What's Going on in the Knowledge Exchange?
by John Latham
Research
Since the last "KEx Corner" was published Cathy Mahe has joined the Knowledge Exchange as the information specialist. Cathy has gained professional experience both in industry (MCI Worldcom) and the association world (American Trucking Association) and will be a great asset to the Knowledge Exchange. She will be concentrating on research and competitive intelligence for the association. Cathy is currently working on an environmental scanning project to identify, gather and analyze information about associations and other professional groups. The goal of this project is to identify which groups intersect with SLA now (or in the future) and how these groups will benefit SLA's evolution in some way.
In my new role as staff liaison to SLA's Research Committee, I attended their meeting in Chicago. We have some exciting ideas for developing the role of research in special librarianship. Initially we will be promoting SLA's Research Statement of June 2001 (http://www.sla.org/researchstatement/) with a feature article in the September issue of Information Outlook. This statement, "Putting OUR Knowledge to Work," summarizes the role of research in special librarianship, the current state of our knowledge base, the building of a evidence-based practice (EBP) culture, what special librarians can do, what researchers can do and what SLA can do by putting our knowledge to worktogether. We are also preparing a proposal for the board on setting up a database of EBP, which hopefully will lead to publishing an annual peer-reviewed e-journal.
On Wednesday, June 12, from 2:00-3:30 p.m., at SLA's Annual Conference in Los Angeles, a seminar titled, "Beyond How I Done it Good" has been organized to provide practitioners with examples of how to implement EBP in the workplace. The program will focus on how to conduct meaningful research on the job, and in turn, use the research to make better decisions. The seminar will include discussion on why EBP is important to the information professional; how to locate appropriate and applicable studies; and the experiences of special librarians who have conducted studies and used EBP research to make decisions. See the SLA 2002 Conference Planner for details about the participants.
Changing Role of the Information Professional
Last year, in response to ongoing requests from SLA members for benchmarks regarding such topics as budgeting and staffing, SLA participated in Outsell, Inc.'s annual study on the changing role of the information professional in the corporate environment.
The executive summary of this report can be found under Recent Industry Reports in SLA's InfoStore, which can be accessed from the Knowledge Exchange link on SLA's home page. We have also participated in the 2002 survey, which was sent to members in April. The executive summary will be added to Recent Industry Reports as soon as it becomes available, which is expected to be in June.
Career Seeking Projects
Following a local D.C. chapter meeting, "What Went Right: Notes on Library Closings and Other Life Lessons Learned," we discovered that the Illinois chapter has already been active in helping unemployed members. In light of the many recent association library closings, the D.C. chapter asked its employment committee to set up a Career Seeking Project. So far we are providing access to a group of people who have experienced a career disruption to be mentors on a one-on-one basis; a group breakfast or evening meeting to discuss and share experiences; and presentations by career employment and outplacement firms. I am sure that many other chapters have organized similar projects. With so many members losing their jobs, I should be most grateful if these projects could be shared with me (john@sla.org) so that we can set up a portal on SLA's Web site for their benefit.
New Portals
We are preparing new information portals to cover scholarships and grants offered by SLA's chapters and divisions, mentoring and the value of the information professional. There are many resources available within SLA and its units, but they need to be brought together for easy access. We will be sending out surveys shortly and adding them to other resources on the topics.
The mission of the KEx is to facilitate the exchange of knowledge within SLA's global community, so please let me know if you have any great ideas or needs.
is the sole sponsor of the IRC
RSS
Feedback form
