Report from the Toronto Solo Chair

Solo Group held three meetings this year, each one drawing on average of 14 participants. This represents a noticeable increase compared to the recent few years. Teleconferencing option may have been one of the reasons for higher interest, as it minimizes the loss of time (a major concern for solos). It does require more preparation and juggling: all the handouts, and lists of participants need to be distributed before the meeting - with frequent last-minute changes, this can be a very challenging task.

Other factors, introduced this year, may have contributed to the participation increase:

1. topics of discussion are chosen based on Solo Survey* results (evidence-based)
2. date of the meeting is selected to accommodate the majority (members are invited to vote on two to three date options offered)
3. meetings are more structured and agenda notes carefully prepared
4. minutes from the meetings are distributed by email right after the event
5. summaries of discussions, along with the resources are posted to the Toronto Solos wiki soon after the meeting (adding to resourcefulness and transparency)

First meeting was devoted to the issues around managing e-resources. The discussion focused on e-mail management, shared folders, SharePoint use/features/limitations, and software packages, including cataloguing tools. A couple of solos took courses on Records/E-mail Management offered by the Faculty of Information PLC, and were able to share some recent trends and recommendations. While a small number of solos are involved in some sort of enterprise content management, majority seems to be at the starting point.

Our April gathering covered tools and techniques that help solos in keeping current, such as email alerts, listservs, online forums, conferences, webinars, and various social media applications. Several resources for staying abreast with new technology, as well as for keeping up with professional trends, were exchanged. It is encouraging that many solos use and play with a variety of tools.

Finally, the September event helped placing the work of our Group in the context of broader Solo Division efforts. It was packed with briefings and notes from the SLA 2009 conference. Our special guest, Carolyne Sidey, SLA Solo Division Secretary shared her insights and a few documents prepared for the Division. A selection of sessions was presented in a very condensed form. It is amazing how much you can still learn about the conference by going through the blogs, tweets, and post-conference reports (even when you have actually attended the conference).

Worth mentioning are a few other tasks accomplished this year:

• Guidelines for Solo Chair are revised and posted to the wiki (offering some pointers for future chairs)
• A chronological list of past topics discussed by solos, based on reports published in The Courier is created for the wiki (providing a quick snapshot of solo themes)
• Solo Directory on wiki is being regularly maintained and updated, along with the email distribution list.

Featuring a promising theme of “Preserving organizational memory”, our next get-together is planned for the early winter of 2010.

One of the challenges ahead is how to encourage solos to review one free SLA U-Click webinar of their choice and agree to report back to the Group at one of our future meetings. It would be a great step towards maximizing our resources.

*All links in this document require SLA wiki login.

Amra Porobic is the SLA Toronto Solo Chair. She can be contacted at the Insurance Bureau of Canada (Tel: 416 362-2031 ext. 4350 or aporobic@ibc.ca)