SLA Blog

Needles in a Haystack

The term information overload was popularized in the 1970 book Future Shock by Adam Toffler, who correctly foresaw an era of rapid technological and sociological change that would leave many people feeling disconnected and disoriented. But even a futurist as prescient as Toffler probably would have been unable to comprehend the volume of information being produced and transmitted every day on Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of social media.

As Susan Etlinger notes in her article in the March/April issue of Information Outlook, "... when Beyonce went on the Video Music Awards and showed she was pregnant, that generated 8,000 tweets per second." Granted, it's unlikely that tweets about pregnant celebrities will be of interest to the average SLA member or his or her organization. Nonetheless, comments and discussions on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media are information resources, and Etlinger believes that information professionals should not flinch from trying to extract value from them.

"The librarian needs to be the strategist, the first line of defense, in understanding and recommending how social data should be used," she states. "... There's an incredible artifact of social data out there ... that encapsulates opinions in a way we've never really seen before."

Etlinger cautions that much of the social data being produced are "a mess," but David Milward and Guy Singh have plenty to say about how to make sense of it. In their article, "Clarifying the Social Media Blur," Milward and Singh offer guidance and case studies on using agile text mining to identify not only the content of social data, but also the sentiments being expressed, the impact of those sentiments, and the key opinion leaders in various communities.

According to Milward and Singh, the imposing volume of social data is actually a blessing in disguise. "In the text mining world," they write, "the more documents there are, the better the results are likely to be."

To read more of what Etlinger, Milward and Singh have to say about making sense of social data, read the March/April issue of Information Outlook.

 

Are you prepared for a disaster?

How can you contribute to emergency preparedness efforts?  What can you do to help after a disaster occurs?

Dr. Michael McDonald, director of the National Sustainable Security Infrastructure Pandemic Initiative and a leader in area of resilience systems, will show how information professionals possess the skills and experience to aid in developing response plans for emergencies and in response efforts.

Sign up for the April Webinar Disaster 3.0: Information Pros Building Resiliency through Intelligent Swarms and learn:

• how you can help in emergency situations
• what strategies enhance your own and your employer's resilience
• how to use crowd sourcing and intelligent social networks to contribute during an emergency
• how your experiences during emergency response can translate into new opportunities

This free webinar is exclusively for SLA members and is brought to you by SLA's Emergency Preparedness & Recovery Advisory Council.

Date:  Wednesday, April 11
Time:  2:00 - 3:00 pm ET

Register today!

Questions?  Contact Click University.

Copyright and Libraries

CCM500 Library & Special Library Copyright Issues starts on Wednesday, March 28th, and we'd like you to be there!

This online course focuses on the copyright-related concerns that arise in libraries, including fair use, photocopying by library staff and by others, interlibrary loan, working with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center (United States) and Access Copyright (Canada), working with digital content vendors, the impact of copyright court cases and statutes, and the role of librarians and information professionals in copyright management.

Instructor Lesley Ellen Harris of Copyrightlaws.com is the author of several books on copyright, including Digital Licensing: A Practical Guide for Librarians, 2nd edition, and Canadian Copyright Law, currently undergoing its fourth revision.  She also writes the Info Rights column in SLA's Information Outlook magazine.

Dates:  March 28 - April 23 (course schedule)
Format:  live online sessions, discussion list participation, independent reading
Price:  $395 members/$495 non-members; member discounts available

Register today! 

Questions? Contact Click University.

 

Getting Ready for #SLAchicago with the New Online Planner

Attending our 2012 Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO? Even if you're considering, the Online Planner will give you a feel for what we have to offer. It's all-new, clean, and user-friendly. It's also a great supplement to the 2012 Conference Preview.

Useful Features
Connect through your favorite social networking sites to see which sessions your friends, followers, and connections will be attending, and when. I'm connected through Foursquare, too.

You can easily sort the planner to jump to exactly what you're interested in. Do you want to see which meals are planned for Monday at the conference? Sort by: Networking/Social Events: Meals: Monday, July 16. Hover over any slot to view its brief description.

You can sort by more than just Program, General Session, Networking Event, Reception, or Tour. Say you're a member of the SLA Academic Division and you want to see which programs your division is putting together for you. Hover over Presented by: in the top right, and select Academic Division.

Interested in what a given partner is offering? Hover over "Sponsored by:" and there are your choices alphabetized. 

Play around with your view by changing the Options on the top-right side.

Share
When you're finished with your planning session, you can share your action-packed 3-day itinerary on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to add #SLAchicago to your tweet. It'll be retweeted and @SLAchicago followers can view your schedule to make sure they aren't missing anything they don't want to be.

Questions
Let me know if you have questions about using the planner at jwalsh@sla.org.

 

A take on Librarians, Archivists and Museum Professionals from SXSWi

The 19^th Annual South by Southwest Interactive Conference was held last week in Austin, Texas.

The event is known for launching cutting-edge technologies, and featuring presentations from some of the best and brightest in the technology industry. One of the presenters, Butch Lazorchak, a digital archivist at the Library of Congress in the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, published a blog post briefly describing librarians, archivists and museum professionals’ attendance at the conference, and how he “daydream(s) about a time when LAMs rule the world.”

He touches on the stereotypes of information professionals and how contemporary information professionals are leading conversations about big data, usability, search and access, and more. Click the link below for the full blog post. 

#sxswLAM: Libraries, Archives and Museums in an Interactive World

 

 

‘Know Thyself’ Blog Post Becomes Known by Many

When Lora Kloth sat down to write a post for the Future Ready 365 Blog, she didn’t foresee the whirlwind of recognition that would follow. But that’s what happened, and it’s not an exaggeration.

The process started when she sent a draft of the post to the editor at the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), where she’s a research librarian. The editor liked the inspirational story about Lora turning a possibly discouraging employment situation into an opportunity so much that it was featured in Frontline, a CUNA print newsletter.

That was just the start. After the blog was posted to FR365, a colleague asked if Lora would repurpose it as a guest post for the Direct Selling Education Foundation.  Then, the real splash—it was picked up by the Better Business Bureau’s national blog and was the feature post on the blog’s homepage.

What did Lora get out of the ride? “I am so honored that my writings have proven inspiring for other information professionals and that I have even been able to ‘pay it forward’ to those outside of the information industry through repurposing my FR365 blog post at work,” she explains. Her colleagues within SLA, and professionals around the nation, undoubtedly enjoyed an encouraging, real-life example of turning lemons into lemonade.

The post, and FR365, has since been referenced in lots of other locations, too.

Computers in Libraries feature – “Blog Impossible"
PinHawk Blog – “Happy Thanksgiving Happy Thoughts”
Lex Scripta – “Making Lemonade out of Lemons”
LibTech Soup – “Selected SLA Future Ready Posts”

Future Ready 365 continues to be noticed, by information professionals and others, long after the 365+ posts in 365 days were published.

 

Fundraising with a Focus

The SLA Loyalty Club is a fundraising community dedicated to enhancing the vitality of our association.

While our fuel comes from our volunteers, leaders, staff, and partners who collaborate to empower our profession, that fuel is augmented by our annual donors who go above and beyond to support SLA. Their donations are vital to SLA’s ability to empower the information profession through new programs and improved offerings. They allow us to conduct salary surveys, produce high-level professional development programs and instructors, and organize an Annual Conference rich in content and networking events that connect you with the partners who support your work.

The Loyalty Club is our initiative to encourage regular contributions and recognize the generosity of our members. Since its launch at the 2012 Leadership Summit, the Loyalty Club has grown to encompass more than 20 members. We’ve got a long way to go to reach our goal of 100 inaugural platinum-level members, but we’re confident you will help us get there.

The first 100 donors to contribute $100 or more in 2012 will secure platinum-level membership at a lower annual rate (normally a $750 donation). Platinum members will be recognized at the 2012 Annual Conference, on SLA’s Website, and in Information Outlook this year.

More information and to donate: http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/donate/index.cfm
Membership details: http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/donate/loyaltyclub.cfm

We thank you for your consideration and lasting commitment.

 

#SLAchicago on Twitter and YouTube

For all things 2012 Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO, follow @SLAchicago on Twitter, and tag your conference tweets with #SLAchicago.

Yes, due to forces beyond our control (ahem, a “squatter”), we’re breaking away from the traditional @SLA[insert  year] handle.

With early-bird registration and the conference preview on their way (27 February), we’ll leave you with the SLA 2012 YouTube video. Personally, it has me wondering if Chicago could ever be ready for the biggest gathering of information solutions in North America.

 

 

Competencies: Not as Cut-and-Dried as Might Be Expected

"If I'm going to bother going to a special librarian, I want to find an incompetent one."

Granted, that's Seth Godin talking, and Seth is known for making provocative statements. And it's unlikely the task force appointed recently to update SLA's competencies for information professionals will heed Seth's remarks.

But even a cursory glance at the January/February 2012 issue of Information Outlook will show that Seth isn't the only one with an unconventional take on competencies. Business strategist Geoffrey Moore has one as well--competencies, he says, should set you apart, not merely reflect what you do best. Kare Anderson, a consultant and former Wall Street Journal reporter, says collaboration should be a core competency; Bruce Rosenstein, a student of Peter Drucker, says innovation is essential.

Clearly, competencies are not as cut-and-dried as might be expected. And developing and revising them aren't simple exercises either, as Sandra Hirsh and Carol Ramkey make plain in their articles. What is clear is that competencies matter, and not just from a philosophical perspective. As Geoffrey Moore notes, "To shift the ground of your core, and thus your core competence, is a leadership challenge of the highest order."

To read what these thought leaders have to say about competencies, take a look at the January/February issue, posted online at sla.org.

 

Former SLA Board Member Named Librarian of the Year

Dr. Jesus Lau, a former director serving on SLA's Board (2002 - 2005) was recently named Librarian of the Year at the 25th Guadalajara International Book Fair, the second largest in the world after Frankfurt.

The honor is the most prestigious award granted to a librarian in Mexico.

Dr. Lau is Director of USBI VER Library at the University of Veracruzana, Mexico, where he created the school's first online course for undergraduates in Mexico. The course enables distance education programs in 28 public and private universities of Veracruz.

Jesus is President of the Mexican Association of Librarians (2009-2011) and has authored more than 150 papers and magazine articles, as well as 15 books in the field of information. Apart from SLA, he is also active in the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), notably founding its Information Literacy Section and coordinating the International Directory of Resources and Information Literacy.

On behalf of SLA, congratulations, Dr. Lau!