Fairfield County Chapter
In this issue...
From
the President
Spotlight
on… Libby Allen Knapik
Celebrating
15 Years June Meeting Photos
Hudson
Valley’s Chapter Meeting: Metrics is the Topic
Library
Assistant Salary Survey
Essary
Award
FCC
Board Members
Job
Postings
Joining
the listserv
Editor's
Information Page (Publications
Guidelines & Advertising Rates)
Looking back on making this decision and the past year as president-elect I realize that at the time I failed to understand what was really important and what awaited me during the year. What turned out to be significant was not how much time this role would take but what I would learn and how I would grow. I can honestly say that the last year was one of the most professionally satisfying experiences of my career (which began in 1985). I worked with great people on the board and had a great role model in Shirlee Schwarz, then president. I never before realized the dedication and the diligence of the people working to make our chapter the success that it is. I also met for the first time and became better acquainted with many people in the chapter.
The next time that I am presented with an opportunity I hope that I will recall what I learned from this experience. In the future, I hope that I base decisions regarding my career on the ability to grow both personally and professionally, on who I might get to meet and work with and what I might learn.
I am very excited about the upcoming year and the chance to serve as president. Once again, I am fortunate to be working with great people on the board, some old and some new. We have already begun planning for upcoming meetings and I believe we have an exciting year to look forward to. We are also committed to providing opportunities for professional growth for our members outside the standard meetings. We are interested in hearing from you and value all input and ideas. Other goals are to continue to grow our membership, to actively solicit sponsors and advertisers in order to maintain a healthy financial position, and to continue the efforts initiated by Shirlee last year to forge a closer relationship with Southern Connecticut University.
I am proud to represent and be a part of our chapter. Here’s to another great year!
Libby Allen Knapik
Special thanks to META
Group for funding the printing and postage costs associated
with the Bulletin.
Finishing my MBA while I was working full-time at Predicasts, Inc. I had been recently married, was traveling for work, and all the while driving up to Hartford for classes during the week and on Saturdays. In between I managed to fit in a little homework.
I am a member of SCIP (Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals), the PTA (Parent Teacher’s Association) of the Stratfield Elementary School, the Connecticut Audobon Society, a volunteer organization that supports the work of the Ahlbin Center for Rehabilitation, and all of the alumni societies from the various schools that I have attended.
My hobbies include reading, gardening, walking, swimming and spending time with my husband and my son.
The customer always comes first. I try to show the same consideration to my clients as I would like shown to me if our positions were reversed. I think that it’s important to be creative and explore all possible options or solutions when presented with a request or a problem. Follow up is equally important – if I promise something I do my best to deliver.
When I graduated from the University of Michigan as an undergraduate I got a job in one of the libraries on campus while I was trying to decide what to do with my life. The librarians with whom I worked impressed me. I was able to get a first hand look at the type of work they performed. Many encouraged me to pursue a career in library science. I’m glad they did!
Meeting attendees received a special
gift to
commemorate the 15th Anniversary.
The inscription read:
Fairfield County Chapter Special LibrariesAssociation
15 years and still growing
FCC/SLA Past-Presidents
Left to right: Joanna Faraday, Suzanne
Silverman, Mary Jane Miller,
Mildred Lorenti, Susan DiMattia, Shirlee
Schwarz, Eve Mountford
CLA
would like data from as many libraries as possible, whether or not your
staff belongs to CLA. For a copy of the survey, which is due at the
State Library by mid-October, please contact Anita
Barney at WCLC at 203-577-4012.
On Tuesday evening, Sept 22, the Hudson Valley Chapter of SLA presented its first meeting of the 1998-1999 year at the Casa Rina Restaurant in Thornwood, NY. The speaker was Pamela J. Scott of Pfizer in Groton, CT. Her discussion was titled, “Redesigning our metrics: Measuring what we do and how we contribute to Pfizer R&D.”
Her presentation drew an interested audience of almost 30 people from both the Fairfield County and the Hudson Valley Chapters. We were all very interested in what Pamela had designed and enforced at her library. What began as a project for her MLS degree, ended in a new way of capturing vital information about the library, the research, and the time spent by information specialists. Previously, she was capturing basic information using a Microsoft Access database. The basic metrics were: costs and numbers of searches, charge-backs and the kind of searches whether they be biology or chemistry or patent searches. Then she looked at what others were tracking. Items that were considered for the new database were: comprehensive versus quick searches and the costs associated with those searches, impact of end-user searching, customer satisfaction, turn around times, work volumes. Pamela then put together a list of items that they should be tracking like how much support the library gives each business unit, and training to other departments. After much analysis of what the database should track, it was now time to start a timeline of events.
Pamela and her committee of professionals
mapped out a plan on how to launch this new system of data tracking.
First they had to establish goals & objectives, then set a timeline,
gather input from other people within
Pfizer, identify any reservations, define
the data fields, adjust deadlines, design the new front end for the database,
and finally plan a training program for the staff. Much time was
dedicated to defining fields. Important items had to be included
like the client’s name and the process time. They even noted the
field of the librarian and the “Information Scientist.” New fields
were added like activity processed (training), more resources used to answer
a question, project codes and additional comments. Next, they had
to design the front end.
One field was dedicated per resource. Additionally, if the information scientist had to make some comments about the project, the comments field was added where they could enter as much text as necessary. Pamela was able to create bar graphs or pie charts based on the information entered. With all the databases now defined and created, it is now up to the department of professionals to enter the database diligently.
Pamela found that training the department on the new database worked best when training one on one or in very small groups. She also had to make sure that there was compliance. The metrics gathering was useless unless everyone inputted his or her data. She found it was difficult to make people change their habits. They now had to account for every minute of their day and note every resource used. She suggested that everyday, 20 minutes prior to leaving the office, start inputting the data. That way, no details about the project are forgotten.
In summation, the project Pamela embarked upon has benefited her department greatly. She can now see where most of the research time is spent. She can also evaluate research
Tools for their value and effectiveness. She can see how her staff is spending their time. And she can show management how useful her department is to Pfizer with charts and graphs depicting questions answered in a given time period. Overall, the audience could not wait to ask questions and interrupted her constantly with detailed pointed questions. It was obvious this was a topic of great interest to those attended and many walked away with new ideas to implement at their libraries and information centers.
Venturing from the relatively tame academic world for the first time in many years to travel to Indianapolis, I was pretty startled to encounter, shortly after checking into my hotel Saturday night, a cigar-smoking lady librarian in the bar. And they say everything’s up to date in Kansas City!
Well, let me tell you about Indy! As I review my session notes, I realize that the dominant thread of the meeting, for me at least, would be to grasp “content’s” current characteristics and attempt to fathom what today’s librarian is expected to do with it. Beginning with Robert Aaron’s all-day Sunday CE Seminar on Knowledge Management and the Corporate Library’s opportunity to lead the way on Competitive Intelligence by inculcating a “sharing environment in an atmosphere of individualists, ‘me,’ and corporate downsizing;” despite Stan Davis’ scary Monday morning keynote address on the future and “crunch,” urging innovation on our field because “what we do isn’t going to disappear...but who does it may as librarians are ‘disintermediated;’ followed by Tom Stewart’s session on Intellectual Capital Management, with its message that librarians must adopt a “business point of view...evaluate the ‘knowledge content’ of things;” I asked myself, speaking as a second year MLS student, what on earth have I gotten myself into?
And all this was before lunch on Monday! At least I was gathering ideas and information for my Senior Research Project. After lunch I attended a VERY technical presentation by Hope Tillman of Babson on network IT, ducked out early from a presentation, Business Information Markets Around the World, that I thought would offer some insight for dealing with the globalization of information but turned out to be a statistical analysis of database pricing and caught the closing minutes of “a panel of experts ”standing-room-only discussion of the new DIALOG pricing. I finished the day by attending the SLA’s Knowledge Management Section Roundtable discussion. This discussion proved to contain the most interesting material I had heard all day – hands-on reports from folks who had actually set-up KM systems at their organizations and how they did it.
Tuesday morning was Doris Kearns Goodwin and the exhibits. After lunch I sat in on Michael Gorman’s talk, Technology with a Human Face. Gorman has a way of placing all the technology that we’re faced with in context. He stressed that we must continue to provide real libraries serving real people - that the technology employed serve enduring values - stewardship, service, intellectual freedom, unfettered access, and democracy. That libraries are ‘sanctified places’ where people go to “both take advantage of the librarian’s skills -- but also to satisfy their information needs personally.” It somehow seemed appropriate to follow Gorman’s philosophical ramblings with a couple of sessions on Dynamic Content Distribution and Digital Object Identifiers, a glimpse of the future of technical services.
Off to a slow start on Wednesday (I caught the Lexis-Nexis-sponsored Live Blues late show at the Slippery Noodle), I arrived at the General Meeting just-in-time to see outgoing President Judith Field pass the baton to incoming President-elect Susan “Suzi” Hayes.
I would like to thank the chapter for making this trip possible. My essay about the future of Special Librarianship barely skimmed some of the things I was able to explore at greater depth in Indianapolis. And I am now challenged with assimilating what I have learned this summer into a cogent research paper tracing the development of the Business Library and identifying those characteristics that resound to shape the Library’s contribution to today’s knowledge management systems.
The Cambridge Group, a rapidly growing management consulting firm with offices in Chicago, Greenwich, CT and New York City (early 1999), seeks a business researcher to support the information needs of its consulting staff. The Information Center is located in our Greenwich office.
As a firm, we differentiate ourselves by working in partnership with our clients to bring customer/consumer-driven thinking to help them grow faster, more profitably and more predictably. We help clients look at their business through the eyes of their customer, not look at their customer through the eyes of their business.
The ideal candidate will have:
• MS in Library/Information Science
• Thorough knowledge of business sources
• Excellent online searching skills (
Internet, Nexis, Dialog, Dow Jones and Investext)
• Creative and flexible research approach
and a strong desire to produce the best results
• Ability to work independently and in
a team environment
• Prior experience in consulting/business
library and/or in the use of Lotus Notes preferred
To apply, please send resume and cover
letter to:
Susan Beard
The Cambridge Group
10 Glenville St. Greenwich, CT 06831
203-532-0900 (fax)
FAIRFIELD COUNTY
CHAPTER BULLETIN/SLA
Library Services
P.O. BOX 120061
STAMFORD, CT 06912
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Page last updated: 17 July 1999