Silicon Valley Chapter | SLA

The Big Blog To Do List

With the blog launch party coming up, I wanted to put up a post with my To Do List. Over time, I'll come back and cross off things that get done and the status of various projects, but I thought it would be useful for our members to see that just because we're past the initial release, there's still lots of work to do be done both on the blog and the website. We definitely aren't done yet!

If you think you can help with any of this please drop me a line at [email protected]. At the bottom, I've even identified a very specific role any, or many, of our members could fill to help create content for our site.

Claudia and the rest of the Faultline team have their own list of what they want to see happen with the areas of the blog that are devoted to the Faultline so please also keep in mind that there many ways you can contribute to this new communications tool for our chapter.

We hope to see you on Wednesday! Please read on for more details...

What’s New at SJSU SLIS

By Beverly McLeod, Student Relations Liaison, San Andreas Chapter

E-Portfolio
Last summer the administration changed the culminating requirement for the MLIS degree. All students who do not plan to write a thesis must now complete an e-portfolio in order to graduate. Despite some initial grousing, students took up the challenge of the e-portfolio; last fall 229 students (91% of the 252 students enrolled) successfully completed the course and received their degree, according to program coordinator Jane Fisher. (A few students needed more time to finish the project, and are continuing to work on it this semester.) Another 200+ students are currently enrolled in the e-portfolio course.

The e-portfolio must consist of a 3-5 page statement of professional philosophy, an introduction and several pieces of evidence supporting the student’s mastery of each of 14 areas of professional competency, and a concluding section addressing the student’s professional growth plan. Most students used the simple format provided by SLIS for their e-portfolio, but some chose to present their material by creating their own Web site. J. Michael DeMars even designed his site in blue and gold, SJSU’s school colors (www.demarsfamily.com/library289webdocs).

Faculty Strike
Faculty at the 23 CSU campuses voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if labor negotiations are unsuccessful. The strike, unprecedented in the history of the CSU system, would mean suspension of classes for two days in April at SJSU. It is unclear how the strike would affect the mostly online courses at SLIS.

Beverly McLeod can be reached at [email protected]

Share, Reuse, and Remix - Legally: A Recap of Creative Commons Presentation

By Helen Josephine, President, San Andreas Chapter

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."  (From www.creativecommons.org)

Mia Garlick, General Counsel for Creative Commons was the speaker at the Joint Program meeting of the San Francisco and San Andreas Chapters, February 22, 2007.  Mia provided us with a short course on the advantages of using a Creative Commons license to share the creative effort of artists, writers, scientists and educators.  While the standard copyright does apply to all of our original work, some feel that the standard "All Rights Reserved" is too restrictive.  Sharing for non-commercial purposes may help to broaden the audience of a work.  Some authors and artists want to encourage use and re-mix of their work to continue the creative process.

Founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons has developed the tools to help those who want both to protect and to share their work.  On the Creative Commons site you can register your work and select the level of restrictions you want to apply to your license. You can allow use for non-commercial purposes, while still reserving your right to be paid for commercial use.  You can allow or restrict modifications of your work (re-mixes, derivatives).  You can allow modifications if the other party also agrees to share through a Creative Commons license (share alike).

Delegation – Crucial for Effective Management

An important managerial skill is the ability to delegate. Janice Lachance, Chief Executive Officer of SLA, writes that “good delegation saves you time, develops your fellow leaders, grooms a successor, and motivates;” on the other hand, “poor delegation causes frustration, demotivates and confuses the other person, and fails to achieve the task or purpose itself” (Leadership Connections, January 2007).

What is a manager to do? Think SMART, or SMARTER (Lachance’s easy-to-remember acronym). Delegated tasks must be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Agreed
- Realistic
- Time bound
- Exciting or Enjoyable
- Recorded

Admittedly, the tasks may not always be ‘exciting’ or ‘enjoyable’. Nonetheless, Lachance states, it is important to explain the relevance of the task and how the person responsible for it will benefit. To read more about other leadership tools, visit the SLA Leadership Center.

Bio: Helen Keil Losch

Helen Keil Losch is a Reference and Instruction Librarian at Stanford Graduate School of Business Jackson Library. Established in 1933 to serve a growing graduate business school, Jackson Library is recognized as one of the premier academic business resources. Previously she worked at Industrial Economics Incorporated, Boston.

Helen earned an MSLIS from Simmons College, Boston.

Helen has been a member of SLA since 1999. As a member of the Boston Chapter of SLA she was the Science and Technology chair. She has also been a member of the SLA Professional Development Advisory Council (formerly the Professional Development Committee) since 2004. She is the current Treasurer of the San Andreas Chapter.

Bio: Eli Edwards - Director

Eli Edwards is a graduate of the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University and is a law student at Santa Clara University School of Law. Eli has worked in public (Los Angeles Public Library), academic (Stanford University Libraries) and special (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, News Research Unit and the Internet Archive) libraries. She has been a member of ALA and SLA since 2001; within SLA, she is a member of the San Andreas Chapter, the News Division, and the Archiving/Preservation Caucus.

Eli's SLIS degree has Arnold Schwarzeneggar's signature on it; there is the faint hope that with 20 years' appreciation, it will fetch a good price on eBay and will be an auspicious addition to her retirement portfolio, despite the fact that the signature is computer-generated. She is a Director with the San Andreas chapter.

Event: San Andreas Chapter Blog Launch Party - March 28, 2007

Speakers: Mary-Lynn Bragg, Claudia Cohen (co-editors) and Michael Sippey, Vice President of SixApart

The San Andreas Chapter, which encompasses Silicon Valley, has moved forward with a suite of 21st-century web tools to foster communication and community among the San Andreas membership. These tools include:

- Typepad, a blog creation/hosting service to present, preserve and manage current and persistent content;
- Google Calendar for our events and for events from other area chapters, etc. Calendar content can be used by members via direct use (iCal standard or linking from their own Google Calendar);
- Feedburner RSS feed with "add-ons" for imbedding other content; provides an email service where people can sign up to get blog posts by email;
- Del.icio.us for creating and sharing bookmarks of relevant web content with Chapter members

In addition to a presentation by blog co-editors Mary-Lynn Bragg and Claudia Cohen, Michael Sippey of TypePad will be our special guest speaker.

Michael Sippey
Michael Sippey is the VP of Professional Products at Six Apart, makers of TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal and Vox. Founded in 2002 by husband and wife team Ben and Mena Trott, Six Apart provides award-winning blogging software and services that change the way millions of individuals, organizations, and corporations connect and communicate across the world every day. Sippey has been with Six Apart since 2004, and has played key roles in product strategy, management and development.

Before joining Six Apart, Sippey was a Managing Director of Quris, a boutique marketing agency focused on email communications, which he helped found in 2000. Prior to that Sippey was at Internet consultancy Viant, was part of the startup team at GlobalEnglish.com, and cut his teeth on product management at Advent Software in SanFrancisco.

Sippey has been publishing online since 1995, when he launched “Stating the Obvious,” a then-weekly site of essays on Internet technology, business, and culture. He currently blogs at sippey.typepad.com and michael.vox.com.

Please click on Word document or PDF for detailed information and registration form.

Bio: Lisa Sammon - Director

Lisa Sammon is currently a Research Analyst with the Intel Library at Intel Corp. in Santa Clara. Lisa handles all research and reference requests that come into the Intel Library. She also publishes a daily Executive Newsletter. Prior to joining Intel in 1992, Lisa worked in the corporate library at GTE Government Systems (now General Dynamics) in Mountain View.

Lisa earned her MLIS from San Jose State University and holds a BA in English from Santa Clara University. She has been an SLA member since 1994. She is a Director with the San Andreas chapter.

Bio: Lee Pharis - Past President

Lee Pharis is Manager of Information Resources, Exponent, Inc. Lee works with clients to assess and facilitate relevant, timely responses to their research inquiries, and also provides research expertise, including resource evaluation. She conducts research in peer-reviewed and authoritative technical literature using both online and manual indexing services available from leading commercial publishers. As appropriate, this secondary research may also be supplemented with primary research, including contacting government trade experts or other known practitioners within a field.

Prior to joining Exponent, Lee managed research teams at Price Waterhouse Technology Centre, Acurex Corp. and BA Investment Management Corp. and was also a researcher at Questor Associates and Xerox Corp. Through conducting research in various industry sectors such as engineering, defense, information technology, and securities portfolio management, Lee has acquired a broad industry perspective that provides insight into the cross-relationships between specific technical matters and their environments.

Lee earned her MLS from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has a BA with Distinction in Liberal Studies and a minor in Biology from California State University, Chico.

Lee is a member of both the San Andreas and San Francisco SLA chapters and has served on a variety of committees, including Tours, Jobline, Nominations, and Hospitality. She is the Past President of the San Andreas chapter.

Bio: Joe Langdon - President-Elect

Joe Langdon is Chief of Science Information and Library Services (SILS), Western Region at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park. The SILS group was formed in 2005 with the merging of the former Library staff and the Earth Science Information Center (map sales and public information) staff. He supervises a staff of 18 civil servants and contractors comprised of Librarians, Cartographers, Geographers, and Education Coordinators. SILS staff are located at Menlo Park and Flagstaff, Arizona. Joe works closely with information professionals, researchers and managers at other USGS locations though-out nine Western states, responding to their needs and advocating for resources from USGS /HQ.

Prior to working for the USGS, Joe worked over 21 years for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Headquarters, and recently at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View. He was a reference librarian at GSFC and head of the HQ Library. At Ames, he eventually moved into the Branch Chief’s position, with responsibility for managing the Library, Publications, and Records Management. Before becoming a government grunt, Joe worked as a librarian for Computer Sciences Corporation (at GSFC/Landsat project) and as an editor/indexer for the American Geological Institute (GeoRef).

Joe received degrees in Education/Library Science and Geology from Slippery Rock State College, Pennsylvania.

Joe has been a member of SLA since 1997, served on the Directory Committee, and was Treasurer of the San Andreas Chapter from 2002-2004. He is the current President-Elect of the San Andreas chapter.

Event: Solo Librarians Meeting – Thursday, March 22, 2007

The Solo Librarians of the San Andreas Chapter of SLA invite you to join them for their next meeting on March 22nd. Anyone with an interest in small libraries is welcome, including students and recent grads of the MLIS programs.

Eric Kristofferson will be hosting the meeting at 6 P.M. on Thursday March 22nd at St. Jude Medical on Evelyn Ave. near Wolfe Rd. in Sunnyvale. The address is 701 E. Evelyn Ave., the first building. Click for map link to event.

Nancy Blachman of Google Guide will be making a presentation entitled:

Power Googling: Getting what you want from Google

Nancy says: “Google is easy to use, but the more you know about how it works, its features, its capabilities, and how it displays results, the better it can serve your needs. Learn how to go beyond Google's deceptively plain interface and take advantage of underutilized capabilities and shortcuts.”

We will be serving pizza prior to the presentation. As always, the cost will be dependent on the number of attendees, but should be less than $10/ea.

Those who are planning to attend need to contact Eric Kristofferson by March 20th. Contact Eric at [email protected]  or (408) 522-6697.

Event: San Andreas Chapter, SLA March Tour - Monday, March 19, 2007

DATE: Monday, March 19th, 2007
TIME: 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

LOCATION: San Mateo Public Library, Biotechnology Resource Center
Main Library
55 West 3rd Avenue
San Mateo, Ca 94402
Map to Library

Biotechnology Resource Center
The dedication of the Genentech Foundation Biotechnology Learning Center was held on Nov. 29th, 2006 in the Main Library's Grand Reading Room. The center is the first biotechnology learning center of its kind in a public library anywhere in the U.S. Speakers at the event included Fred Middleton, Managing Director of Sanderling Ventures, Colleen Wilson, Executive Director of the Genentech Foundation, Dr. Dildar Gill Pisani, President of the Library Foundation, Elizabeth Perry, Biotechnology Librarian, and Ben Ocon, City Librarian.

Tour Host
Liz Perry has had a rich professional history in the biotech sector. After eight years at Gilead in Foster City establishing and leading their Information Center, Liz worked at Roche Palo Alto as Research Partner (information services liaison) to the Integrated Health group. Liz was hired on at San Mateo Public in 2006, specifically to develop the collections and programs in the Genentech Foundation Biotechnology Resource Center. Liz received a BA in Geology from Earlham College and an MLIS from Simmons College. She has been an active member of SLA's Pharmaceutical and Health Technology Division for too many years to count, serving as Secretary from 2002-2004 and Conference Planner for Annual Meeting in Baltimore.
 
TOUR:
Convene at the San Mateo Public Library for a snack and networking prior to the tour. Join Liz Perry for a review of this unusual information resource open to the public - the Biotechnology Resource Center of the San Mateo Public Library. Time allowing we will also check out other aspects of this new public library facility, including a unique Teen Lounge, a fabulously fun Children's area, and the many Green features of the building that opened just six months ago.

This tour will be limited to 60 people.  Deadline for registration: Thursday, 15-Mar-2007.

Please click on Word document or PDF for detailed information and registration form.