NJSLA Blog

SLA NY Happy Hour - Thursday, Nov. 20

From Michelle Dollinger, SLA NY President-Elect 2008 and Program Planning Chair (contact info at end)

Please join the SLA NY Chapter for a special happy hour, Thursday, November 20.

In addition to the usual networking, we will be featuring a frank and lively discussion on Workplace and Information and Ethics as part of SLA's 2008 focus on Ethics in the Workplace. The discussion will be lead by two of our colleagues from PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cathy Porta, Director, Third Party Content Management and Jeffrey Dreiblatt, Search Optimization Manager.

Some questions to be discussed:

1) What situations have occurred in your organization have raised "red flags" (i.e., ethical concerns) for you?
2)  Does your organization (i.e., library, company) have an ethics policy?
3). Have you referred to another association's ethics policy in the past (e.g., ALA, SCIP)?
4). How would an Ethics Policy issued by SLA influence your actions as an information professional?

Prospective members, students and all colleagues are welcome. There is no charge to attend.

SLA NY Happy Hour
Thursday, November 20, 2008
From 5:30 to 7:30 pm

Midtown Executive Club
Rumford Hall
40 West 45th Street (betw. 5/6th Aves. You will see a blue awning with CQ)
http://www.midtownexecutiveclub.com

Drink Prices: $4 for soft drinks; $6 for beer; $8 for wine; $10 for mixed; $12 for martinis
PLEASE NOTE: Half-price for beer and wine until 6:30.

Please RSVP to Vida Cohen to help us establish an attendance figure. But feel free to drop by if you find you can make it last minute.

Michelle

* If you received this announcement from a colleague and wish to sign up for the chapter email list, visit http://units.sla.org/chapter/cny/discussionlist.htm
View details for this and for other events on our online events calendar at http://sla-ny.blogspot.com/. You can subscribe to event updates as an RSS feed.

--

Michelle Dollinger, SLA NY President-Elect 2008 and Program Planning Chair
http://units.sla.org/chapter/cny/
Research Librarian, Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports
[email protected]
Work: 914-378-2289

View on the NJ Chapter's Google calendar.
Add to your Outlook calendar.

A Late Congrats to SLA 2009 Officers

I had posted several items about the SLA Board of Directors election before it took place, but for some reason forgot to post the results, which had been announced Oct. 2. (The results were announced on our listserv at the time.)

Among the winners is former New Jersey Chapter President Ruth Wolfish. Ruth was elected by her fellow members as Chapter Cabinet Chair-Elect. Full details are memorialized in the SLA press release.

Remembering Donna Savino Brooks

From Karen McQuillen (president of the SLA Princeton-Trenton Chapter):

Donna Savino Brooks, a member of the ETS Brigham Library staff, and the Princeton-Trenton and New Jersey chapters of SLA, passed away on October 27. After being on disability from March - April, Donna came back to work at ETS from May through early July. She fully intended to come back again as soon as her doctor cleared her.

Donna had been president elect of the Princeton-Trenton Chapter until she resigned a few months ago due to her illness.

There will be a service for Donna on Saturday, November 1, at 9:30 AM, at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church, 214 Nassau St., Princeton, NJ 08540. It is on the corner of Nassau and Moore Streets. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. Their website is http://pancan.org/. 

If you got to know Donna, you would have discovered her spirit, good humor, creativity, and positive outlook. She came to information/knowledge sharing as a second career and absolutely loved the work. Donna received an ETS Presidential Award in 2007, and was the lead author of the article Facilitating Information Flow at ETS that won the Babson Working Knowledge Storytelling Contest - Improving Content ROI, in 2007. She was also a member of the Dewey Decimators first ETS Quizzo championship team in 2006.

Karen McQuillen
Manager, Library Services
Brigham Library
Educational Testing Service
Rosedale Road
Princeton, NJ 08541
Phone: 609-734-5664
FAX: 609-683-7186
e-mail: [email protected]

Exploring the Current Web Toolbox - Nov. 18 in Princeton

Join your colleagues, learn about the latest in web searching and leave with at least two tips that will enhance your work!!

Princeton-Trenton Chapter - Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Exploring the Current Web Toolbox: Practical Super Searcher Research Tips & Techniques for 2008

Speaker: Robert Lackie, Associate Professor-Librarian at Rider University
Venue:  Mathematica Policy Research, 600 Alexander Road, Princeton, NJ. Directions.

Robert J. Lackie co-leads the Library Instruction Program and serves as Reference Collection Development Librarian at Rider University. This session gathers a wide variety of tips and techniques gleaned from today’s super searcher presenters/authors for teaching users about practical tips & techniques for performing more sophisticated Web searches. The most popular and the best recommended search services will be demonstrated and discussed, along with pointers for keeping up with many high-quality Web resources.

Networking begins:  5:30
Dinner:  6:00
Speaker:  7:00

Cost: $15 members
$20 non-members
$5 students

Print out and complete the flier to register.

Add event to your Outlook calendar or View on our online calendar.

NJSLA Networking Event: 'Applying Business Intelligence for Self Support' - Nov. 12 in Somerville

What: Applying Business Intelligence for Self Support

Who: NJSLA is organizing another Networking Event, continuing the success of our series this year.

We will enjoy a presentation by Ms. Sarita Felder, MBA, CEC.  Sarita is a Certified Executive Leadership Coach who helps high-level performers excel in challenging times. Sarita has helped clients in many industries, including healthcare, financial, and telecommunications. To learn more about Sarita and her clients, please visit her website.

Following the presentation, we will have time to share experiences and explore how to move forward in the current business climate.  We excel with our research and insight, looking for new business opportunities, stretching for our organizations…perhaps it's time to apply our business intelligence to figure out where we need to go!?

When: Weds., Nov. 12, 2008, 7-9:30 p.m.

Where: Embryon/Centeon, Post Office Plaza, 50 Division St. Somerville, NJ. There's a parking deck behind the building. People can also park on the street at that hour. Enter the building and take the elevator to the conference room on the 5^th floor. Directions.

Post Office Plaza is located at the corner of Division Street and Veterans Memorial Drive, right across the street from the post office, in downtown Somerville. Main Street is two blocks away and Bridge Street is one block away.

RSVP: So we can determine the post-supper refreshments to buy, please sign up by Monday, Nov. 10. 

To register contact: Susan Katz via email [email protected] or phone (862-251-3353).

Photos from NJ-PT Joint SLA Meeting

Photos from the Oct. 7, 2008, joint meeting of the New Jersey and Princeton-Trenton Chapters of SLA are now on Flickr and Facebook. Please tag away!

Beth Kaminski last week wrote an excellent summary of the speech by our guest Trevor A. Dawes. His theme was Building and Valuing Diversity in your Organization. (In photo: Jana Varlejs and Trevor Dawes.)

The 2008 Elections: The Final Word? (Documents Assn. of NJ conference) - Oct. 31 at Princeton Univ.

Event: Documents Association of New Jersey (DANJ) annual conference: The 2008 Elections: The Final Word?

Date:  Friday, Oct. 31, 2008

Time: 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Location: Princeton University, East Pyne Hall

Directions: To free parking, Lot 21, Conference campus locations

Description: Speakers: Ingrid Reed, Director of the New Jersey Project, Eagleton Institute of Politics and Joseph Romance, Professor of Political Science, Drew University.  John Hernandez, Politics and U.S. Government Documents Librarian, Princeton University, will present information sources on elections. Guided tours will be given of Princeton University Library exhibits: “Sketching Their Characters: 150 Years of Presidential Election Year Cartoons” and “John Foster Dulles: From Diploma to Diplomat.” Breakfast and lunch will be served on site.

Cost: $35 members, $40 non-members, $25 students.

Registration contact: Deborah Mercer, [email protected], New Jersey State Library, P.O. Box 520, 185 West State Street, Trenton, NJ 08625.

(This event and other info pro events are listed the NJSLA calendar.)

SLA Proposed Academic Division Town Hall Meeting - Nov. 12

The SLA reported in July that our organization is considering creating an Academic Division.

Members now have a chance to learn more and voice their opinions.

From Robyn Frank, the Division Cabinet Chair (email of Oct. 10):

In an effort to give members an opportunity to more formally express their concerns - both pro and con - over forming an Academic Division, we have scheduled a "Town Meeting" - live discussion on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 2:00-3:00 pm (EST).  We will have Stacey Greenwell, Lesley Farmer, Terri Brooks, and others available to answer questions.  Based on the input from the town hall meeting, we will decide to either move this forward with a recommendation to the Board, OR, possibly have an electronic vote (late November) of the Division Cabinet.  The results of these steps will determine whether we move forward in December to recommend to the Board the establishment of an Academic Division.

We hope that you will put the date of the Town Meeting on your calendar and that you will participate in the live forum.  Details will be forthcoming on how to call in to the discussion.

Robyn's complete email on this issue, including pros and cons of an Academic Division, is on our wiki. And the conference call is on our calendar.

Trevor Dawes Speaks on Diversity at NJ-PT SLA Chapter Meeting

Trevor Dawes discussed diversity in libraries at a joint meeting of the New Jersey and Princeton-Trenton chapters of SLA on October 7 at the Rutgers Club in New Brunswick. At the center of his message was the idea that libraries should be communities where staff members, whether or not they represent the demographics of their library community, offer programs of relevance to the population they serve.

Dawes is the Circulation Services Director at the Princeton University Library and a founding member of the New Jersey Chapter of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, and past chair of the American Library Association’s Committee on Diversity.

Dawes emphasized the importance of building a sense of community in all types of libraries, whether public, academic or corporate. He mentioned the mission statement on the Princeton Public Library web site as a good example of community orientation.

Some tips from Dawes on programs to encourage diversity among users: invite and include everyone in the library community by offering newsletters, Facebook groups, tours to notable places in the area, workshops and other relevant programs. 

To gain a more diverse staff, Dawes suggested working with library schools and associations such as SLA to find out about scholarships and programs. Larger libraries can appoint diversity advocates and committees. Whatever your situation, Dawes said, a good place to start is to challenge your own assumptions about diversity by taking the Implicit Association Test.