Welcome to SLA Connections, your source for news and information from the information profession and industry.
Defining the Future of SLA, Part Two
What does the future hold for SLA? We saw glimpses at SLA 2006 in Baltimore last month when your Board of Directors worked to wrap-up what is most accurately described as a year-long visioning process. You may be aware that seven task forces comprised of SLA members and staff have been working hard since last June to explore the future in some very key areas: alliances and partnerships; the shape of local interaction in SLA; executive growth in the profession; the evolution of the profession and its ongoing educational needs; the research needs of the profession; recognition for the SLA community; and defining the value proposition for the profession.
Each of these task forces submitted findings and recommendations for consideration by SLA as part of a strategic realignment of your Association in order to revolutionize our shape, our scope, our purpose, and our plans for delivering new value to you the SLA member. Why should we think small? I keep borrowing a phrase that my friend Bill Clinton said once, "Big things are expected of us, and nothing big ever came from being small." To strive for great things, we must be motivated, energized, mobilized for the future.
If you closed your eyes right now and imagined what SLA would look like in the future, it would probably look something like this:
We would offer intense local interaction and experience. After all, isn't our chapter involvement where we yield the most connectedness, where we learn the most, and where the majority of our SLA friends are?
We would also be incredibly globalized, with clusters of members in just about every nation around the world who are practitioners, industry representatives, academics, and leading thinkers in our universe.
We would be the center of learning for the global community of information professionals and new members would inherently understand that, in order to advance professionally, participation in SLA professional development activities is a MUST. But more than that, we would offer learning services for new entrants to the profession, mid-career professionals, and those seeking to join the executive ranks, so that you would never have to wonder where you were going to get the kind of training you need to take the next step in your career.
We would offer advanced but easy to use technologies that allow you to connect, communicate, and collaborate with members down the street or around the globe. And it would be an everyday occurrence to utilize these technologies in order to catch up with numerous colleagues around the world who keep us moving forward in our careers.
We would also serve as a technology laboratory, where you could experiment with tools and services that you need to understand in order to be at the vanguard of the profession.
We would identify and recognize the rising stars in the profession, reward excellence within our community, and showcase the best the information industry has to offer us, because they are such an important part of our universe.
We would serve as thought leaders on the evolution of library and information science education around the world, and help universities discover the unlimited possibilities for growing your profession beyond long-established but outdated boundaries.
We would serve as a powerful advocate for information professionals worldwide, representing your interests with governments, educating executives and hiring professionals on the strategic importance of your role in your organizations.
We would reduce the burden on volunteer leaders in managing SLA units, because such work should focus on member needs, not administrative and technical requirements.
And service as a volunteer leader, whether at the smallest SLA chapter or on the Association's Board of Directors, would allow you to grow in areas that truly benefit your career.
Finally, we would be organized, structured, and branded in such a way that our stakeholder communities: governments, academia, the information industry, business leaders and more would be speaking publicly about the compelling need for information professionals in organizations, and how SLA delivers on the promise for thousands of them around the world.
Imagine all of this as you sit in your chair right now, and then commit yourself to seeing it become a reality. Starting now, we are embarking on the path to renewal of our Association's purpose; to reshaping SLA to suit the future of the profession, not just its present; and to building its stature in such a way that you and your colleagues are considered indispensable assets to your organizations as a result of your growth through SLA.
This kind of future isn't so far away. Are you ready for the journey? The train is leaving the station. Join us as we begin the process for aligning SLA to be the Association representing the people who put knowledge to work around the world.
Janice's List
The Source of Success: Five Enduring Principles at the Heart of Real Leadership,
by Peter Georgescu, David Dorsey, and Ram Charan. Jossey-Bass, 2005.
(Excerpted from a recent posting on Janice's Info-X Blog) www.sla.org/infox
Peter Georgescu is the Chairman Emeritus of Young & Rubicam Inc., a network of commercial communications companies dedicated to helping clients build their businesses through the power of brands. In the book, he describes the elements he believes "can unleash a tremendous untapped reservoir of energy within our organizations and within ourselves."
Burning Question
We just wrapped up SLA 2006 in Baltimore, and I couldn't be more pleased with the results. If you were there, what did you really enjoy and what do you think needs to change about the SLA Annual Conference? If you weren't there, what can we do to get you to attend SLA 2007 in Denver? I'd like to hear from you on this! Email me at janice@sla.org.
Consider This
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." -- Samuel Johnson, English author and critic (1709-1784)
| OUTSIDE THE BOX |
Software Industry & Information Association Industry Daily
The Industry Daily delivers breaking software news, feature stories, IT policy developments and more to your inbox every morning free of charge! Sign up for the SIIA Industry Daily.
The Economist Tackles Open Access...
Free access to research is proving more expensive than hoped. But it is spreading, nevertheless. "Publish or perish runs the adage. The publication of research is the bedrock of scientific careers and the foundation of grant applications. But for many years people have questioned the system's fairness." Read the full article.
The Right Stuff: What does it take to make the leadership leap? Do you have what it takes?
By Ben Worthen CIO Magazine
"Jeff Chasney is a success. He started his career as an entry-level programmer, steadily rose through the ranks, and before long he was leading IT departments....so there you have it. Hone your skills until you can do every IT job with your eyes closed, and you'll get a one-way ticket to the executive suite. Everyone agrees, right? Not quite." Read the full article.
| INSIDE THE BOX |
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Library Closures: Take Action Today!
In his proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2007, U.S. President Bush deleted $2 million of support for Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) libraries, amounting to 80% of the agency's total budget for libraries. Without waiting for Congress to act, EPA has begun shuttering libraries, closing access to collections and reassigning staff.
Since learning of this issue, SLA public policy staff members have visited Capitol Hill and the EPA offices to actively voice The Association's opposition to this proposed move to close the network of 27 libraries and information centers within the EPA.
SLA representatives are still at work on this issue and to date have held meetings with staff from the EPA and the U.S. House of Representative as well as conducted outreach with U.S. Senators stating our strong disagreement with the Bush Administration's decision.
How YOU can help:
Let your voice be heard! Write a letter to your Senators requesting they reinstate the EPA Library Budget. The SLA Legislative Action Center is an excellent and easy to use tool that allows for easy identification of your elected representatives, provides the important talking points surrounding this issue that are needed to write a compelling letter, and delivers the letter directly to the representatives office.
According to a press release from the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Representatives for 10,000 U.S. scientists at the EPA are also joining the fight and asking Congress to stop the Bush administration from closing the agency's network of technical research libraries. The EPA scientists, representing more than half of the total agency workforce, contend thousands of scientific studies are being put out of reach, hindering emergency preparedness, anti-pollution enforcement and long-term research.
Please take a moment to write and share YOUR opinion on the EPA Library closures.
What It's Really Like to be a Librarian
As a result of an SLA workshop on "How to Become a Beloved Special Librarian", Mark Mackler, Librarian with the California Department of Justice, was invited to be a guest on the San Francisco public radio show "Work with Marty Nemko." Sunday 25 June on KALW FM 91.7. The topic is "What It's Really Like to be a Librarian." The show transcript and recording are available at the show's Website.
Future of Librarians in the Workforce Survey for Special Librarians
As mentioned in earlier SLA Connections and in Information Outlook, a random sample of US SLA members will be asked to participate shortly in a survey as part of the "Future of Librarians in the Workforce" study being funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. The survey tailored for special libraries and librarians will provide data for all information managers regardless of whether they call themselves special librarians, information professionals or knowledge managers.
You will appreciate that because we are surveying 6000 special libraries, 6000 school libraries and all academic and public libraries it has been impossible to use language and terminology that fits the idiosyncrasies of all these libraries.
Completing the survey will require respondents to be understanding and be flexible when answering the survey questions. For example, the word librarian has been used throughout, so if that is not what you call yourself, you know what we mean. Similarly the survey instrument refers to libraries but by that we mean the unit from which the dissemination of information is centered, which may not be a physical entity such a library or information center. The study is about the future of librarians and the work they do, which may, or may not be in one physical location. The results of this once-in-a-decade study are so important for our future that we hope those members who receive a survey are flexible when answering the questions.
If you do not receive a survey and would like to participate please contact Sarah Aerni.
More information on the progress of the study can be found on the Workforce Study's website at http://imlsworkforce.org/, which includes the PowerPoint presentation of the update by Dr. Jose´-Marie Griffiths and John Latham at SLA's conference in Baltimore. For more information on all of these activities, contact John Latham at SLA Headquarters.
SLA Pharmaceutical and Health Technology Division Honors Distinguished Member
Dialog, a business of The Thomson Corporation, has announced that Bonnie Snow, Dialog Director of Pharmaceutical Market Applications, received the 2006 Distinguished Member Award from the Special Libraries Association's (SLA) Pharmaceutical and Health Technology Division (P&HT). Read More.
SLA 2006 Draws Nearly 6,000 Participants
Exhibitions and attendance numbers for SLA 2006 , held 11 - 14 June, surpassed those from SLA 2005 and are among the highest that SLA has seen over the last few years.
Event Summary: SLA 2006 Annual Conference a Huge Success
Exhibitions and attendance numbers for the SLA 2006 held 11 - 14 June in Baltimore, Maryland USA, surpassed those from SLA 2005 in Toronto and are among the highest that SLA has seen over the last few years.
"We had excellent and intriguing speakers again this year and the entire program was jam-packed with topical and relevant content. I am not surprised that we attracted so many participants. Baltimore really treated SLA well, and lived up to their nickname of 'Charm City'" said SLA Chief Executive Officer Janice R. Lachance. "Overall, the 2006 Annual Conference was a huge success and as always, the bar is now set higher -- 'mile-high' to be exact -- for SLA 2007 in Denver, Colorado."
The final attendance tally for SLA 2006 totaled 5,848 individuals from around the globe representing 33 nations. Of that number, 1,057 participants were first time SLA conference participants. SLA's INFO-EXPO, the largest information and knowledge management exposition in North America, featured 305 companies and organizations and 482 total booths. SLA welcomed 71 new exhibitors this year.
By comparison, the SLA 2005 Annual Conference in Toronto attracted 5,283 participants and the INFO-EXPO featured 262 companies and organizations with 441 booths.
Flashback
SLA 2006 officially began on 11 June at the Baltimore Convention Center with the Grand Opening of the INFO-EXPO. Later that evening, 23 people were honored for their accomplishments in the information industry during the Opening General Session. SLA President Pam Rollo presented SLA Awards and Honors to the honorees, including an honorary membership to inventor and futurist Raymond Kurzweil.
The session also included keynote remarks by American political reporter/commentator Gwen Ifill, who told the crowd that she heavily depends upon the researchers and librarians at PBS to prepare her daily for her programs. Ifill shared her perspective on the explosion of media and content sources available to people today, and opined that it was a positive thing: "The growth in options helps us realize that we must seek out sources of news that are credible and reliable," said Ifill.
New Leadership, New Strategies
At the Annual Business Meeting on 13 June, CEO Lachance delivered her annual State of The Association address. She challenged the audience to envision what SLA will look like in the future, and then asked for their commitment to make their shared vision a reality.
President Rollo presented 2006-2007 President Rebecca B. Vargha with the "Chain of Office," symbolically passing leadership of the Association. In her inaugural address, President Vargha discussed her leadership philosophy as well as the platform issues she will be addressing throughout her time in office. These included membership growth and planning for the SLA centennial celebration in 2009.
A new Board of Directors was also seated during the meeting. A 2005 bylaws amendment aligned the terms of SLA officers with the Association's fiscal year. As a result, this "class" of SLA leadership will be in office for a total of 18 months allowing the cycle to align properly beginning in January 2008.
The outgoing Board of Directors, which met prior to the start of the conference, received a series of reports from task forces on topics and issues ranging from expanding executive growth to the strategic alignment of SLA to meet the future needs of the profession.
The Blogs Have It!
Bloggers made their mark this year at the SLA Annual Conference. Many members and external media outlets reported on activities and, in many cases, "live blogging" the various sessions. For the second year, SLA staff and conference participants gave a detailed account of the conference's activities through the SLA Conference Blog which provided commentary, photos, and event updates to participants on-site as well as members who couldn't attend.
SLA CEO Janice R. Lachance announced during the Association Business Meeting that she was entering the blogosphere with her own personal blog, InfoX, available at www.sla.org/infox. Lachance talks about why she chose to start a blog in her first posting, "It occurred to me that, as I travel around the world, I get to meet with, and talk to, the various stakeholders in the universe of information management. Much of my time is spent listening to chapter and division leaders, delegates from our sister associations, cutting-edge industry partners, government officials, CEOs and CFOs of Fortune 500 companies, university deans, and, of course, SLA members. I am one of the people who have the rare opportunity to sit at this intersection and observe the exchange between and among all of them." Lachance's blog will be focused on her observations and thoughts, "I hope to spark some good dialogue about the future of the profession and SLA."
Grand Finale
The Closing General Session keynote remarks from Walter Mossberg, columnist and author of the "Personal Technology" column for The Wall Street Journal, were thought-provoking and addressed how technology changes the way we work and live. Mossberg discussed the need for someone, in media organizations and corporations, to manage research and information: "It is important for decision-makers to have someone who understands the context, can look for adjacencies, can seek out and report on the information. Executives don't have the time and expertise to search. Having a skilled researcher or librarian can pay huge dividends."
SLA 2007
Next year's Annual Conference will take place in Denver, Colorado USA. The theme for the event will be "Climbing to New Heights." Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, will serve as one of the featured keynote speakers.
The Paparazzi Were Ruthless!
No, we are not talking about Brittney Spears, Paris Hilton, or David Beckham...The photographs from SLA 2006 are up and available for viewing and purchase here www.thephotogroup.com. To view the pictures taken in Baltimore go to Online Proofing, and enter sla06 when asked for the password.
Also available online are pictures taken in the INFO-EXPO Hall with The Parrot Man.
SLA 2006 Podcasts now available
If you couldn't make it to the conference, and even if you did, SLA has posted a few sessions that were recorded. Topics: leadership development, CI programs, copyright in the digital age, pharma pipeline databases, public speaking, and the LIS profession. Check out the podcasts.
Petition for Knowledge Management Division
Take a moment and review the petition to expand the Knowledge Management Section of the Leadership and Management Division into a new Knowledge Management Division of SLA. One hundred signatures are needed by the deadline to create the new division. A decision was made to move forward with pursuing the formation of the new KM Division, after a favorable response from KM section members, the LMD Board and from discussions with members at SLA 2006 in Baltimore. SLA procedure requires that a petition be initiated, signatures obtained, and forwarded to the SLA Board of Directors for their consideration and approval. Review the petition.
NEW SLA Members Are Flooding in From Around the Globe!
SLA welcomes just over 1,000 new members since the beginning of the year from these 22 countries: Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Denmark, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Qatar, Singapore, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom and the United States of America.
| CLICK UNIVERSITY |
What's happening at Click University? This online learning system is an exclusive member benefit of SLA. Please log in when prompted. Click University is the foundation for all of SLA's educational and professional development programs.
Click University Celebrates Birthday, Announces CI Certificates Program
The Annual Conference in Baltimore marked the one-year anniversary for Click University. A birthday party in the SLA Marketplace in the INFO EXPO hall was a great chance for conference participants to enjoy some birthday cake and hear from Click U administration about an exciting competitive intelligence certificates program that will be offered through Click U. Details in the press release and in an upcoming issue of Information Outlook.
To learn more about participating in this innovative program, go to Click University.
Lesley Ellen Harris' 2006 Fall Schedule of Courses
Canadian and international copyright lawyer Lesley Ellen Harris is teaching courses online to SLA members through Click University. Lesley is the author of several books, including Canadian Copyright Law (McGraw-Hill Ryerson.) The courses begin 18 September and 30 October and you can register anytime before the start of the courses. Her topics include:
Canadian Copyright Law Online 2006
US Copyright Law Online 2006
Managing Copyright Online 2006
Digital Content Management 2006
Call for Courses
The 2007 Call for Courses is your invitation to contribute to the information profession. By presenting a CE Session at SLA 2007 in Denver, CO USA, you have the opportunity to share your knowledge and experiences with those new and experienced in the profession! The deadline for proposals is 25 August 2006. Additional Information.
| SLA GRAPEVINE: Your Source for SLA Member News, Achievements, and Opinions |
SLA Member Appointed to National Science Board by President Bush
SLA member Dr. José-Marie Griffiths, dean of the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been chosen by President George W. Bush to serve on the National Science Board.
The White House announced 15 June that Griffiths is among eight whose intended nominations will be presented to the U.S. Senate for confirmation. Her term would continue until May 2012. Read more.
Press release from her employer.
Info about the grant.
OPINION- From Research to Analysis to Leadership
by Kevin Manion, President, New York Chapter, SLA
In discussions with a number of colleagues in recent months, I have come to the conclusion that many of us have been going through some soul searching lately. An evolution that began in special libraries decades ago, moving us from research and aggregation to the production of a more analytical product, has accelerated in the last years and has prompted us to continue to look at ourselves, our place in our organizations and the work we do.
One could say we are going through "growing pains" but that would imply that we expect to be all "grown up" one day. If there is one thing we can all speak to in this profession, is that change is an almost daily part of our work lives. What is before us is the continuation of a shift that has brought us from aggregation to synthesis, to presenting findings directly to clients or a larger audience and now to analysis. Today, our clients are for more likely to say "yeah but tell me what it means" or "tell me what I need to know for this meeting" than "can you get me some articles on..."
It makes perfect sense, to me anyway, that our expanding research role should mirror what is for many of us a growing role as leaders in our organizations. Much has been written about leadership and about being leaders in our profession in past years. But I truly believe that we have only begun to scratch the surface - there is so much as yet undiscovered that we can bring to our organizations.
Leaders exist throughout company hierarchies and there are many different paths that identify professionals as leaders.
Leadership takes courage and dedication and we are uniquely positioned to foster and lead cultures of information and knowledge in the workplace. We believe in sharing information, understanding our business and our clients and doing our best to ensure that decisions are based on solid research and analysis. I am heartened to see many recent graduates stepping up to take a leadership role in their organizations but also within our professional association. Those of us already in leadership positions should ensure that we do what we can to encourage them and help them grow into the future leaders and advocates of our profession.
Reprinted from New York SLA ChapterNews 3 Vol. 78, #1 Spring 2006
SLA Minnesota Past- President Is the Proud Mother of a Glamorous Coverboy!
Take a moment to read this feel-good story about Lora Alexander's family told through a compilation of blog entries chronicling her family's experience adopting a beautiful baby last year.
In fact, Max is SO beautiful that Adoptive Families Magazine decided to feature him on the cover of the July/August Issue!
When Janice first asked me if I would be willing to share the story of my son's adoption, I hesitated. It wasn't that I wasn't interested in telling the story -- I love to tell others how our family was created, and to discuss the amazing benefits of adoption. Rather, I was worried about actually writing the story, as I am not the writer in my family. My husband Jeff is a professional writer, and in addition to writing for the radio and multiple publications, he has a rather well-known blog (http://velcrometer.blogspot.com) that he uses to hone his writing skills while updating his readers on the events of our lives.
Luckily, it was suggested that instead of my retelling the entire story, that I could simply co-opt some of his blog entries that best told our story. I figured I could certainly do that.
In September, 2004, Jeff told his readers about an upcoming event in our lives:
Last spring, Lora was having herself a little round of denial. She took approximately a hundred pregnancy tests, as if the things were graded on a curve. "I think I can pee again, a little," she'd say. "Grab me a test, would you? No, a different one." She threw most of them away after seeing the results, but she held on to one in particular. "Look at this one," she'd say. "Remember how long it took for the line to show up? Remember how light it was at first?"
I learned that grocery shopping for a pregnant woman is hard.
And then on Monday, she called me from work to tell me she needed a doctor. I left work, picked her up at her office, and took her to the hospital. We had miscarried.
The months went by. The two of us lived in a house that we'd thought would soon be housing three. There was talking. Thinking. Crying. Soul-searching. Parenting sounded like the right path, but pregnancy didn't. So eventually, we attended our first informational meeting at an adoption agency.
When we originally decided to pursue adoption, they told us that once you're approved, the wait can be anywhere from six months to two years. Most people wind up on the long end of that range. This was in January 2004.
Filling out the paperwork and organizing the finances took a couple of months. We then spent most of April and May getting the house ready for the adoption worker's visit and home study, and later that month, we got the news that we'd been approved.
By the end of June, we finished the little portfolio that hopeful adoptive parents have to put together. It includes photos (many of which make us look like dorks) and a letter to potential birth parents (which kind of makes me sound like a dork). It went into the adoption agency's files, and we settled in for our six-month to two-year wait, hoping that maybe we'd find a miniature person under our tree around Christmas 2005.
Well, we were notified last week (just two months later!) that a young couple had chosen our portfolio from the book and wanted to meet with us. We did meet them, and without going into too much detail, we loved them, they seemed to like us, and they decided to choose us to parent their baby-to-be. They are due in late November, and we know that it's a boy.
Needless to say, it was a bit of a shock to us, since we expected to have a 2 year window to get ready, and now we had a 2 month window. Or so we thought.
Last Friday, while Lora was at work, I took on the huge project of moving my home-office desk and computer equipment out of the "study," thereby making it a "nursery." We hadn?t planned to do it just yet, but I wanted to get it finished that day. I mean, really, our son?s due date is the end of November, but it never hurts to be ahead of the game. Because, you know, sometimes babies have their own schedules about this kind of thing.
As was brought quite forcefully home to us last night when M. Tiny was born.
Yes, I said born.
BORN!
Yesterday afternoon, just over seven weeks before the official due date and only nineteen days after we found out we'd been chosen as adoptive parents in the first place, the birth father called to tell me that the birth mother was having contractions. They tried to stop them at the hospital, but the kid was pretty insistent on coming out right then, and we dispatched a small army of friends and relatives on various emergency baby-prep missions.
See, even though we've been getting all this great stuff for the baby from friends, relatives, and the readers, there are a few essentials that weren't quite covered yet. Like a place for the baby to sleep, or more than a few things for him to wear, or a car seat to drive him home in, or one single, solitary diaper. Or, while we're at it, another six weeks or so for Lora and I to come to terms with just exactly what we'd gotten ourselves into. But it doesn't look like we're getting that last one.
The next twelve hours were exciting and terrifying and surreal but at least we got to be home during them. We had to be home, in case the phone rang. Which it did, all night. As did both of our cell phones, after we instructed people to call them instead of our land line in order to keep the latter clear for the inevitable news.
When a phone rings between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m., it generally means either that someone has died, or the opposite. People were very happy to hear it was the latter when Lora and I made our respective calls early that morning.
The birth parents invited us to come to the hospital this morning, and we met our little guy.
We didn't sleep that first night, anticipation and excitement winning over exhaustion. I decided it was good practice for the next few months.
He's surprisingly large, considering how early he was. He weighed four pounds, thirteen ounces (2.2 kg) at birth and measures over 18 inches (47.6 cm), which makes his birth mom pretty relieved that he didn't go full-term. His current home is a Plexiglas (Perspex) incubator, and there are numerous wires running between him and various pieces of monitoring equipment which put me in mind of the Borg (Cybermen), and I think that's all the translating I need to do for non-U.S. readers for today.
He's spending most of his time sleeping on his stomach in the NICU, because his lungs aren't fully developed yet. He's not on a breathing tube or even one of those nose-hose thingies, but his pipes aren't up to a lusty newborn howl yet. Instead, a few times an hour, his forehead crinkles and his eyes open up to just the barest squint and his EKG reading spikes from the 140s to the 170s and he lets out a tremulous noise that sounds like he's singing through the whirling blades of an electric fan.
"If that's as loud as he's ever going to get, we?ll be fine," I told Lora. She knew I was kidding.
He has a mass of wavy dark hair. He also has an overlapping mass of wavy blond hair. I posited that perhaps he is a metrosexual. His birthparents asked us to name him, so his name is Max, short for Maximilian.
And then we came home to try and finish getting the nursery ready.
Did I mention I'm a dad?
So our lives were changed, as they say, overnight. Our son ended up coming home after 2 ½ weeks in the NICU, which was earlier (of course) than we had anticipated or hoped. Due to his premature birth, we expected for there to be some adjusted developmental milestones back to his due date for at least three years, but by six months he had caught up. And, of course, we think he is just about perfect.
We have an open adoption, which means we know and stay in contact with Max's birthparents. We felt very strongly about maintaining a relationship with the entire birth family, if possible, and we have been blessed in knowing Max's biological parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins -- the list goes on. As you can imagine, Max will never lack for family.
As an adoptive parent -- and as a librarian -- I like to stay abreast of any research or parenting information available, and as such I subscribe to adoption trade journals. Recently, one held a photo contest.
A few weeks ago, Lora sent off a photo of Max to a photo contest for Adoptive Families magazine.
The photo was this one:
And yet somehow we didn't win.
What was nice, though, was that they called to tell us that we didn't win. And also that they wanted to put our son on the cover instead. Somehow we managed to contain our disappointment.
Since this magazine is based in New York, they had to send a local photographer over to our house for the shoot. We picked out some clothes (for Max, I mean; the photographer was already dressed) and made the short drive over to the Rose Garden to take some pictures.
We haven't seen any of the proofs yet, although the magazine's art director says there are half a dozen really good ones, as opposed to the one or two they normally get during a shoot. I told Lora, "You know, these guys must be so jaded about baby pictures by now. They're wading hip-deep in them, forty hours a week, like the guys at Playboy do with boobs. And you just know that they're all gathered around the monitor looking at pictures of our son and going, 'Awwww.'"
The journey for any parent has its ups and downs, its uncertain moments and its moments of such overwhelming joy that it feels as though you can't breathe. I'm just happy to be there for the ride.
As for the cover, check out http://www.adoptivefamilies.com.
Lora Alexander is the past-president of the MN Chapter of SLA, and the incoming secretary of the SOLO division. She is the Information Manager and Research Director for Personnel Decisions International. She lives in Minnesota with her husband Jeff and her son Max, and you can read about their lives in painstaking detail at: http://velcrometer.blogspot.com.
Do you have an item to include in SLA Grapevine? Email the editor.
| THE BIG FINISH |
SLA and Click University Announce CI Certificates Program
Courses Developed by Knowledge inForm Will Advance Info Pros as Strategic Assets
Get Copyright Right by Intellectual Property Expert Laura N. Gasaway Now Available From SLA
SLA Europe Information Professional 2006 Sponsored by Factiva
SLA Europe announces that the winner of the 2006 SLA Europe Information Professional Award is Marie-Madeleine Salmon, Head of Information Center, Publicis, France.
Factiva Unveils a Range of Powerful Tools to Combat Politically Exposed Person (PEP) Risk
Unique new PEP Risk Score Tool to Improve Risk Management Capabilities
LexisNexis Risk Management and Intelligent Results to Collaborate on a New Hosted Solution for the Collections Industry
For the first time, collection agencies will be able to easily apply analytics and strategy development to improve how quickly and effectively they collect on consumer debt
LexisNexis Canada Announces Applied Discovery, the LexisNexis Electronic Discovery Solution
Applied Discovery Gives Legal Professionals Control of Electronic Discovery with Trusted and Uniquely Customizable Solutions
LexisNexis Introduces Intelligence Analysis Solutions
Providing Intelligence Analysis in Support of Global War on Terror
LexisNexis Launches Advanced Government Solutions
Solution Set Extends LexisNexis Industry-Leading Online Products to Enable Government Customers to Make More Effective Decisions
Springer Launches eBook Program
More than 10,000 eBook titles now available via relaunched SpringerLink online platform
Dialog Offers Over 400,000 Fulltext Government Research Reports from National Technical Information Service
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