to solving time demands in a one-person information service setting. Lorette also had another article published in the May issue of Computers in Libraries. "Taking Your Library on The Road" is a companion piece on the same topic from a different perspective.
Chapter Member, Pat Fisher, will be teaching a course in marketing & communications at the University of Maryland iSchool. LBSC708D Special Topics in Information Studies: Marketing Information Services will be held between June 1st and July 12th. I'll be a guest lecturer on June 23rd, addressing the topic of branding and its role in managing an information service. The course can be taken for credit or audited. Check with the University of Maryland iSchool for details.
If you or someone you know who is a Maryland Chapter member, has recently published or will be giving a professional presentation, we'd love to know about it. Our chapter is filled with hard working, bright people with ideas and lots of experience. Let's share the wealth! Don't be shy. Tell us about your accomplishments so we can strengthen our network of who knows what. Send your info to me at my email address in the reply line above.
At the SLA conference our chapter is co-hosting an evening reception, Tuesday, June 16th. Designed to be a relaxing respite away from the hustle and bustle of the conference, members of our chapter are invited to mingle and network with colleagues from our co-hosts: the Washington DC, New Jersey and Virginia Chapters. As a Maryland Chapter member you are entitled to a free refreshment ticket by registering at http://tiny.cc/SLAMarylandJune16Reception
Information about the reception is on our Chapter blog (http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/maryland/). This event is being generously sponsored by Leadership Directories! Besides light refreshments there will be free Tarot Card readings and mini-exhibits about chapter activities. Expect to relax and have fun after a long day of listening and learning. If you're not a member of our chapter then bring your checkbook and become one during the evening. We'll be offering special membership sign-up incentives that you won't want to miss!
And finally, before I send off this message, let me announce that free passes to the SLA Conference Expo will be offered on Friday (this week) on this Chapter list. Watch your mailbox Friday for the message with the link to the free pass registration page.
Looking forward to seeing you at the Conference as we celebrate our association's 100th anniversary!
best regards,
Chris
Interesting in learning more about knowledge management? Why not take a class taught by a long-time Chapter member!
Wilda Bowers Newman (SLA Fellow/SLA Hall of Fame) is teaching a graduate course this summer at Catholic University of America, SLIS, on Knowledge Management. This is a Special Topics in Librarianship course offered at CUA. Following is the course description:
LSC 874: Special Topics in Librarianship (May 23- June 20 or 27, 2009)
Saturdays 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Knowledge Management—Future Works
Explores Knowledge Management (KM) concepts that enable competitive advantage for all types of organizations and institutions in the 21st Century. Fundamental to these concepts is participation and collaboration in order to leverage the collective knowledge of the entire work force, whether local, national, or global, taking into account related environmental changes.
To prepare for this new and changing environment, this course will address what is needed in scientific, technical, business, education, and services—especially public, academic and special libraries, for work in the future. Students will learn what KM is; Understand why KM is the required infrastructure for work environments; Identify how to begin KM practices; Develop KM plans; Discover tacit and explicit knowledge and its value as a competitive advantage; and, Gain an understanding of Competitive Intelligence (CI).
Topics include KM fundamentals, history, theory and concepts, cultural and organizational changes required, strategic issues, knowledge coding, KM hardware and software systems, KM evaluation, international issues, and competitive intelligence. Participants will be involved in class discussion and review of KM papers and case studies, as well as class team projects, positioning them for their Future Works.
Hello All,
I hope you all are planning to attend our SLA 2009 next month (June 14-17) in Washington, DC. It's our centennial year: We are 100 years old and still growing strong!
The Maryland SLA Chapter is co-sponsoring the Mid-Atlantic Chapters Reception
at SLA 2009.
The reception is open to all and designed as a "calm
in the midst of the conference storm". It takes place on
Tuesday night, June 16 and features free Tarot Card readings (compliments of
our Platinum Sponsor, Leadership Directories) and a mini-exhibit of chapter
activities from the Maryland, Washington DC, New Jersey, and Virginia Chapters.
The reception runs from 8-11 PM in Congressional Hall B at the Renaissance Washington DC Hotel (across the street from the
Convention Center). Please join us for what is sure to be a great time!
When: Tuesday, June 16 (8:00 PM. - 11:00 PM.)
Where: Congressional Hall B at the Renaissance Washington DC Hotel (across the street from the
Convention Center).
Tickets: There is no cost to attend this event! To ensure that we have adequate refreshments, we ask all attendees to pre-register online. As an additional thank you, members of the MD Chapter who pre-register by June 10th will receive a free drink coupon when they check in!
--- Seán Henry, MD Chapter President-Elect & Program Chair
Congratulations to Leia Dickerson, winner of the Maryland Chapter's drawing for a free ticket for an iSchool student to the SLA Conference in Washington DC, June 14 -17th! Details about the drawing can be found at http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/maryland/2009/04/students-enter-to-win-a-free-ticket-to-the-sla-conference.html.
Leia's bio follows:
"My name is Leia Dickerson and I am a first-year MLS student and graduate assistant in the College of Information Studies. I grew up in Northeastern Ohio but have lived in Maryland since graduating from Wellesley College in 2006. I am interested in pursuing a career in librarianship as it relates to social sciences or the arts. When I am not studying or working, I enjoy visiting art galleries, watching movies, reading novels, and exploring Baltimore and Washington, D.C. I look forward to meeting SLA members at the conference, especially those from the Maryland chapter. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity, and I look forward to sharing my experiences with all of you."
