PRESIDENT'S WELCOME
What a productive and informative month it has been for us.
SLA Election Results
As many of you know, I was elected President-Elect of SLA. Honored and energized, I look to the coming years to keep our organization and members vital and valuable. Congratulations to the other winners: Treasurer, Dan Trefethen, Division Cabinet Chair-Elect, Mary Ellen Bates and Chapter Cabinet Chair-Elect, Liz Blankson-Hemans. Congratulations, too, to all who ran. Running, itself, was a growth experience and provided the opportunity to talk with so many members which I'm sure all candidates enjoyed.
Your ORSLA 2010 Officers
For 2010, your slate of officers is as follows:
Kama Siegel, President-Elect
Sue Mecklem, Secretary
Don Oswalt, Treasurer
Dean Walton, Valley Liaison
Proposed New Name for SLA
As the email from Headquarters details, the proposed new name is Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals. I encourage you to consider the name and discuss with your colleagues, local and otherwise. We already have a lively discussion going on our listserv. If you have any questions/thoughts you don't want public but do want to discuss, please contact me directly.
Banquet
What a fun banquet we had this year! Lots of energy in the room, lots of new faces, a thought-provoking speaker and good food. See below for a profile of Perri Parise, our Kathy Greey Award winner, and a link to Aaron Schmidt's compelling presentation.
In signing off, I'd like to quote myself (that's awkward, isn't it?). This is a bit from my blog that I want to share because I believe it typifies much of what SLA is going through right now:
You can't - and shouldn't - do it all yourself. Relying on others isn't always easy. I've always been able to meet deadlines and check off tasks on my own. But running for office is not a solo effort. So I learned to collaborate better and to involve others by articulating a simple vision. They, in turn, spread the message further. I think if we can get this concept right, eventually we'll be able to empower a movement.
Thanks a million
Cindy
MEMBER PROFILE
This month we are profiling Perri Parise, our 2008 - 2009 Greey Award Winner. Perri is everywhere, knows everyone and is always smiling.
When and how did you realize you wanted to be a librarian?
I considered teaching and social work as a career - definitely something in the "helping professions." After graduating from college, I tried out social work in New York City, working with drug addicts and people who had attempted suicide. But being an idealistic child of the 60's, I felt that social work was not for me. I felt that I was just counseling people to conform to society's norms.
So, I took off with all the money I had and a one-way ticket to Europe. I had never flown before or been on my own. I cried myself to sleep every night for two weeks! My pride was the only thing that kept me from going back home. But after those first two difficult weeks, I settled in to the vagabond's life, traveling all over Europe with no particular itinerary. In retrospect, it was the best thing I ever did for myself.
While staying in a youth hostel in Holland, I met a woman who was taking a break from her MLS studies, and that was when I asked that cliched question - - You mean you need an MLS to shelve books? (Yes, I really said that!) She was very polite and patiently explained to me what a librarian really does. And it clicked! That was what I wanted to do with my life!
What's your educational background?
I have a BS degree in Human Ecology from Cornell University and an MLS from the University of Hawaii.
What's your title? Do you like it? Does it reflect what you do?
I'm "Director, Oregon Distance Program" (of Emporia State University's School of Library & Information Management). Yes, I do like it. I think "director" encompasses the many aspects of my job.
What do like best about your position?
The students! And going to the weekend classes. I'm an "education geek", and I love seeing how students progress throughout the program. I love watching the light bulbs go on.
What book(s) are you reading now?
I just finished all three novels by Julia Glass and just started A Golden Age, by Tahmima Anam.
Why did you decide to join ORSLA?
I want all our students to join ORSLA, so I need to set an example.:-) I enjoy the programs and keeping current with the profession.
Do you have an example of an ORSLA training, meeting or member helping you in your career?
In general, talking to members helps me keep up on what is going on in the day-to-day work of professionals, and that information helps me make our courses relevant for our students
What's your favorite ice cream?
Mocha almond fudge!
What other interesting tidbits would you like to share?
I was a Peace Corps librarian in Fiji and highly recommend the Peace Corps experience.
I love to talk "movies". Seeing a great film revitalizes me, just like reading a good novel.
I have a 23-year-old son who is a senior at Beloit College in Wisconsin. My husband, Bart Day, is an entertainment lawyer in Portland.
And I was immensely honored and humbled by the Kathy Greey Memorial Award! This is the best career in the world, and I love being able to share it with others.
Thank you for this opportunity!
Thanks Perri! Inspirational as ever. For future, we need to hear from you! Have a colleague you find particularly interesting? Innovative? Unsung? Brilliant? Let us know (SusanMecklem@dwt.com) and we'll take care of the rest.
INDUSTRY NEWS
Congratulations to our friends at Multnomah County Library for being named a recipient of the 2009 National Medal for Museum and Library Service.
"Multnomah County Library receives nation's highest award for community service"
http://multcolib.org/news/2009/imls.html
To help keep up to date with Google's book deal, here are two recent articles from the NY Times.
"In E-Books, It's an Army vs. Google"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/technology/internet/07google.html?_r=1
"Judge Tells Google to Revise its Book Pact by Nov 9"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/technology/internet/08google.html?_r=2&hpw
Cindy often talks about the nobility in our profession. This article typifies that nobility. It is about "Question Box, a free, nonprofit telephone hot line that is meant to get information to people in remote areas who lack access to computers." Thank you to Aaron Schmidt for pointing out this article in his blog.
"Dialing for Answers Where Web Can't Reach"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/technology/internet/28village.html?_r=4&hp
TECH TIDBITS
Continuing on in the spirit of Web 2.0 here's a site recommended by Aaron Schmidt in which he says "people are doing library work online (for fun)":
· http://ask.metafilter.com/
CENTENNIAL TIDBITS
Happy 100th Birthday SLA! For the balance of 2009, in this segment we'll publish an "SLA Factoid" from SLA's site (http://wiki.sla.org/display/SLACTK/10+SLA+Factoids+for+10+Decades) for a touch of history.
1960 - 1969 Visitors to the Library/USA Exhibit at NY World's Fair are the first to see an online bibliographic retrieval system in operation and view the American Reference Center exhibit (co-sponsored by SLA), where the librarians answered any questions put to them using state-of-the-art computerized retrieval systems.
1970 - 1979 SLA Professional Development department established.
COMING SOON
December: tea with new Multnomah County Library Director, Vailey Oehlke at Concordia University.
Join us to welcome Vailey Oehlke, Multnomah County Library's new Director. She will speak about her vision for the future of libraries at a library of the future: Concordia University's newly remodeled library. Read more about Vailey here http://www.multcolib.org/about/mcl-director.html and more about Concordia's new library here http://www.cu-portland.edu/giving/success/librarycenter.cfm.
The tea will be on Friday, December 11 from 3p - 5p. Look for an invite soon!
Recaps of September and October events
Strategic Planning for the Information Center
ORSLA hosted its first webinar on September 23. Members from Springfield and Eugene participated virtually from their offices and Portland area members attended the live presentation at the offices of Davis Wright Tremaine. We are excited that the technology for hooking up members from distant locations worked because now we can include our colleagues from all over the state.
Betty Jo Hibberd, Senior Manager in Market Development at Dialog Corp., presented the basics of strategic planning and had attendees work through a case study to illustrate how and why to plan strategically. We shared our own strategic planning endeavors, ranging from very small to company wide. The presentation provided a great review of why goals, objectives and a needs assessment are important to our information center and gave us specific tools for continuing to strategically plan for both short and long term effectiveness. To see a copy of Betty Jo's slides and case study, check out this wiki: http://orsla.pbworks.com/ORSLA.
Annual Banquet and Business Meeting
We hope those of you who attended enjoyed this year's banquet as much as we did. The room was abuzz with lively chatter and, of course, interesting conversation. We were proud to honor Perri Parise with this year's Kathy Greey Award (see her profile above); excited to announce our 2010 Slate of Officers; and energized by Aaron Schmidt's presentation, "The Read/Write Web Opportunity" (found here http://www.walkingpaper.org/consulting/orsla).
Thanks to our vendors for their kind support:
IEEE www.ieee.org
Information Express www.ieonline.com
Reprints Desk www.reprintsdesk.com
Are there any programs you'd like to see ORSLA coordinate? Let us know! Please contact us (merylbeth@gmail.com).
VOLUNTEER CORNER
Volunteers are always welcome, of course! Here we'll list those volunteer opportunities that are "quickies" - not long-term commitments, rather some short-term projects.
Working with the Communications team
Working with the Vendor Relations team
If you have some expertise, time, & energy please help your chapter. Contact us (ORSLA.volunteers@gmail.com) and we'll get right back to you.
ON YOUR SLA SITE
Our SLA web site has many hidden treasures which are both useful and yours (!) to explore. Each month we'll point to one of the site's useful features. If you have a favorite site feature, let us know (merylbeth@gmail.com) and we'll post if too.
This month we feature Click University - increase your career knowledge online with short skill building courses or complete certificate programs in Competitive Intelligence, Knowledge Management or Copyright Management. Click U recently added members-only free access to Credo Reference's eReference collection: http://www.sla.org/content/learn/members/refcoll/index.cfm.
CONTACTS
Communications Team Co-Leads
Kama Siegel (KSiegel@schwabe.com)
Meryl Cole (merylbeth@gmail.com)
President
Cindy Romaine (cindy.romaine@comcast.net)
President-Elect
Judy Anderson (JuAnderson@cu-portland.edu)
Posted 18-Oct-09 by:
Jessica Hastings
Knowledge Learning Corporation
