Silicon Valley Chapter | SLA

SLA Denver – Ideas Showcase

As part of the Info Expo at the SLA Conference in Denver, chapters and divisions were invited to prepare a poster to highlight an activity to share with the membership. Called the Ideas Showcase, the best practices of SLA’s units were featured in an area within the Exhibit Hall. The San Andreas Chapter submitted a poster to graphically explain the creation of the blog as a communication tool within the Chapter. The photo below shows the poster at the Ideas Showcase.

Helen Josephine
Engineering Library
Terman Engineering Center
Stanford University
[email protected]

SLA San Andreas Chapter Award Recommendations Solicitation

As the most recent Chapter Past-President, it is my privilege to chair the awards committee this year. Each year we have the opportunity to honor members of our chapter who have made notable contributions. Since 1990 we have presented the Mark H. Baer Award, and last year added the Lucy Steelman Award. In 2006 we were able to honor Leslie Fisher with the Mark H. Baer Award for lifting our programs off the ground by trying creative new approaches and venues, and Eric Kristofferson with the Lucy Steelman Award for providing a supportive collegial network in the spirit of Lucy Steelman through his work with the local Solo Librarians group.

The Mark H. Baer Award serves to recognize an individual’s contributions to our chapter or our profession during either the current year or throughout their career. A description of this award and a list of past recipients can be found on the chapter web site here http://www.san-andreas-sla.org/archives/awards.html.  The Lucy Steelman Award recognizes one who mentors colleagues in any number of ways. To provide a sense of what Lucy was about, and what the award that bears her name is intended to celebrate, please read the tribute to Lucy found on the chapter web site here http://www.san-andreas-sla.org/archives/lucy.html.

SLA Denver--the Power

Al Gore's keynote speech at the opening General Session of SLA was powerful.  Greeted with a standing ovation, Gore bounded on stage to the music of "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who.  The opening act was a series of self-deprecating jokes about life after the White House followed by musings on the information profession.  (Hmmm was it Al Gore or Scott Adams who proclaimed, "Librarians are Hot!" ?)  Global warming was the theme of the final act. The question from the audience about a
run for the presidency in 2008 focused Gore directly on the issue he has made his life.  His power and dedication to this issue were overwhelming forces in the convention hall.  He reiterated that his commitment to this issue is the most important work for him at this time--he said the global warming issue is 'burning up in me."  He would like to be President, but he thinks he could do more to solve the global warming crisis for the entire world with his presentations and the work of the Climate Project (http://www.theclimateproject.org/) rather than from Washington DC.  He challenged each of us to think about how we would be able to answer the question of the next generation when they ask, “Did we help or ignore the global climate crisis?”



Photos and other reports of the speech are on the SLA Blog at
 http://slablogger.typepad.com/.


Helen Josephine

Head Librarian

Engineering Library
[email protected]

Book Review: The Box - by Marc Levinson

By Karen Takle Quinn, Ph.D.

With his book The Box (Princeton University Press, 2006), Marc Levinson delivers an engrossing account of how the modern shipping container has revolutionized the flow of goods around the world. As Levinson notes, people now take for granted their access to an enormous selection of goods from all over the world. This unglamorous, little-noticed, and some call “ugly” shipping container has changed the world in more ways than most of us realize. I might never have read this fascinating story, if it had not been for its inclusion in Business Week best 2006 list.

Levinson delivers a detailed and engaging account of how this box came to be. Of particular note is his chronicle of Malcolm P. McLean, a North Carolina truck driver, who 50 years ago, after building a freight empire, gambled everything to create the first company with containerized ships. Levinson explains that today on the wharfs across the world rows of enormous cranes go into action almost as soon as an arriving ship ties up. These cranes are huge steel structures, some more than 200 feet high and often weighing millions pounds. They are positioned so that several truck lanes and even trains can pass underneath. These cranes move forward riding on rails that run parallel to the sides of the ships. Each crane extends above the dock far enough to span the width of the ship. It is said that some of these ships may be wider than the Panama Canal. The trucks, trains, and other vehicles with incoming containers are driven underneath the appropriate stacking crane. The crane picks up containers and moves them to their appropriate destination.