SLA Boston

2011 Annual Business Meeting Recap - Name Change, Award Winners, and Passing the Gavel

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Last night was a historic night as the Chapter voted overwhelmingly to change its name from SLA Boston to SLA New England at the 2011 Annual Business Meeting held at the Calderwood Pavilion in Boston. The vote was passed by a majority of members who attended in-person and online.  The revised bylaws have been submitted to the Bylaws Committee and once signed and returned, the name change will be official!  We are very appreciative to Past President Nancy Burt for leading the chapter through the name change.

Awards

Several members were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the chapter.

Khalilah Gambrell received the Special Recognition Award for her contributions to the chapter and breadth of programming this year.

Ann Cullen and Mary Chitty received the Distinguished Service Award given to “an individual who has, consistently over the years, given her time and efforts to ensure the continuing success of the Chapter.”

Devon McArdle and Roger Magnus were honored with the Chapter Achievement Award - given to “an individual who has done an outstanding job in his committee assignment(s) this year.”

Thank you all for your commitment and dedication to SLA New England.

2012 Slate of Officers 

Congratulations to our new officers for 2012: Devon McArdle, President Elect and Matt Burt, Treasurer.

Here is the slate of SLA New England’s Executive Board officers for 2012

President – Khalilah Gambrell

President Elect – Devon McArdle

Past-President – Nancy Burt

Secretary -- Beth Giana

Treasurer -- Matthew Burt

Director, Communications -- Gauri Govil        

Director, Strategic Planning -- Paula Cohen      

Strategic Plan Draft

The Strategic Plan draft is available for all members to review. Please send comments to Paula Cohen, SLA Boston Strategic Planning Director (Paulacohen00@gmail.com) by December 31^st.  The official plan will be presented to members by March 15^th. We appreciate the efforts of the Strategic Planning committee.

Passing Gavel

The Annual Business Meeting concluded with the passing of the gavel as Khalilah Gambrell assumed the position of SLA New England Chapter President.  Khalilah’s remarks focused on the three C’s that will outline her presidency: Communicate, Collaborate, and Commit.  She asked members to help her:

• Communicate who we are within the chapter and beyond by empowering members with skills to articulate the value of the profession within and outside their organizations and job positions
• Collaborate by building bridges that connect all members
• Commit in some way (however small or big) to sharing knowledge with each other

If members can Communicate, Collaborate, and Commit then 2012 will be a fun and exciting year for SLA New England.

Khalilah will provide more details about ways to Communicate, Collaborate, Commit in the next couple of weeks. Entire text of her remarks are available online.  

Overall, it was an exciting and historic Annual Business Meeting.

Congratulations to all award winners and 2012 Executive Board.

Sign up to Communicate, Collaborate, and Commit

At the Annual Business Meeting, I stated that this year, we as a chapter need to Communicate, Collaborate, and Commit. To kickoff off this initiative, I have created a Chapter Volunteer Sign up sheet that outlines several ways you can contribute to the chapter. All you need to do is sign up for an opportunity (ies) and someone will be in contact with further details.

Volunteering not only helps fellow members... It helps you develop communication and project management skills, and more. Also you are able to grow as a leader and mentor within our profession.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0B4EA8A823A13-open

Thanks!

Khalilah - Chapter President 

Chapter Discussion and Dine Around in Connecticut

Join fellow SLA New England members on Thursday, January 12th from 6:00pm to 8:00pm for a chapter discussion and dine around in Connecticut. Location and agenda details are as follows:

Union Street Tavern
20 Union St Windsor, CT 06095-2512
tel. (860) 683-2899
http://unionstreettavern.com/

Agenda:
6:00 to 6:30 Networking
6:30 to 8:00 Dinner and Chapter Discussion

Registration: Please register by Monday, January 9th at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Jan2012CT

Contact: Khalilah Gambrell, gambrell AT Sign gmail.com

A dine around allows information professionals to mingle informally. Attendees pay for their own meals and drinks.

Brown Bag Lunch: Text Mining, Query Formulation and the role of Information Professionals

January's Brown Bag Lunch Topic will be Text Mining, Query Formulation and the role of Information Professionals. The program is co-sponsored by the SLA New England Chapter and SLA Pharmaceutical and Health Technologies Division

Date: Tuesday January 10, 2012
Time: 12 noon-1:30 pm
Place: Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, Suite 1100, 75 Kneeland St Boston MA

Directions: http://csdd.tufts.edu/index.php/directions

Cost: Free. Bring your brown bag lunch [or pick something up in Chinatown]. Drinks and cookies sponsored by Linguamatics

Register by Friday January 6th, 2012:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bbl2012Jan

This program will include networking and an informal presentation by Linguamatics on text mining and query formulation. These two topics are of increasing interest and importance to information professionals.  Don't miss this exciting opportunity to learn more and discuss what you are already doing!  

Additionally, a talk at the recent 2011 Gilbane Boston Content Management conference identified "query formulation" as an important skill set in short supply and Dr. Susan LeBeau will talk briefly about her experience hiring in this area.

Text mining has been used for some time in drug discovery and competitive intelligence and can be useful  for:
  - Therapeutic Areas and Clinical trials
  - Drug Target Identification and Validation
  - Biomarker Discovery
  - Systems Biology
  - Safety/Toxicology
  - Pharmacovigilance/Post Marketing Surveillance
  - Translational Medicine
  - Competitive Intelligence

Contact: Mary Chitty, mchitty(AT SIGN)healthtech.com or Sandra Peters, Sandra.Peters(AT SIGN)tufts.edu

Annual Business Meeting: Incoming Chapter President Khalilah Gambrell's remarks

Excerpts from Khalilah's remarks at the 2011 Annual Business Meeting.

Thank you all for your support and faith in me to lead SLA New England. I am deeply honored and take the role with a deep and earnest commitment to provide tools and resources to all of our members and to promote these tools and resources to folks who are not members today.  With that commitment, the theme for next year is to be action oriented. Together I want us to strive to Communicate, Collaborate, and Commit.

Communicate - who we are within the chapter and beyond. We must empower members with skills to articulate the value of the profession within and outside their organizations and job positions.

Collaborate - our chapter is made up of tremendously talented people. It is critical that we develop resources and an approach to allow a member in Vermont to connect with members in Framingham and New Haven. Divisions can do this, why cannot we? We need to put on a full court press to build bridges that truly connect all members of SLA New England. We need to utilize the listserv, Linkedin, Facebook, web meetings, and the new website.

So how do we communicate and collaborate? We as a chapter must commit. Each person has to commit to at least one action however small or big that moves us forward. Couple examples of what I mean...

•Post or answer a question on the listserv

•Share your knowledge with other members

•Send job positions to Juliane (slaboston.jobs@gmail.com)

•Help other members who are looking for jobs

–Provide career advice

–Critique a resume

–Conduct a mock interview

•Connect with LIS students (ex. be a DOTJ host)

•Mentor new leaders

•Promote upcoming events (ex. retweet, share on FB)

•Invite a friend/colleague to join SLA

In the next couple of weeks, I will send a message unveiling more details regarding how our chapter will communicate, collaborate and commit in 2012.

It not only benefits the chapter but it enhances your professional presence. You are letting your talents and knowledge shine.

If we all commit, our first year under the name, SLA New England will set the tone for an exciting time in our chapter. Thank you again for your support and faith.

Cannot attend the Annual Business Meeting in-person? Join us online.

For the Annual Business Meeting, we will offer members unable to attend, the ability to participate via web.

Date: Thursday, December 8th

Time: 6:15pm to 7:30pm

Please register for the web meeting by 4pm on December 8th : https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/368494273

Agenda: The business meeting will begin at 6:15pm, and include several votes (e.g., to approve the 2010 minutes, the 2012 slate of officers, and the bylaws changes). For web meeting participants, we will use the polling feature during the votes to get your responses.

The web meeting will be more like a webinar than a conference call. Web meeting participants may use the chat feature, ‘question’ feature or ‘raise their hand’ if you need to ask a question. The moderator of the meeting will then unmute you if needed.

Note: Our bylaws and chapter practices indicate that the bylaws approval takes place at a business meeting, and requires a 2/3rds majority vote of members attending. This means that there will not be a separate surveymonkey or poll to vote on the Bylaws change.

Brief Introduction of Matthew Burt, Our Nomination for Treasurer Position 2012!

Matthew Burt is running for a second term as SLA Boston Treasurer.  He has been a Chapter member since 2008.  He is a Simmons GSLIS alum and is currently working at Roome & Guarracino, a structural engineering firm in Somerville, MA.

Hidden Career Opportunities for Librarians and Information Professionals: 5 Tips from the Pros

The following post was written by Candice Kortkamp. She studies cataloging, metadata, and research methodology at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Librarians and information professionals possess highly transferable skills that are applicable to a wide range of workplace environments. As traditional roles are rapidly being replaced with new titles and responsibilities, it can be challenging to know where to begin a job search. Though they may be looking for candidates that have the skills that librarians offer, organizations and institutions often do not use "traditional" library and information terminology in their job descriptions.

The Special Libraries Association, Boston Chapter had this in mind when it presented the 2011 “Hidden Career Opportunities for Librarians and Information Professionals” event featuring a panel of information professionals in non-traditional careers.

The following is a recap of what the professional panelists suggest for taking advantage of hidden career opportunities in non-traditional library fields:

 

Apply for Jobs You Appear to be Unqualified For

Matt Johnson works as Senior Program Manager for Taxonomy and Information Standards in the eServices division of EMC Corporation. His favorite aspect of his current position is having a hand in custom metadata management. But most of what he does he learned on the job. For this reason, coupled with the knowledge that most employers are novices at writing job descriptions, Johnson emphasizes that there is value in applying for jobs you appear to be unqualified for. “Be honest about your limitations, but know what you have to offer,” he says. “If you see yourself fitting into that role, think of someone else seeing you in that role”

 

Know Your Worth

Librarians are “trained to recognize relevant information, analyze it, package it, and deliver it,” says Paula Maloney whose current position as an Executive Search Sourcer for Global Talent Acquisition, EMC Corporation, allows her to implement the sleuthing talents she attributes to sound discipline learned in library school.

 

Don’t Worry if “Librarian” isn’t in the Title

This piece of advice, received from a professor at Simmons College, pushed Eve Marie Miller to search for jobs beyond traditional librarian positions. She now works as Director of Collection Development at EBSCO Publishing where she is assisting with the transition associated with the H.W. Wilson acquisition. Miller recommends following the S.M.A.R.T. acronym for resume writing, strategically updating each resume you send out to reflect specific skills and measurable accomplishments.

 

Be prepared for EVERY opportunity

Some people call this “Networking.” Others may advise putting together an “Elevator speech.” Maureen Festa simply encourages, “Know your strengths; know what you love to do,” and be prepared to communicate this knowledge in unexpected situations. Festa began her career in reference at BPL’s Kirstein Business Library, where she decided that she loved doing research. She advises dressing well and carrying business cards to every event you attend – this is how she landed her current job as Development Research Analyst at the Office of Development and Alumni Relations, Boston University. She now applies her passion for information seeking toward conducting prospect research.

 

Get certified

Panelist Laurie Rotman has been with Draper Laboratory since pre-World Wide Web days when she worked on developing the company intranet. Though she says it was far from anything she ever thought she’d be interested in, she loves that her position in Information Resources and Management affords her the “opportunity to take risks and try new things.” She highly recommends Project Management Institute (PMI) Certification for library and information professionals to learn new skills, get involved in a network, and expand opportunities.

 

 

Bio of Devon McArdle, Our Candidate for President-Elect 2012!

Devon McArdle graduated with her MLS from the Simmons GSLIS program in August of 2010.  She worked as library assistant at Draper Labs while in school and then as a document delivery librarian with the company for a year afterwards. 

Devon is currently employed as an Information Literacy Librarian at American International Collegein Springfield, MA.  Her involvement with SLA began in her second semester at Simmons when she participated in the Boston Chapter's SLA Day on the Job.  Devon has been a member of SLA since that time and has been the Student Relations Chair since Spring 2011.  Devon is excited, both about the future of information professionals and especially the Boston Chapter as we  embrace our broader membership through our name change and increased programming in the future. 

 

2011 SLA Boston Annual Business Meeting scheduled for December 8th

Join us for the 2011 Annual Business Meeting. We will be electing a President-Elect and Treasurer along with honoring outstanding SLA Boston members. Members will also vote on the name change from SLA Boston to SLA New England.

Date: Thursday, December 8th

Time: 5:45 to 6:15 for networking, 6:15 to 7:00 business meeting followed by dinner

Location: Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA

Public Transportation Options: Commuter Rail Stop: Back Bay, Subway Stops: Back Bay or Copley, Bus Stop: 9, 39, 43

Directions and Parking Options: http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/visit/directions/pavilion.aspx

 Cost
Annual Business Meeting Only: Free

Dinner
Student/In between jobs/Retiree: $15
SLA/NEASIS&T member: $25
Nonmember: $40

Valet Parking: For members, students, retirees, and folks in-between jobs, valet parking will be available for an additional $10. Non-members the cost is $15.

RSVP Deadline: For an approximate attendee account, please register by Sunday, December 4^th at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2011ABM  

Contact: Khalilah Gambrell gambrell9899 AT SIGN gmail.com

Chapter Discussion and Idea Exchange Program in Connecticut

Want a forum to converse with peers about challenges you are facing?

Want to learn from peers best practices, ideas, and solutions to overcome them?

Join peers for a collaborative discussion on these questions with the objective that attendees come away with ideas that they can apply to their professional development or in their workplaces. It's a can't-miss program that we hope is the basis for continued dialogue via in-person and virtual events. Food will be included.

Prior to the Idea Exchange, a discussion regarding the chapter will be held to discuss 2012 programming and other initiatives.

Date: Wednesday, November 16th
Time: 5:30pm - 6:15pm Chapter Discussion followed by Idea Exchange event 6:15pm-7:45pm, food will be served
Location: Simsbury Public Library, Program Room 2, 725 Hopmeadow Street, Simsbury, CT
Directions: http://www.simsburylibrary.info/about.htm#Directions
Cost: Free
RSVP: Please register by Friday, November 11th for the event - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ctideaexchange2011

Contact: Khalilah Gambrell, gambrell9899 AT SIGN gmail.com

To learn more about the Idea Exchange read accounts from attendees of the event held at Olin College on August 11th

• Leigh Montgomery, 2012 Chair, SLA News Division: http://newslib.blogspot.com/2011/08/notes-from-chair-exchanging-ideas.html
• Paula Cohen, SLA Boston, Director of Strategic Planning: http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/slaboston/2011/08/idea-exchange-recap.html