NJSLA Blog

Reminder: Register for the Joint Annual Meeting of New Jersey and Princeton-Trenton SLA Chapters Featuring Anne Caputo on SLA Realignment

Joint Annual Meeting of New Jersey and Princeton-Trenton SLA Chapters.
All SLA members, students and friends are invited to attend!

SLA at 100: Changing and Realigning

    * Network with other professionals in NYC, PA, and other parts of NJ
    * Enjoy a very nice dinner for a reasonable price
    * Get answers to your questions about the proposed changes to SLA
    * Ask about the SLA name change

    * DATE   Wednesday, October 7th
    * TIME     5:30- 9 pm
    * PLACE  IEEE, 445 Hoes Lane Piscataway, NJ 08854.  Directions at http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/directions.html

    * NETWORK - meet at least 2 members of the SLA Board of Directors, at least 3 SLA Chapter Presidents, members from NJ, NYC, and PA
    * DINNER     -  Salad, dinner and dessert for $25 for SLA members
    * ANSWERS - ask the hard questions to Anne Caputo, SLA President Elect
    * ALIGNMENT - what is it, why is SLA doing this, what is it about?
    * NAME - what are the choices, will there be a vote, will the vote be by paper or electronic, when will this occur ?

Get the answers to the tough questions from Anne Caputo, who will be SLA president in 2010!

REGISTER or see the complete flier with more details at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=R0G2ugBuuNzWo_2fUQAbruCw_3d_3d.



For more information on Anne, please see the earlier blog post.

SLA 2010 Voting Opens

Voting for the SLA  Board of Directors, including key positions as President-Elect, Treasurer, and both Chapter and Division Cabinet Chairs-Elect, is now open,  through 5 p.m. EDT on 1 October 2009. For more information please see the blog post from SLA President-Elect Anne Caputo and the 2010 Board Candidates Page. 

Click U Survey

Please let SLA HQ know what topics interest you for Click U webinars and certificate programs by completing this short (5 question!) survey.  We are planning now for 2010 and beyond, so don't miss this opportunity to share your ideas.

 

Take the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=2I6L_2fo_2fUTRKz5yvmmsCCJQ_3d_3d

 

 

Thanks for your participation!  Contact me or Natalie Gozzard ([email protected], 703-647-4906) if you have any questions.

 

 

Carolyn Sosnowski, MLIS

Information Specialist

SLA

331 S. Patrick St.

Alexandria, VA 22314-3501 USA

Tel: +1.703.647.4914  Fax: +1.703.647.4901

[email protected]

www.sla.org

http://slaconnections.typepad.com/info_center_blog/

@triviachick

Guest Pass Option to Help Unemployed SLA Members

*Guest pass option to help unemployed SLA members attend the upcoming D.C. conference — sign up or be a sponsor for a fellow member!*

Dear NJSLA Colleagues,

SLA-NY has come up with a terrific way to help our unemployed colleagues attend SLA 2009 affordably (saving several hundred dollars off the registration price). Please read the note below from New York Chapter President Michelle Dollinger, and consider yourself invited to participate as either a sponsor or a guest.

The guest can simply fill out the conference registration form and send it back to the SLA registration office (Experient). If you use a credit card you can fax it back (or perhaps even call it in). If you send a check, of course you'll have to mail it in.

I realize that there are additional costs for the hotel and travel. The host chapter, DC/SLA, has set up a wiki to help you get to and make the most of the conference. You can find a roommate or a ride by signing up for the SLA wiki if you haven't already. Registration is free and easy.

Best regards,

Eric Schwarz (NJSLA President)

P.S. If you’re logged in to Google/Gmail, you’ll need to copy/paste http://tinyurl.com/slaguest and login information (Email: slaguest / Password: slany100), then log out before accessing the spreadsheet SLA-NY has set up. Or you can open the link in another browser. For example, if you’re using Firefox, open the link in Internet Explorer.

---

Original message from Michelle Dollinger:

Dear Colleagues,

The economic downturn has been felt by a number of our members who have lost their positions. They may not be able to attend the upcoming SLA conference in D.C. due to the cost of registration.

How can we help our colleagues? We have learned that SLA members may each have one guest pass for the upcoming conference in D.C. The $50 guest passes are good Sunday through Wednesday for attending general sessions, non-ticketed networking events and the vendor INFO-EXPO.

An SLA member is needed to “sponsor” the guest pass, which is billed directly to the person using the pass. Normally used for spouses, guests this year may be SLA members. Several of us have been asked to “sponsor” a guest pass for an unemployed SLA member and we thought we would try to offer this to others who could benefit.

If you currently are an unemployed SLA NY [or NJ] member, and are interested in finding a “sponsor” for a guest pass, please enter your information in the following spreadsheet.

If you are willing to be a “sponsor” for a guest pass, please consult the list, enter your contact information, and please let the person requesting the pass know. Although sponsors can select whomever they want, let’s suggest that the names be considered in order that the requests are made in the following spreadsheet: http://tinyurl.com/slaguest

Log in using this ID:

Email: slaguest

Password: slany100

The guest pass information is on page two of the conference registration form. Each sponsor will receive confirmation from SLA that a “guest pass” has been issued to the requesting person.

Hope to see you at the conference. Special thanks to the Employment Taskforce and Rita Ormsby and Dana Gordon for bringing this to light.

Michelle
Michelle Dollinger, SLA NY Chapter President 2009

http://www.sla-ny.org

Twitter: mdoll, IM/meebo: MichDollNY

What SLA is doing for unemployed members (from the CEO)

Whatever your employment status, you should read what Janice R. Lachance, CEO of our association, has to say about What SLA is doing for unemployed members. In particular, Janice answers questions some members have had about the annual conference to be held next month in Washington, DC. If you have comments about Janice's post, I encourage you to share them by commenting on her blog entry. If you'd rather contact her privately, her contact information is readily available.

You're also welcome to contact NJSLA at any time. We will do our best to help you or to direct you to the right person within SLA to solve your issue. For your information, that Gmail address forwards to: Eric Schwarz (chapter president), Sandra Baker (president-elect) and Arda Agulian (director of communications).

Best regards,
Eric

SLA Centennial Updates: Timeline and Videos

Did you know that SLA's New Jersey Chapter, the Biomedical and Life Sciences Division and the Business Group (later merged into the Business and Finance Division) all started in 1935? Check out the SLA's interactive Centennial Timeline for more firsts and milestones.

Did you have a chance to check out the SLA Centennial Videos? The winners are listed below and also on the SLA site.

Student Category winner: The More Things Change.... Produced by: Noni Vidal, Clarion University.

Professional Category Winner: I Am SLA. Produced by: Lisa Wolfe, Geri Heberlie and Paula Martin, St. Louis Metro Area Chapter.

Reminder Call for Nominations: 2009 SLA Rising Star Award

Do you know someone who is new to the information profession and shows exceptional promise for leadership, innovation and success?

The 2009 SLA Awards and Honors Committee currently seeks nominations for a new award aimed at recognizing the best up-and-coming members in the association. The deadline to submit a nomination for 2009 is May 6.

For more information please see the SLA Inside the Box blog. Note: Newer entries are on the SLA Blog.

The Value of an MLS: Unresolved!

The Association of College and Research Libraries is talking about the value of a Master's of Library (or Library and Information) Science degree (MLS or MLIS). However, the academic librarians, meeting in Seattle March 12-15, came to no resolution.

On another matter ... here in New Jersey, many SLA members, including myself, have earned MLIS degrees from Rutgers. The university is seriously considering removing Library Studies from the name of the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, after approval by the SCILS faculty. Most MLIS graduates who've spoken up on the topic aren't thrilled with the idea, even though the  proposal has been well-explained in open letters from Dean Jorge Reina Schement and Claire McInerney, chair of the LIS Department, and on the SCILS site.

But, does it matter much what the school is called if the degree is not valued in the marketplace (academic or organizational/corporate)? It's frustrating sometimes to see that academic libraries often require (or "highly prefer") candidates with a second master's degree, even if there is no subject specialty. In fact, according to "one commenter" at the ACRL conference, the ML(I)S is sometimes used primarily as a "certificate" to earn a higher salary. We can't draw too many conclusions from the ACRL debate, as reported by Library Journal, partly because of the "reticence" of the debaters to stake a position.

At least in the corporate arena, the word "librarian" still carries a significant amount of equity among both information professonals and C-suites*, according to a January 2009 presentation (PDF file; see Page 33) based on results from the SLA Alignment Project. As an international organization, and one with many members who are not degreed librarians, SLA rightly would not focus on the degree, but on info pros themselves.

I don't have any wise resolution to offer either, just food for thought.

(* C-suite means the group of executives with "chief" in their titles: chief executive officer, chief financial officer, etc.) 

Eric Schwarz
NJSLA President

SLA Centennial Video Contest - View and Vote!

Voting is now open in the SLA Information Professional of Tomorrow video contest! Celebrate SLA's Centennial year by casting your ballot for your favorite video in the Student and the Professional categories.

All SLA members can view the submitted videos. Once you have watched all 16 videos, you can vote for your favorites.

And just a few things to keep in mind:

• Voting will end on March 31, 2009, at 11:59 p.m. (EDT).
• Winners will be announced April 7, 2009.
• View the videos as much as you would like, but members may only vote once in each category.
• You will need your SLA membership ID to cast your ballot.  If you've forgotten yours, not to worry! Instructions on how to retrieve it are included on the voting ballot through the link above.
• In case of a tie in either category, members of the SLA Centennial Commission and Video Contest Sub-committee will choose the winner(s).

Attention Twitterers!

From Karen Huffman, Chair-elect, SLA Knowledge Management Division:

SLA is compiling a list of members who use Twitter. If you do, please complete a two-minute survey.

From the home page of Twitter.com: Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?