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President's Cornerby Sue O'Neill Johnson This month's innovator is Jim Madigan, Innovative synthesizer. Jim works for GCI Information Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stanley Associates www.stanleyassociates.com, an information technology contractor in Alexandria, Virginia. He is the project manager for the Library Automation and Digital Library development at the U.S. Census Bureau in Suitland, Maryland, where he supervises a staff of thirty. The project's mission is to preserve and give access to Census owned materials and Census publications through their online library catalog and to develop programs which address user needs with respect to staff and public access to Census published information. Jim's approach to his work is to integrate multiple disciplines and points of view to create a holistic end product. His management skills incorporate diverse approaches from association management, organizational behavior and development, comparative perspectives, anthropology, and information architecture. His tools of choice are models, flow charts, Venn diagrams, and matrix representations and interpretations. His favorite matrix is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which helps him to understand personnel in order to maximize innovation and change. Currently, he is constructing a new matrix involving the variables of institutional change and worker satisfaction. In addition to his work at the Census Bureau, he teaches Library Automation and Project Management at Catholic University of America, School of Library and Information Science. Jim packs in a lot of action to a day and he admits to reading late into the night. His work schedule and his teaching enable him to sustain high energy throughout the day, which is steeped in variety, study, and intellectual growth, with an emphasis on learning from his customers, colleagues and students alike. He likes change and glories in seeing ideas grow and flourish. Some thoughts from Jim that may be useful for you:
Look at associations across disciplines as an essential link to the library and information science profession
Read contemplative books and articles in addition to trade literature in order to synthesize information and bring thought together into knowledge. While you must read the trade literature, Jim encourages reading of contemplative works. As you read he encourages you to continuously assess the potential social impact of libraries and the energetic social role of the librarian.
And don't forget:
See how complex systems work: Librarians must market much more creatively, base everything you do on what users and members need, and broadcast loudly that you are doing this. We must analyze our members and our users thoroughly. To be effective we must work together with decision-makers in different departments throughout our organizations, and offer ideas on where the library or librarian can add value. Pretty soon money will be coming back to the library for these services. Show them that "if you think finances are tight for the organization, now is especially the time to invest in your library." Jim Madigan has done this through obtaining departmental backing to couple bib records with digitized content wherever possible from individual departments within his organization. Jim also engages other stakeholders in his organization wherever possible: "People support that which they help to create." In the beginning, involving your users may seem to complicate things, but in the end, you'll have a product, service -- and a place -- that they buy into in more ways than one. Jim Madigan Jim works for GCI Information Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stanley Associates and can be reached at james.Patrick.madigan@census.gov
Military Librarians Group Sponsors KM Meeting The theme for the Special Libraries Association 2002 Annual Conference is "Putting Knowledge to Work." To help its members prepare, the Military Librarians Group of the DC Chapter of SLA sponsored a meeting in October entitled "Knowledge Management: Communities of Practice." Three librarians from the military community were featured. They work in organizations that are incorporating knowledge management practices into the way they do business. Gretchen Schlag, Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), emphasized the importance of knowledge management (KM) to the Federal government. She told the audience that currently, 50% of the Federal workforce is eligible to retire. While she assured us that it is not likely that all would retire at once, the large percentage she cited highlighted the critical need for knowledge management. Schlag offered a review of the three types of knowledge - "explicit," "implicit," and "tacit." Tacit knowledge - that knowledge which is in peoples' heads - is the most difficult to capture. While organizations have made great strides in dealing with the information technology aspect of knowledge management, the "soft side" - people side - is often lacking. Schlag gave some suggestions for how organizations can facilitate the sharing of knowledge, including: formalized mentoring, cross-functional teams, rating and reward systems that give credit for contributions to a knowledge base, plus having top leaders in an organization "buy into" the program. Schlag warned that all of these changes are the result of many tiny, incremental steps. A colleague of Dr. Deming once told Schlag that you have to use "stealth techniques" to change organizational culture. Instead of condemning those people who hang out at the "water cooler", organizations need to encourage employees to get up from their desks, walk around, and chat. Schlag, a graduate student in Information Resources Management at Syracuse University, shared some of her favorite websites and books on KM. She recommended KM.gov and BRINT.com. Her reading list included Working Knowledge by Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak, InfoSense: Changing Information Into Knowledge by Keith J. Devlin, and Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know by Nancy M. Dixon. Janet Scheitle, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Librarian, began looking at knowledge management around 1995 when she began having to field questions from her superior officers on why libraries were still needed when the Internet is available to everyone. After a three-month study on where libraries were moving, Scheitle was able to convince her Commanding Officer that her library should be saved. Scheitle has been studying KM ever since. In fact, she is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Engineering Management with a concentration in Knowledge Management at the George Washington University. Currently on a developmental assignment for TRADOC, Scheitle has been working at the Pentagon in Army Knowledge Management. Scheitle shared the Army's definition of knowledge management: "Leveraging the intellectual capital of the organization to increase the organization's ability to act in any given situation." She related an instance in which an Army command was deployed overseas and disagreed with another command over how to safeguard hazardous material. In the past, the highest-ranking officer might have decided the solution - whether right or wrong. In this case, a soldier remembered a website called Deployment Information Support System. The resourceful soldier used his computer to obtain the correct information in minutes. Scheitle also provided several KM resources. Army Knowledge Online (the Army's KM portal) is found at http://www.army.mil/ako and has several papers available to the public. The Center for Army Lessons Learned at http://call.army.mil is an excellent example of a virtual library. The third speaker, Ann Cashin, Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Command Librarian, told of her experience working as part of a knowledge management team at her command. Her library supports the research of those who generate explosive ordnance disposal documentation and acts as an archive for the publications produced and the source data that goes into those publications. Most of Cashin's presentation focused on the digitization of a portion of their collection, the complications of creating hierarchies to help people access the information, and data models that created the capability to capture the right information for their various products. Departing from the technical side of database development, Cashin talked about the corporate culture and how participants were slow in coming around to the idea of sharing information. There was concern about working on a process that could make them obsolete. She says they gradually learned that the corporate database would not ever replace the need for ordnance analysts. All three speakers offered the library community suggestions about where and how librarians fit into knowledge management. Gretchen Schlag stated that instead of worrying that KM will leave us out, we should look at what we do well and seize the opportunity. For instance, a librarian with managerial skills could become a Chief Information Officer. Another information professional with good reference skills could become a Knowledge Strategist. Janet Scheitle looked at the competencies for librarians adopted by SLA for the 21st Century and did a "crosswalk" from those competencies to the skills needed in knowledge management. She said it shows that librarians are "naturals" for KM. Ann Cashin completed her presentation by telling why it pays to be "pushy." Not originally considered for a role on her command's data modeling committee, Cashin quickly informed her Commanding Officer that his new initiative was something in which she was trained and was excited about. Her good sales job got her onto the team. Cashin says she has really helped herself and her library. She said that instead of being just a librarian with many funding requests, she became a member of the command's vision team and someone who had an essential sense of the big picture. All three speakers are role models who have seized opportunity and become examples of how to keep pace with a rapidly changing world. The Military Librarians Group and our guests were very grateful for the speakers' time, remarks, and advice.
The Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. The Legal Research Institute is an all day program aimed at those working in law libraries who want to sharpen their research skills and non-law library personnel and paralegals with limited experience using basic American legal sources. PROGRAM Thursday, March 21, 2002 - 8:30am - 5:00pm
Primary Sources - Law, Tracey Bridgman, Georgetown Law Library
LOCATION: Howard University School of Law COST: LLSDC members:$30 Non-members:$75 Limited enrollment (Includes a morning continental breakfast and mid-afternoon snack)
Mail registration & check to:
REGISTRATION BY MAIL ONLY: REGISTRATION DEADLINE: March 8, 2002
REGISTRATION CONFIRMATION AND DIRECTIONS TO HOWARD LAW WILL BE AVAILABLE ON THE LLSDC WEBSITE: www.llsdc.org NOTE: Contributions, gifts, dues or registration fees paid to the Society are not deductible as charitable contributions for Federal tax purposes.
Applying Copyright Law in Libraries Are you tangled in the knot of interpreting and applying copyright law? Register for this American Association of Law Libraries Professional Development workshop to explore copyright issues that affect librarians by analyzing the respective rights of owners and users of copyrighted works. Discussion topics include the difference between copying in for-profit libraries and copying in non-profit libraries, educational uses of copyrighted works, library document delivery services, audiovisual and digital materials, foreign works and licensing, developing policies and monitoring compliance. Instructor is James S. Heller, Director of the Law Library and Professor of Law at the College of William & Mary, Marshall-Wythe Law Library in Williamsburg, Virginia.. Heller is a past-president of AALL and past chair of the association's Copyright Committee. Register online to secure a spot. The registration form and program details are available on AALLNET at http://www.aallnet.org/prodev/event_app_copyright.asp or contact Mary Jawgiel, AALL Education Manager by phone at 312-939-4764, ex. 24 or email mjawgiel@aall.org
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