I wanted to give you a peek at what is going on behind the scenes in programming for ORSLA. Your Board has been working hard!
As you may know, we had a hiccup earlier this year when the President-Elect moved to a new job out of state. To fill the gap this created, Michelle Bagley generously remained President for an additional three months of this year. Judy Anderson has gladly agreed to stand as our President-Elect.
Stepping into the President role, I needed to get up to speed quickly, and felt a retreat for the Board, where we could discuss a breadth of issues deeply, would help us jump start programming and prioritize issues.
We had a Board retreat April 4th. A few ORSLA/SLA past presidents joined us: Todd Hannon, Rachel Barrington, Grethen Leslie, La Jean Humpries, and Bill Fisher. Although being held hostage with sixteen of your closest ORSLA colleagues may sound like a tough way to spend a Saturday, everyone was very engaged and cooperative.
From our discussions and from the survey that ORSLA members, we agreed to focus our efforts this year on:
Professional Agility: the ability to move forward and stay relevant.
We identified three areas to concentrate on:
Programming
" Build a more robust communication channel with members
" Partner with other associations that share/broaden/enhance the space we work in
" Focus on social networking, web 2.0 tools, advanced searching
Membership
" Engender vigorous networking for jobs/projects/relationship building
" Grow!
Fundraising
We realize everyone is very price-sensitive in this economy. Our commitment to you is that every program will add value to your suite of skills or broaden your network.
All the best - Cindy
cindy.romaine@comcast.net
Posted 15-Apr-09 by:
Kama Sue Siegel
Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt
The leadership of Oregon Chapter of the Special Libraries Association has been undergoing some changes in recent months. In January Jason Eiseman moved to the East Coast to pursue a new career at the Lillian Goldman Law Library (Yale Law School). As a result, I have continued to serve as President of the ORSLA. On April 1, 2009 Cindy Romaine (Romainiacs Intelligence Research) will begin her term as ORSLA President. Judy Anderson (Concordia University) has accepted an appointment to serve as President-Elect for 2009. Judy will begin her term as Chapter President on January 1, 2010.
It has been a pleasure to serve as President for the chapter and I look forward to supporting both Cindy and Judy as the Chapter's Past President through this year.
Regards,
Michelle Bagley
Posted 24-Mar-09 by:
Michelle Bagley
Clark College
In preparing for the Annual Kick-off Breakfast next week I've been sifting through a lot of material on professional development. One of my regular "go-to" places for inspiration is Seth Godin's blog.
In a recent post on Godin discusses the key elements to successful presentations. Here's the link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/917lTImQovM/the-two-elements-of-a-great-presenter.html
Posted 05-Mar-09 by:
Michelle Bagley
Clark College
2008 is off to a great start. Our year of chapter programming began on Saturday, March 15 with the Annual Kick-off Breakfast. This year's meeting was held at JoPa, Northwest Grill. The breakfast provided members with an opportunity to reconnect in a casual atmosphere. President-elect Jason Eiseman joined me in demonstrating some usefully but perhaps untapped features of the SLA web site.
On April 12th, the Membership Team hosted their Annual Student Reception. Kathy Hemphill (David Evans and Associates) hosted the event. A big thank you goes out to Kathy and her firm for providing ORSLA with the space to hold the event. 21 students representing several MLS programs attended. We even had an attendee who flew to Portland from San Jose to attend the reception! A panel discussion featured an array of talented information professionals who provided the students with first hand accounts of their careers and strategies for success. The panel members were Pat Salas (Intel), Jason Eiseman (Schwabe, Williamson, and Wyatt), Judy Anderson (Concordia University), Kathy Hemphill (David Evans and Associates) and Noelle Harling (National College of Natural Medicine). Pam Osborne (Mercy Corps) served as moderator for the panel. I want to extend my appreciation to the Membership committee; Kathy Brost, Jennifer Jenkins, Pat Salas, and Reese Dano for organizing the reception. It was a terrific event.
The 2008 SLA Annual Conference (June 15 - 18) is a little more than a month away. If you haven't had the opportunity to attend the Annual conference this is an exceptional opportunity to find out what membership in SLA can do for you. Be certain to make time to join your left coast colleagues at the West Coast Chapters Reception (WCCR) on Sunday evening. Last year's WCCR in Denver was fantastic. Based on the venue our hosts, the Pacific Northwest Chapter, are not planning on being out done. I look forward to seeing you in Seattle.
The Board is always looking for new ways to serve the chapter membership. If you have recommendations for programs, speakers, venues, etc. or if you would like to get involved don't hesitate to contact me or any of the other Board members. We all have something to learn from each other.
Regards,
Michelle Bagley
Posted 02-May-08 by:
Michelle Bagley
Clark College
Happy Spring to you all!
I just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and provide a brief update of what is ahead for ORSLA in 2007.
For those of you who don't know me, I am Samara Wilson. I currently work as a Senior Research Analyst at Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. I've been involved with the ORSLA board for the past six years and it is my honor to serve as your president this year. I feel quite privileged to join the ranks of so many outstanding and dedicated ORSLA members who have served before me.
As many of you know, ORSLA celebrated the launch of a new year with our annual kick-off breakfast earlier this month. Graciously hosted by Kathy Hemphill at David Evans & Associates, the breakfast drew more than 30 attendees. Although I know that many of our members (myself included) just enjoyed the chance to catch-up with friends and colleagues old and new, the primary attraction was a lively and interesting presentation given by ORSLA member and web master, Jason Eiseman.
Jason's presentation, titled "Re-imagining the ORSLA Website," was based on his recent redesign of the ORSLA website as a content management system. Not only did Jason explain the extensive research and planning that went into building the system, he also provided a useful overview of how the new design encourages each and every member to become an active and important contributor to the ORSLA website.
I especially appreciated this aspect of Jason's presentation because I firmly believe that the strength of our chapter really is our members. We rely on the contributions and efforts of all of members to keep this chapter active and relevant. So please, if you haven't already had the chance, take a few moments to look at the website and think about how you might contribute.
On the topic of contributing, I would like to take the opportunity to introduce some of the people who are currently very involved in keeping our chapter going. The 2007 ORSLA board members and team leaders include:
1. Past President - Todd Hannon
2. President-Elect - Michelle Bagley
3. Secretary - Amy Maule
4. Treasurer - Don Oswalt
5. Valley Liaison - Camille Clark Wallin
6. Communications Team Co-Leaders - Julie Nakao & Jason Eiseman
7. Membership Team Leader - Kathy Brost
8. Professional Development Team Leader - Joan Truncali
These ORSLA chapter leaders have already been hard at work planning events, scheduling conversaziones, identifying relevant professional development opportunities and improving and adding to the website.
I know that many of us feel that networking and professional development/continuing education are the greatest benefit we receive from our SLA membership, and the chapter vision for this year is to really continue with this focus.
Additionally, we hope to continue expanding and diversifying our membership. Students are an extremely important part of this effort and our Membership team is currently busy making preparations for our annual student reception to be held on Saturday, April 28th at Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt. Please watch for additional information soon.
We have many more plans in the works for the year, including an event in the valley in the early fall and our annual dinner celebration in October. Again, please watch for more information coming your way very soon.
Until then, take care!
Samara Wilson
Posted 22-Mar-07 by:
Samara Wilson
Waggener Edstrom
2006 six is drawing to a close and so is my time as ORSLA President. Beginning in the new year Samara Wilson will step up to serve as Chapter President and I want you all to know that under her leadership, ORSLA will be in very good hands. Welcome on-board Samara!
The past few months have proven to be very significant for the chapter. In October, after over a year of planning by many of your ORSLA colleagues, we joined the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada Chapters of SLA to co-sponsor Content Management - Converging Information, People and Technology. This conference, held at the Fairmount Hotel in Vancouver BC, drew nearly 170 attendees and provided an excellent opportunity to learn more about content management for beginners and seasoned veterans. Several ORSLA members attended the conference and Jason Eiseman and Donna Cohen gave presentations that were well-received. The conference was successful on multiple levels. Conference evaluations suggest that attendees enjoyed the sessions and found them to be stimulating. The vendors seemed pleased with the fact that they were located in the same room where the keynote (Bob Boiko) and lunch were held. Last but not least, the conference was a financial success for the chapter. It appears that conference netted approximately $18,000 which will be split equally among the three chapters. This revenue will significantly increase the ORSLA's flexibility for future programming. I want to thank all of the ORSLA members who helped make this happen. Michelle Bagley, Jennifer Foster, Judy Anderson and Pam Osborne deserve special recognition.
At our Annual Meeting in October Cindy Romaine was honored with ORSLA's 2006 Kathy Greey Award. I have been inspired over the years by Cindy's passion and vision and can't think of a more deserving recipient. Congratulations Cindy! The chapter also elected an excellent slate of officers:
Michelle Bagley - President Elect
Kathy Brost - Membership
Amy Maule - Secretary
Camille Clark Wallin - Valley Liaison
These folks will step into their new role at the beginning of January. Abby Margolis of Ziba Design gave Annual Dinner attendees a fascinating look into the way Ziba Design uses ethnographic research to create products and services that create an emotional connection. Brent Mai also gave us a sneak peek at what we can expect at the annual conference in Denver. Al Gore and Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert cartoon, will be featured speakers.
We capped off the year with a fun Holiday Party earlier this week at the Our Children's Store. This provided ORSLA members with an opportunity to catch up with friends, meet new colleagues, and shop to benefit local children in need. Western Culinary Institute catered the event and at the end of the night about 30 ORSLA members had spent roughly $970. All proceeds will be donated to local charities. Way to go folks!
I'd like to close my final president's letter by offering some unsolicited advice. If you are ever asked to serve as ORSLA President, I'm here to tell you that it is well worth the trip. I've appreciated being able to work closely with the board and other dedicated chapter members. I am profoundly grateful to Julie Nakao and Jason Eiseman for their tireless efforts to create a chapter web site that builds community and allows all chapter members to contribute content. Well done...very well done.
I'll see you at the Annual Breakfast in 2007!
Todd
Posted 15-Dec-06 by:
Todd Hannon
Oregon Health & Science University
President's Letter August 2006
Even though summer is drawing to a close, ORSLA activity is really heating up. The next couple of months promise to be an exciting time for the chapter.
First and foremost, ORSLA is joining the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada Chapters of SLA to co-sponsor what should be a vibrant conference in Vancouver, BC covering topics about the intersection of people and technology and the increasing need to effectively manage content within our organizations. Several of your colleagues have spent well over a year in planning to make sure that your conference experience top-notch. I look forward to seeing many of you in Vancouver.
Equally exciting is the imminent unveiling of the new ORSLA web site featuring our new logo. We will be trading a static site for a dynamic one that facilitates conversation and community. The Communications Team has worked hard to develop a site that is clean, easy to use and interactive. The infrastructure encourages chapter members to contribute to site content and participate in discussions. Jason Eiseman, the sites architect, will be presenting on the ORSLA website redesign experience at the joint conference in Vancouver.
In past years, the chapter's annual meeting has taken place in the spring but this year marks a departure from that tradition. Because SLA has aligned its governance and calendar years, new chapter leadership is now scheduled to take office in January rather than June and we will need to elect new officers in the fall. This year's annual meeting will be held at the Kennedy School on Saturday October 21st and promises to be a lot of fun. We are still in negotiations with a speaker from the public relations sector who could provide us with a good deal of insight.
As if all that weren't enough, we will also be hosting another virtual seminar on September 28th. Darlene Ficther of the University of Saskatchewan Library will present Always fresh: Fast content for your web site and users. The seminar will be held at the Portland State University Library. I hope many of you are able to participate.
One of the things I wanted to accomplish when I took office over a year ago was to try and bring more programming to our members in the Willamette Valley. I'm happy to say that the Board was very supportive of this and in April ORSLA hosted a popular OLA preconference seminar called Surveys Made Easy. Later in July we were back in the valley to host a Beyond Google workshop that was attended by more than thirty people. The evaluations from these sessions were uniformly positive and I hope that we continue to provide programming opportunities beyond the Portland-Vancouver metro area. Kudos to Liz Paulus for her good work as Valley Liaison.
I want to close this letter with a note of appreciation to all of you who helped make this year's garage sale a success. Many of you donated items and some of you worked and/or attended the garage sale itself. Because of your generosity, ORSLA was able to raise a little over $500.
See You in Vancouver,
Todd
Posted 19-Sep-06 by:
Todd Hannon
Oregon Health & Science University
As 2005 draws to an end, I want to take the opportunity to tell you about some of the exciting things the ORSLA Board has planned for 2006 and take a look back and share some of the highlights from this years Kick-Off Breakfast with Stephen Abram.
The Annual Kick-Off Breakfast
The breakfast was a lot of fun. As always, it was good to see old and new friends, but based on the post-event evaluations, Abram's talk was the high point for the forty folks in attendance. He served up inspiration, humor and a good dose of reality garnished with optimism.
He effectively illustrated that Google is attempting to rule the world(my words, not his) and offered the following for us to consider...Google answers more questions in a half-hour than all the world's libraries answer in 3.5 years. He stressed that libraries are not a scalable solution for effectively competing with Google for the who, what, when and where type of questions. Abram claimed that libraries stock and trade are answering the how and why questions and indicated that on this front Google can't compete with us.
He mentioned that we often tend to represent the work we do in terms of statistics related to transactions - circulation, interlibrary loan, acquisitions etc. - and encouraged us to begin to focus on transformation as opposed to transactions. How are our services transforming the work and lives of our clientele? What stories can we tell that illustrate this?
He spoke of the importance of integrating our services with the social networks of our clients and having a presence in their collaboration spaces. When we do this, our services will be more "discoverable."
These are just a few of the insights that I gleaned from his talk. I'm sure others might offer different factoids and anecdotes that resonated with them. If you've never seen Stephen Abram speak, don't miss the opportunity. In the meantime, check out his blog at http://stephenslighthouse.sirsi.com/. You can find his presentations at http://www.sirsi.com/Resources/abram_articles.html Have fun!
What's in the Works for 2006
While the past two months have been relatively inactive in terms of programming, there has been quite a bit of work going on "behind the scenes." Here is a portion of planned future programming.
Confirmed Programming
Dec. 13 Holiday Event (Christmas Ships) more information at ORSLA web site.
January - Conversazione (meet at a Portland restaurant for casual conversation about a specified topic).
February - Speed Mentoring/Chocolate Event. Think of speed dating and apply this to mentoring&Quick rotating conversations with ORSLA colleagues of varying levels of experience.
March - Student Event (Panel)
April - Pre-conference at OLA (Salem): Surveys Made Easy. This half-day class covers the foundations of developing surveys and includes training on how to implement surveys using SurveyMonkey, a web-based tool. Instructors: Dolores Judkins (OHSU), Patrice O'Donovan (Linfield Portland), Peggy Baldwin (Providence Portland).
May - Conversazione June - 2nd Annual ORSLA Garage Sale
October (Vancouver BC) - Joint Conference on Content Management. This should be a lot of fun. I hope many of you will be able to attend.
November - Annual Dinner
Programming in Development
Randy Silverman, Preservation Librarian, University of Utah. Talk about visit to Louisiana after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
David Levy, UW I School Professor. Talk in the Valley regarding information sanctuary (Corvallis or Eugene?)
Virtual Seminar: Copyright for the Corporate Librarian. The Importance & Consequences of Copyright Issues in the Digital Environment Speaker: Laura Gasaway, Director of the Law Library and Professor of Law, University of North Carolina.
Virtual Seminar: Communicating the Value of Your Service Speaker: Jane Dysart, Dysart, Jones and Associates
Other Activities
Initial work is underway in the development of a new ORSLA logo that will compliment our new web pages that are currently under development. Defteling Design http://www.defteling.com is consulting with the Communications Team and the Board to help us create a new identity. Defteling Design's services are being donated at no cost to ORSLA.
Pam Osbourne, Gretchen Leslie, and Linda Absher are coordinating an evaluation of the chapter's bylaws and are working with the board.
That's all folks! If there is anything you'd like to see the chapter pursue or any questions you have for me, please get in touch with me at hannont@ohsu.edu or give me a ring 503.494.3474.
Todd
Posted 06-Aug-06 by:
Todd Hannon
OHSU
