Diana Magnoni

Candidate Speech

This past year and a half I’ve been involved in the amazing process of starting a new college. As Olin’s first library director, I’ve had the opportunity to work with fabulous faculty, administrators, students, and advisors to build an engineering school that will, we hope, help transform engineering education. Such an endeavor requires lots of brainstorming, conversing, researching, and dreaming. Each of these activities is a form of communication. One of the tools that Olin uses to facilitate many to many communication and conversation is the Minute Paper. The title is pretty self-explanatory. A question is posed, and everyone in a group has a minute to respond to the question on a notepad, whiteboard, index card, etcetera. I’d like to use minute papers today to have a conversation with you in addition to delivering a speech. I have found over a career of building services and resources that community approaches to decision making are powerful. As such, I’d like your input today. At the end of the speeches, I’ll collect all of the cards and, upon my return to Massachusetts, will input all of the answers into a document that I’ll post to the leadership list.

A challenge to any organization is the dissemination of information, feedback, comments and questions throughout the population of that organization. SLA has become increasingly sophisticated in its dissemination of information from headquarters and the board out to the membership. The reverse flow of information, though, is still a challenge. Using a green index card, how would you improve the flow of information from the membership to the board and to headquarters? Complete sentences are not necessary. You can jot down a single idea, a bulleted list, or a diagram. The important part is communicating your idea.

I’ve asked about communication up front because this is a skill we need to have in our association, our jobs, our families, and our communities. OCLC recently published an environmental scan of our profession. Not surprisingly, change was a critical theme throughout the report. The anarchy of the web was compared to the order of our profession. Are the two worlds compatible? In discussing where we are going, the report states: “The landscape has changed and the maps have not been published yet.” How will we, as information professionals, help chart the new maps? We can use our communication skills to not only market our skill set, but share our vision with the other cartographers – our governments, our companies, and our educational institutions. SLA can play a pivotal role in keeping our communication skills sharp, creating a shared vision, and keeping our compass pointed due North. With our skills and our vision we can set out to create the partnerships necessary to map our new terrain.

Partnerships and collaborations will augment our association and our individual roles. We are no longer in a pioneer society where going it alone wins the prize. Call it systems theory, teaming, or the pooling of silos, but our partnerships are now a critical success factor. Using a yellow index card, who should SLA be partnering with for services, learning, conferences, and membership development?

When I was young, I knew that I wanted to make a difference in the world. At varying times I wanted to be a forest ranger, a missionary, and a member of the Peace Corps. While my road to making a difference has changed, my basic desire has not. I would like to help our association find its path to a global and diverse membership. The collective voices of members from around the world and across cultures will only strengthen our association, which will in turn enrich each of us. I want to recruit new members to our profession. Can we start advocating our profession in high schools? Are unemployment offices good recruitment zones? Could a brochure be mailed to career development specialists? Or should we focus our attention on graduate schools? I want to explore these questions with you and with the board.

Finally, I’m up here today because I have created strong bonds of friendship in this association that have given me the gifts of support, wisdom, mentorship, and joy. My career has not always been filled with light. When I lost a job a few years back, my friends were SLA members. While I do not need to be a member of the Board of Directors to pass on the gifts of friendship, I would like to have the opportunity to share the wisdom and support I have received. What would you like to share? On the blue index card that represents dreams, please write the question that was not asked and the road that has not yet been traveled. I would like to journey for a while on your path.

Thank you.