Welcome to SLA Connections, your source for news and information from the information profession and industry.
Defining the Future of SLA
I think we can all agree that the commitment to execution of focused, strategic goals by the SLA Board of Directors, volunteer leaders, and staff has led to a resurgence in SLA and the global community of information professionals. It's cool to be a part of the SLA experience, and it's showing even more so today, as we prepare for SLA 2006 in Baltimore. How so? Let me offer up a few ways that we all should consider as we make the journey to "Charm City."
Conference Participation
By the looks of our registration numbers heading into the conference, we are on track to have a diverse group of information professionals in our midst there. For the second consecutive year, over 600 first-timers will be with us - always a great sign. We are expecting participants from over 30 countries around the world, and we are looking forward to an excellent lineup of speakers and sessions to keep your career moving forward.
The Info-Expo
I'm pleased to report that this year's edition will feature more than 300 companies in more than 480 booths. That means that you'll get exposure to the largest gathering of information industry representatives at an SLA conference in 10 years. To review the listing of exhibitors and plan your visits with them, go to the Virtual Info-Expo.
SLA Task Forces
Over the last year, 6 task forces created by SLA President Pam Rollo have been working hard on a range of topics that collectively form the basis for an evolution for the future of SLA. These task forces have addressed chapter modeling, alliances and partnerships, executive growth in the profession, recognition in the SLA community, the evolution of the profession, research, and branding SLA for the future. You'll have an opportunity to hear what these task forces discovered, as they will be reporting to the SLA Board of Directors in Baltimore. You can read more in the Board's meeting documents.
Technology-Based Services
Two lines of work have been taking place of late in this arena. First, SLA staff has been working hard over the past year to review proposals for a new association management system, or AMS. Historically, we at headquarters and volunteer leaders in chapters and divisions have been limited in our abilities due to the current system we are using. That will change in the next year or so, as we are closing in on acquisition of new system that will focus on your needs, those of your volunteer leaders, and those of SLA HQ Staff.
Second, a group of SLA members have conducted an assessment of technology-related services from SLA, and will be reporting on their findings to the SLA Chapter and Division Cabinets in Baltimore. While many of their concerns and suggestions are continually being addressed by us at SLA Headquarters, their assessment was extremely productive and will serve as a guide for future action.
SLA Web Site
I am very pleased to inform you that the SLA Web site has received a "facelift," and version 3.2 of www.sla.org will be launched at SLA 2006 in Baltimore. Member feedback, expert opinion, and benchmarking with some of the more innovative Web sites all factored into this evolution in your SLA online community. Stop by the SLA Marketplace, located in the Info-Expo, on Sunday, 11 June to get a personal tour of the site and some of its new functionality.
Click University
As we begin SLA 2006, we look forward to the 1st Birthday of Click University, which was launched one year ago in Toronto. In one year, Click U. has already evolved based on SLA member feedback and will continue to grow based on your needs. In fact, we'll be making a special announcement in Baltimore regarding a new offering that I think you'll find very exciting. Click U. continues to operate as a "members only" service, so please make use of it for your own career development. Go to www.clickuniversity.com for more information or to sign up for a course.
There's lots of other ways in which we all are getting charged up about the SLA experience. Whether you are in Baltimore or not, changes, enhancements, and new ideas are popping up everywhere you look. Are you ready? I am, and I look forward to the journey with you.
Janice's List
Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals that Will Make or Break Your Company, by George S. Day and Paul J.H. Schoemaker, Harvard Business School Press, 2006.
How good is your organization at sensing, interpreting, and acting on signals from its periphery? The authors - directors of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the Wharton School of Business - call this capability "peripheral vision," and their research shows that fewer than 20 percent of firms have developed it in sufficient capacity to remain competitive. In this book, they reveal a systematic process for developing peripheral vision and offer practical tools and strategies for building "vigilant organizations" that are constantly attuned to changes in the environment. Read an excerpt from Harvard's Working Knowledge.
Burning Question
Lots of SLA members are getting involved in shaping the future of the profession and SLA. What ideas do you have for continuing the resurgence of the SLA experience? I'd like to hear from you on this! Email me at janice@sla.org.
Consider This
"I prefer to be true to myself, at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence." Frederick Douglass (1817-1895), U.S. Abolitionist and a native of Baltimore.
Managing Through Motivation
When it comes to keeping your team motivated, are you the solution or the problem? Sometimes, it’s difficult to know, unless you thoroughly assess your own performance and develop strategies for engaging your team to keep them motivated. Read more from Harvard’s Working Knowledge.
‘Net Neutrality:’ What Does It Mean?
People who watch the actions of the U.S. Congress must be delirious with confusion over the ongoing attempts to theoretically balance the scales on delivery of traffic across the multitude of networks that make up the Internet. Read more from Wired.com.
Focus on Innovation: Being Audacious Has Its Rewards
There is a link between risk and reward, and the audacity of the risk yields greater rewards. So says Jeffrey Baumgartner in a column published on InnovationTools.com.
Cool Site: The Mind of Leonardo
With The Da Vinci Code now in theaters worldwide, the SLA Connections crew thought it fitting to share some insight into the mind of the man for whom the film is named. The Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence, Italy is currently offering an exhibit (and this online tour) that encourages visitors to “explore the genius’ very mode of thinking and his unitary conception of knowledge as the effort to assimilate, through bold theoretical syntheses and inventive experiments, the laws that govern all of the wondrous operations of man and nature.”
Multigenerational SLA Membership?
Are you a second or even third generation SLA member? Will you be attending the annual conference this year with your mother, father, daughter or even grandson? We want to hear your family’s story. Please take a moment to share with us why your family is part of the SLA family by sending an email to SLA HQ cara@sla.org.
B&F Division Announced Center Of Excellence Award Winners
The Business and Finance Division of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) announced the winners of its fifth annual Center of Excellence Awards. Press Release.
SLA 2006 Conference Blog is HOT!
If you were paying attention to last year’s conference activities in Toronto online, you no doubt saw the SLA Web log that shared news, event information, and participant feedback. The excellent response to that blog yielded the second edition for this year’s conference in Baltimore, at www.sla.org/2006conferenceblog. There is already a flurry of activity and that should increase as the festivities kick off on Sunday evening. Be sure to visit and follow along with conference attendees, staff, and leadership as they share their thoughts and reactions to everything from Keynote speakers to CE courses to the business meeting. Thanks to Elsevier for supporting this year’s blog!
Inner City Youth Internship Program
The Southern California Association of Law Librarians (SCALL) offers an Inner City Youth Internship Program (ICYIP), presenting employment opportunities for lifelong change to high school students in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
"SCALL established the Inner City Youth Internship Program in 1992. Our mission is to offer employment opportunities to qualified inner city high school students in private, public and academic libraries as well as other related institutions. Our program intends that by participating in these work environments, our interns will gain more familiarity with the profession of law as well as gain useful work experience. We want to further these students' career aspirations and to encourage them to achieve all that they can." (Mission Statement) To support this effort, please visit the program’s Web site.
Columbia University Launches New MLIS in Information & Archive Management
In September 2006, Columbia University's School of Continuing Education will launch a new Master of Science in Information and Archive Management. The Information and Archive Management program is designed to teach the systematic and technical skills necessary to fulfill the responsibilities demanded by business, government, and nonprofit organizations in what is now appropriately termed the "international information economy." Additional information.
Information Today To Donate 20% of Booth Sales to Katrina Relief Fund
Information Today, Inc. (ITI) will donate 20% of its booth sales at SLA 2006 to the Bush-Clinton Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. ITI will make its entire catalog of publications, directories, books, and other information-industry related products available for purchase by SLA attendees. A select number of ITI publications will also be available in the SLA Marketplace at the event. ITI will have many of its products on display at Booth #2125 in the SLA exhibit hall. Any publications can be ordered from the ITI catalog, which will be available at the booth.
2006 Membership Study
We have extended the completion date for the membership study online to Friday, 9 June 2006. Thank you to all SLA members who have already completed the survey. For those who have not, approximately 15 minutes of your time will provide SLA with some of the most important information that we will gather this year. Because we extended the survey outside SLA membership to obtain responses from as many information professionals as possible, some members will have received a second request to complete the survey as a “Friend of SLA.” You will have received this because, at some time, you may have used an e-mail address not in our membership database to contact SLA for products or services, such as an SLA-hosted discussion list. With the e-mail address being the only contact point, we are unable to purge this address from the membership database. Please take a moment to be sure that your current email address is correct. http://www.sla.org/content/membership/index.cfm
We hope that you will accept this minor inconvenience for the enhanced benefit of the study. If you have received a second request, please forward the request to survey@sla.org, so that we can delete you from the prospects list.
2006 SLA Salary Survey and Workforce Study
The annual salary survey and workforce study will be sent out to US and Canadian members by the end of June. The survey is being sent out later than usual so as not to compete with the 2006 Membership Study. As mentioned in earlier SLA Connections and Information Outlook invaluable information is obtained from these surveys, and we appreciate your commitment to SLA and your completion of these surveys. If you have any questions about the salary survey and workplace study contact John Latham at jlatham@sla.org.
Member Service Focus: New Government Information Division Website We continue our quest this month for cool and new member services in the SLA universe with a look at the Government Information Division’s (DGI) website. This is an excellent re-design that came as a result of a generous grant from the Bureau of National Affairs that allowed DGI to hire an outside designer to redevelop and enhance the Web presence that was already in place.
“The scope of the Government Information Division is to bring together those interested in the value, organization and management of government information sources with those responsible for the provision and improvement of government library services. It is a forum for the exchange of ideas and information on the value and use of government information and government libraries, and our new website reflects that, it works as a home for our members,” said Richard Huffine, DGI chair.
According to Eileen Deegan, co-chair for the DGI communications committee, “the new site works as both a portal for information on membership, division activities, and news as well as a gateway to all the communication and community development tools such as the blogs and discussion lists.”
SLA HQ would like to thank DGI for promoting the annual conference on their site,
GO DGI Keep up the great work!
The Click U faculty and administration encourage you to take advantage of this time of year to check out the available online libraries and replays of previously offered seminars at www.clickuniversity.com. If you have some “down” time in the coming months consider brushing up on your skills and competencies or taking a look at some of the things you may have missed over the last few months.
For those who are up to date, Click U Live! will return in September with ALL NEW courses on a variety of topics. If you are already itching to get started planning your next semester, take a look at what will be offered by international copyright lawyer Lesley Ellen Harris. Professor Harris, the author of several books, including Canadian Copyright Law (McGraw-Hill Ryerson.), will be teaching courses online to SLA members through Click U beginning on 18 September and 30 October. SLA members can register any time before the start of courses. Her topics include:
Canadian Copyright Law Online 2006
Sept 18-Oct 20, 2006 [5 week]
[Monday - Friday]
US Copyright Law Online 2006
Sept 18-Oct 20, 2006 [5 week]
[Monday - Friday]
Managing Copyright Online 2006
Sept 18-Oct 20, 2006 [5 week]
[Monday - Friday]
Oct 30- Dec 1, 2006 [5 week]
[Monday - Friday]
Digital Content Management 2006
Oct 30- Dec 1, 2006 [5 week]
[Monday - Friday]
SLA Surpasses Pre-Conference Registration Goal
SLA 2006 Features Major Conference Support
LexisNexis Wins SIIA Codie for Best Biz Intel / KM App
Factiva Wins 2006 Int’l Biz Award as Most Innovative Company
Dialog Seeks Roger Summit Scholarship Applicants
Elsevier Launches iCONSULT Service for Medical Info Pros
“Hoover’s 100” List of Most Searched Companies Unveiled
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