SLA Blog

Nerida Hart - Candidate for Director - What advise would you give someone in their 20's just entering the profession about how to find and keep a fabulous job as a special librarian or information professional?

My first advice - network, learn, network even more.

Then be flexible in your approach - being a librarian is not about following the rules. You will need to be innovative and creative as the world is changing at a rate I am not sure any of us can completely comprehend.

What you learn and who you learn from may surprise you. Make the effort to go to events that are outside the scope of your job and talk to anyone and everyone. Don't think about whether or not they are relevant to your job. Sometimes the greatest inspiration comes from outside 'left field'.

If you are inside an organisation in a special library make the effort to talk to colleagues while waiting in line for your coffee. Join the social club and be on organising committees as a volunteer. Yes your job will keep you busy but don't bury yourself away being 'busy'. 'Busy' won't gain you the business intelligence about your clients so you can effectively demonstrate your worth in the organisation. make sure as many colleagues as possible know you and what you do.

And outside your employing organisation join professional associations like SLA. Stretch yourself and become involved in your local knowledge management groups - see who else is in fields which cross over with you and build alliances. We are more powerful toegther than alone.

Be flexible - take opportunities within your organisation to be involved in projects - don't think to yourself this is not relevant to my job - it will be - perhaps not immediately but the relationships you form and what you learn will be important in the future.

And above all - HAVE FUN - working with information and knowledge is fun and the relationships you build and the friends you make will be forever.

Call-In for President-Elect Board Candidates

Please join us for a lively and interactive call with SLA President-Elect candidates Agnes Mattis and Cindy Romaine who will presenting their candidacy, qualifications and ideas as well as responding to your questions. The calls will be conducted twice on 22 September/23 September depending on where you are in the world. The various call times are listed in a grid below and the international toll-free numbers and dial-in information are available on the SLA Website.

This is the first time candidates forums have been held with our global membership in mind.  Please participate and let us know your issues, questions and concerns.

Tuesday, September 22
Call for UK/Europe/Arabian Gulf/India/Eastern and Central US
7am/ 07:00 Portland
10am/10:00 New York
3pm/15:00 London
4pm/16:00 Europe generally/Arabian Gulf generally
7:30pm/19:30 Mumbai

Tuesday, September 22
Call for Sydney, Auckland, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong/Western US
6pm/06:00 Portland
9pm/21:00 New York
9am/ 09:00 Singapore/Hong Kong (Wednesday, 23 September)
10 am/10:00  Tokyo (Wednesday, 23 September)
11am/11:00 Sydney (Wednesday, 23 September)
1pm/13:00 Auckland (Wednesday, 23 September)

Are YOU Ready to Vote on the Future Leaders of SLA?

E-voting for the 2010 Board of Directors election will begin on September 9 and run through 5:00 pm EDT on October 1. Are you ready to place an educated vote for the future leaders of SLA? With the election right around the corner, NOW is the perfect time to get to know all eight of the 2010 Candidates!

How to get started...

Each of the eight 2010 Candidates prepared speeches that outline their credentials and objectives for election to the SLA Board of Directors. These remarks have been posted to SLA-TV. In addition, each candidate has recorded their response to the following question: How can librarians and information professionals provide value-added intelligence to their organizations?

You can also visit the Board Candidates Corner, a section of the SLA Blog, to read responses to issues facing the association. Each candidate's bio is also postedand accessible through the 2010 Board of Directors Candidates page on SLA's Web site.

And, arriving in your mailbox soon, the July/August issue of Information Outlook which contains "Meet the 2010 Board Candidates" profiles and detailed information.  (The Web version of this issue to be posted in coming weeks)

Mary Ellen Bates – Candidate for Division Cabinet Chair-Elect – Question #2

One of the key points that has driven the Alignment Project is that we info pros have to use language that the marketplace understands. And we have to make the marketplace—that is, those who employ SLA members—aware of the strategic value of information and the ROI for hiring info pros.

 

What I found most interesting in the findings were the discrepancies between what the C-suite values and what value we think we provide. Across the board, our users and clients identify higher-value, more strategic aspects of our service as our key value, whereas we tend to define ourselves by the tasks that are required. Upper management already appreciates the importance of good information, and the difficulty in finding it. Our job is to get them to see that we are the missing link between information and actionable intelligence.

 

Now, what we info pros need is courage—to offer insight and to spot trends for our clients, to add analysis to what we provide. And, more importantly, in order to be seen as strategic players, we have to move beyond our traditional skills and add even more value and insight to our information products.

 

This applies to SLA as an association as well. SLA must tangibly show its value to its clients – us. That means continuing to explore new ways to build the professional connections and network that we, and upper management, value so highly. The other aspect of our association that we depend on is its ability to advocate for us and to give us the tools to advocate within our organizations. Studies such as the Alignment Project are critical to members, and SLA must continue to provide ways for members to demonstrate the competitive advantage we offer our organizations.

Stacey Greenwell - Candidate for Division Cabinet Chair-Elect - Question #2

For me, a key takeaway from the findings of the alignment project is that the terms "special library," "special librarian," and even "SLA" do not resonate outside of our profession.  I would argue that the terms are not all that clear within our profession, either.  I cannot tell you how many academic librarians I've talked with who ask me: "Why are you involved in special libraries? Isn't that for people who work in law firms and companies?"  Of course SLA is here to serve those individuals, but SLA also provides extraordinary continuing education and networking opportunities for academic librarians as well, particularly those of us who focus on a specific subject area or those interested in new technologies, leadership, or knowledge management.  When our own colleagues don't really understand what SLA is all about, how can we expect CEOs, Presidents, and Provosts to understand our association or even our profession?

It is clear to me that we have an opportunity to make some changes in how we define ourselves and our association.  Too often we focus on the tasks that we perform, rather than the value we provide to an organization.  While I consider myself a librarian, I look forward to the opportunity to call my professional association something which better defines who we are.  I encourage you to join in the discussion on Twitter and on the wiki.  What an exciting time to be a part of this association!

Liz Blankson-Hemans - Candidate for Chapter Cabinet Chair-Elect - Question #2

For me, the top takeaways from the Alignment Research Report are:

1)  We need to align values with perception in the minds of our organizations, so that instead of describing ourselves by the tasks or functions we carry out (eg cataloguer, research librarian etc), we define these tasks in terms of the value, benefit and impact we bring to the organizational effort or bottom-line -  such as "facilitating good decision-making", "advancing or enhancing business development opportunities", and so on.

2) Leveraging the equity or positive attributes of librariaship and all that it entails, whilst using more modern terminology or applications to describe who we are, and what we do - so for instance:

• "purchasing" instead of "acquisitions",
• "competitive intelligence and analysis" instead of "online searching" 
• "trainer/teacher" instead of "library instruction"

Both individually, and as an association, adopting these findings will help to tick many boxes of benefits as we undertake the serious business of aligning ourselves and our profession to be meaningful and relevant to our organizations for the next 100 years and more.  

It will help us achieve a clear sense of purpose, which may not necessarily be in the boardroom, but on our own terms and perceptible contribution to the organizational effort.  It will lead to recognition in the marketplace as critical assets within organizations.  This kind of recognition will help to draw new and younger members to "the profession".

But what will that "profession" be?  The alignment findings suggest that we have some work to do to come up with a name for this profession that resonates with the high value words and ideas that we as  professionals generate.  This name also needs to embrace and appeal to all who may see it and think - "yes, I do that" or "I can identify with that".

As our leaders have reiterated several times, we require not just a simple name change, but a total game change.  I don't have all the answers yet, and judging by the discussions on the blogs, neither does anyone else - but the key thing is that we have began the discussion and brainstorming of ideas.  Are you part of the debate?  Now is the time for your voice to be heard as we begin to "align in 09".

Agnes Mattis - Candidate for President Elect - Question # 2

The beauty of the Alignment Project is that the results are two-fold, for us as information professionals and for  the association as a whole. The research put new words behind the work we do as individuals. We will stop describing ourselves as functions but as strategic thinkers and knowledge workers who bring value to our organizations.

Through the research we can create a road map to guide our association as we enter our second hundred years. We can re-position our association to be more inclusive, to attract members who may have thought SLA did not have a place for them.

 

The top takeaway for me is now that we have all the research it is time put it into action.

 

The new portal will bring together everything to do with alignment. We will have the chance to absorb and digest the findings of Fleishman Hillard and Outsell. The Alignment Ambassadors will join SLA leadership to communicate the value and positioning of the Association and the profession. I have heard some people say this is just about a name change. But it is so much more than that. It becomes who we are and how we define ourselves. The research has shown that our current name does not resonate with those outside of the Association – How many times have you had to explain what a special librarian is? If a new name will make our communication and positioning better, I say bring it on. This sounds like a good start to me. I'm excited about the future of the association. We have a lot of work to do and  I want to be a part of it. How about you?

Cindy Romaine, Candidate for President-Elect, Question #2

In January 2009, I co-authored the article “Strategic Alignment: Positioning Our Brand for the Future,” for Information Outlook with Bill Fisher and Gloria Zamora. We noted that over the past several years, members have felt a burgeoning sense of “career angst” because they are not valued as much as is appropriate. Members saw positions eliminated or sent to project teams with little or no consultation, and salaries for positions similar to theirs outside the information center were paid at a higher rate.

It’s wrong that librarians don’t get enough credit for the value and benefits of their work. And it’s wrong that the stereotype of librarians is limited. We need to right these wrongs. But how?

We will move to where the value is. We will use the concepts from the Alignment Project to create meaning.

We will define ourselves in terms of the values, benefits and impact that we provide such as:

Information professionals:
     * Advance business and product development 
     * Facilitate good decision-making
     * Provide the research tools to enable critical thinking

For the Association, we:
     * Promote members as critical assets
     * Enhance professional/personal development
     * Enable global networking

We will define ourselves in terms our manager’s value. Fleishman-Hillard developed a two-by-two grid based on themes that emerged from in-depth interviews (pages 24-30). Guy Kawasaki, in talking about his own two-by-two grid, titles his axes in a way that I think is analogous. The axes are titled: 1) the ability to provide a unique product/service and 2) value to the customer.

“When you have a matrix like this you want to end up high and to the right. This is where you have a UNIQUE product and ONLY you can do this product, and it is of GREAT VALUE to the customer.”

The concepts that Fleischman-Hillard identified as “high and to the right” and therefore of great value are:
     * Creating a culture of continuous learning
     * Embracing knowledge-sharing tools
     * Providing value-added intelligence
     * That knowledge is the bridge that turns information into action

We will turn information into actionable knowledge that creates a competitive advantage for our organizations.

We will jump to a new curve. Have you heard of the Sigmoid Curve? It’s the s-shaped line used to track the life-cycle of products, careers, and even empires. The line shows initial growth, a period of peak activity, followed by decline. To survive, you must shift to a new curve before the current one expires.

It is my conclusion that the Alignment Project allows us to jump to a new curve—to position ourselves where the value is. We have taken the concept of “special libraries” to its natural conclusion. We need to jump to new positioning and nomenclature.

We will celebrate our legacy with our 100th anniversary, all the while grabbing the next vine and swinging upwards. We may or may not create the perfect name, but we will create one better than what we have now. We need to get going, or in Nike terms, “Just Do It.” 

Karen Kreizman Reczek, Candidate for Treasurer - Question #2

For me, the key takeaway from the Alignment Report is:

The SLA brand is not necessarily recognizable outside of our profession, and this causes a disconnect with how SLA and the profession are perceived by the larger community in which we operate.

As our esteemed leader, SLA CEO, Janice Lachance, once said, this isn’t about a name change, it’s about a game change. The playing field in which we operate has shifted…. It’s time to align.

Ever been to a party and had someone ask you what you do? My usual response is, "I am a corporate librarian." They say, "Oh, what’s that…?" When I begin to explain what I do, they say, "That’s not a librarian." Or last month, when I was telling my non-library friends I was giving a talk at SLA, I was asked, "What’s SLA?"  These consistent responses tell me that brands "corporate librarian" and "SLA" do not work, and it is time for us to invent new ones. The SLA Alignment Project is about branding and messaging. It will never change the fact that deep down, I am a corporate librarian -- but it will change the image in people’s mind as to what I do.

The Alignment Project has already provided solid data to support this. It is time to stop describing ourselves in terms of our functional roles (e.g., catalogers, searchers, indexers, reference, etc.) and to start talking about the value, impact, and return on investment we, as library and information professionals, bring to our organizations.

SLA will need to develop clear messaging that articulates and promotes these concepts so that they can be delivered to our target audiences. SLA will need to provide tool kits and talking points that fit various scenarios (as our membership is as diverse as we are similar), to make it easy for our members to communicate their impact and value. Training sessions should be offered to teach our members how to deliver these messages in a convincing manner. All of this will ensure that we have a unified and consistent voice to tell the rest of the world why what we do really does impact the bottom line.

SLA Board Candidates - Question #2 - Alignment Project

Candidate Question #2:

The Strategic Alignment Project report is in and we are beginning to use its findings to change the face of SLA, and likely change our association name.  In your opinion – What are the top takeaways from the Alignment Report and how should we as an association use them to move forward?

Candidates will soon begin posting answers to this question.  Please read and respond via Comments so we can have an exchange of ideas.

Many thanks,

Anne

Anne Caputo
President-Elect, SLA