Being Grateful for What We’ve Got and Wanting More
by Stephen Abram

I am writing this piece as we prepare for the holiday season.  Having visited the SLA Boston Chapter many times, I know you’ll grant me the time to be thoughtful in print.

This has been difficult year. 

It started with the epic tsunami in Asia – unbelievable destruction in such an unbelievably short period of time.  It seems amazing that it has been just a year since thousands of lives were lost, whole communities wiped off the face of the earth and hundreds of libraries destroyed. 

The world continues to be at war, primarily in the Middle East, but in too many other places too. I travel often and find myself choked up all too often by entire families escorting their brave sons and daughters, dressed in camouflage fatigues, past my check-in line through the airport and on to events unknown in the Gulf. 

Too many hurricanes ran through the ‘other’ Gulf Region this year.  Again, too many homes and families were hurt.  Entire libraries were wiped out (You can see a map of the ones we have identified that are gone here - http://www.libraryndp.info/special_katrina.html) and whole communities were forced to start over. 

Floods in the Northeast again hurt communities and our neighbors.  Once again, people rebuilt their lives, their communities and their libraries. Tornadoes in the Midwest pushed through and Mother Nature tried to triumph again.

A massive earthquake in Pakistan strikes as the Western World starts suffering donation fatigue.

This has been a difficult year.

I’ve been proud of my peers’ reactions to the needs of the tsunami victims. A CLA fund that I initiated collected funds in the 5 figure range that were deployed through our partnerships with IFLA to ensure the money gets into the neediest hands and makes a difference.

I have also been proud of my work colleagues this year too. Before the hurricanes hit they were calling libraries that had been hit in previous years to ask them what would have helped them most. Rather than just assuming we asked. What a librarian thing to do – making informed decisions!  As a result we set up programs that made a difference. Besides offering special off-site back-ups at no charge, we moved truckloads of computers and wireless networks into the Gulf region and set up centers for citizens whose libraries were gone. I am especially proud that some of those libraries were not clients – they just needed help and my colleagues delivered it.

I am proud of my professional colleagues. There were those libraries that moved their bookmobiles into the affected regions to reduce the boredom of refugees housed in sports stadiums. I admire those libraries that sent people to help others find their missing relatives through the net. All of the volunteers who aided people in need and provided library cards to non-residents with temporary ID who had been evacuated to their towns trumped the risk of losing a book or two.

At this time of year it is important to remember that I am thankful for my own health. I’ll never forget the holiday season I spent in hospital learning to walk again and calming the fears of my friends and family. This is the ninth year that I have remained cancer free and healthy. I am thankful for my family. Without my wife Stephanie I would never be able to achieve the goals that I have set for myself, my family and my profession. Without my son, Zachary, and daughter, Sydney, I’d have too few people challenging me and my views or giving me hope for the next generation. I treasure my friends and colleagues. I could not have developed and grown as a person or as a professional without them. I hope I’ve been one-half the friend and colleague to them as they’ve been to me. 

That said, and these blessings aside, I am still not satisfied. I want more! I don’t want to seem ungrateful but things are just not good enough in this world and I know that libraries and information professionals can make a difference – a BIG difference.  I suppose that’s why we have the tradition of following up the holiday season, when we recognize our blessings, with New Year’s where we make our list of resolutions of what we want for the future.

My 2006 New Year’s Wish List

1. Focus: If we want our profession to achieve something great, then we have to do it with a laser-like focus.  We are a rich, intelligent, diverse and multi-hued profession and have a valid and supportable interest in just about everything.  However, my dream for 2006 is that we discover the will within us to focus on a single major project that will benefit us all. 
2. Recognition: Libraries radiate throughout the knowledge ecology and make a difference.  I’d like more important people to notice this!  Let’s work on getting someone who values us to be a highly visible champion.  We need to move beyond ourselves and develop and implement an advocacy program about the role, value and impact of special librarians and information professionals.   If we fail at this one thing, we do risk losing everything altogether.
3. Confidence: Let’s find the confidence to speak as a profession with authority, confidence and energy.  Let’s do this now.  Now!  Let’s not study it loooonnnggg and haaarrrddd.  Let’s not take it literally and study something to death. The death of our profession isn’t our goal!!  We need to have the confidence of our convictions and take action - sustainable action.  If every member positioned themselves to each tell just five positive springboard stories in 2006 to five people who matter, our world would change. 50,000 stories will move minds.  Imagine!
4. Balance: Let’s balance all of the needs of every type of specialized librarianship.  Our differences are small and our common needs are great.  Let’s find the middle ground that lets us work more strongly together.   We’re all in this boat together and no one part of special librarianship can point to another and say their side of the boat is sinking.  Let’s sacrifice our pedantic conversations about our titles, our profession’s name, how relevant we are.  Talking amongst ourselves is just sound and fury.
5. Learning: Let’s learn anew.  Let’s learn new modes of learning.  Let’s actively seek new technologies and become more expert at them.  Let’s create compelling content. Let’s collaborate on a whole new scale. It’s time to use our investments of the past decade in the SLA website, our discussion lists, CLICK University, and more in our own cause.  It’s not just about networking and sharing information, it’s about achieving our more visionary dreams for success.
6. Trust and Respect: We need to respect each other more.  We need to build better teams and more sustainable effort.  We are a smart profession with strong critical thinking skills.  We need to ensure that we don’t devolve that critical thinking strength into random criticism.  We need to have faith in our cause.  We need to be an incubator of success.
7. Risk: Let’s take this risk.  Small risk, small reward.  Our need is great, we won’t get to where we want and need to be without taking some calculated more sizeable risks.  

We can reach a new plateau. We can prove our value to those we work with, work for and get our funds from. We can achieve greatness. By the end of 2006 I want more employers to know that librarians rock.  I don’t want anyone to say that they are having trouble finding a position as information professionals. I don’t want anyone denying that there is a librarian shortage. I want employers fighting over the best and recruiting. I want employers that closed their libraries to fail (or become quite ill and cure themselves by hiring a librarian – grin). I want employers with great libraries to succeed and blame their librarians.  That’s how I would measure our success.

May this holiday season bring you friends, family, health, peace, tolerance and understanding. Let’s hope 2006 bring us the wisdom to treasure it and the energy and commitment to make the world a better place. 

Stephen Abram, MLS is a candidate for SLA President.  He is Vice President, Innovation for SirsiDynix.  He is an SLA Fellow and the past president of the Ontario Library Association and the immediate past president of the Canadian Library Association.  In June 2003 he was awarded SLA’s John Cotton Dana Award.  Stephen would love to hear from you at stephen.abram@sirsidynix.com.