The first Chat of fall was held in a room next to the 4th floor lounge at UMD's iSchool where the room was set up for 20 people. We had a huge turnout, due in no small measure to the efforts of Jamie Peacock and Kate Lanahan, the two student liaisons to our SLA Chapter and the 2009-2010 heads of the student chapter at the iSchool. Our Chatters were Robin Dixon, Branch Head at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Library, Richard Huffine, National Library Coordinator at the U.S. Geological Survey and Mary Ann Leonard, Special Projects Coordinator at NAL. Our fourth Chatter, Tracy Landfried, Librarian at the Army Research Laboratory, was unable to attend.
Each Chatter talked about their work experience and how they had "ended up" in their current positions, none of which were traditional library positions. They each had managed to carve out niches of their own within their agencies. There were many questions from the students about federal libraries, about finding jobs in this market, how to get into a federal library (internships,internships, internships), avenues for networking and much more. It was a very interesting hour and one the students and Chatters enjoyed. Our next Chat will be on Knowledge Management on Thursday, October 29 at the iSchool. Hopefully the turnout and the interest will rival that of the first Chat.
I am still looking for KM Chatters, so if are interested or know of someone who is doing KM or a KM project, please let me know at judith@theorganizedlibrary.com.
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