Founded in 1900 and to date boasting just over 3,900 members, OLA is Canada's oldest and largest continually operating library association. Each year, OLA's Super Conference draws librarians from around the province and the country to take part in Canada's largest forum for library-related networking and educational events, including the country's largest library tradeshow. This year's Super Conference, held January 31, 2002 to February 2, 2002 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, drew over 3,600 participants to nearly 210 events. SLA Toronto was invited by OLA to provide content for this year's Conference and offered four events. The SLA sponsored sessions were well attended by SLA and OLA members alike and if the numbers were any indication, this year's sessions were a hit with attendees! Writing Effective Business Plans and Proposals Presented by: Jane Dysart and Rebecca Jones, Principals, Dysart & Jones Associates An estimated 70 attendees enjoyed a practical, informative, and highly relevant session on writing effective business plans and proposals led by Jane Dysart and Rebecca Jones of Dysart & Jones Associates. According to Dysart and Jones, business planning is "critical for service development and securing [any] information centre's future." Their session provided tips for discovering the starting point for the business plan process, draft templates for writing the plan, and tips for communicating and presenting the final plan to stakeholders. If you are interested in starting your own business planning process, consult the following recommended resources: 1. How to Write a Great Business Plan, Harvard Business Review, July-August, 1997, pp. 98+ 2. Business Plans: Roadmaps for Growth & Success, Information Outlook, Dec 2000, pp.22+A A copy of this presentation is available at http://www.dysartjones.com/OLAFeb1.pps. Know thy Customer: Client Relations Management for Libraries Presented by: Ulla de Stricker, President and Founder, Ulla de Stricker & Associates According to Ulla de Stricker, of de Stricker Associates, the concept of customer service and relationship building is not new to most librarians. The creation of deliberate Customer Relations Management (CRM) plans is gaining in popularity, however, as libraries face greater challenges in meeting the information needs of their communities. de Stricker began the session by describing the tools required to conduct and evaluate the CRM process in any organization and followed with a discussion of market segmentation, methods for assisting client priorities, and communication strategies. According to de Stricker, if a library notices that the region it serves is in the midst of rapid demographic change or a boom in new home construction, or if major employers are leaving the area, these are perfect opportunities for implementing a CRM plan to get to know how the libraries 'customers' are changing. The audience was provided with the Relationship Management Toolbox which emphasized the important ingredients of any CRM plan such as: time to conduct the audits, detailed knowledge of client priorities, visibility, involvement, team awareness, networking, and building a profile in relevant communities. de Stricker stressed the importance of knowing your customer, using whatever tool at hand to keep tabs on the market, and through it all - maintaining visibility amongst the stake-holders and clients alike. Taming the Intranet Beast: An Introduction to Content Management Presented by: Ann Rockley, President and Founder, The Rockley Group SLA was fortunate enough to have Ann Rockley of the Rockley Group, one of the area's leading experts in Content Management, as this year's presenter of Taming the Intranet Beast: An Introduction to Enterprise Content Management. Rockley provided an overview of Enterprise Content Management (ECM), which according to Rockley is the "creation, capture, delivery, customization, and management of content across an enterprise/division." ECM seeks to address increasing volumes of information, the necessity to provide information in various formats, the challenges of content personalization, and the need to share information across organizational lines. ECM accomplishes these objectives, Rockley explained, "by breaking documents down to the element level, so that they can be reused many times, in different formats, for different purposes and different users." Rockley continued the session by outlining the components and the benefits of ECM. After explaining the role of XML and metadata in managing content at the element level, Rockley identified the various tools that are currently available for implementing an ECM system, including the criteria for evaluating and selecting the appropriate content management system for your particular work environment. Beyond the Thesaurus: Implications of Taxonomy Construction for Intranets Presented by: Peter Morville, President and Founder, Semantic Studios Peter Morville is co-author of the definitive text for Information Architecture, "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web." Speaking to nearly 50 attendees, Morville outlined the principles of Information Architecture (IA) focusing on the important role taxonomies and controlled vocabularies play in any successful IA plan. According to Morville, IA is defined as, "the design of organization and navigation systems to help people find and manage information." Successful IA systems include navigation, labeling, searching, metadata, thesauri, indices, and auto-classification systems coming together to architect a web site for effective user satisfaction. To show IA's growing importance in today's era of information overload, Morville referred to two recent reports, which concluded that "poorly architected retailing sites are underselling by as much as 50%" (Why Most Web Sites Fail, Forrester) and "40% of corporate users can't find the information they need on their intranet" (Basic Principles of Information Architecture, Working Council for Chief Information Officers). In concluding the session, Morville outlined the principles of thesaurus construction, recommended thesaurus management and automatic indexing software programs, and discussed a recent redesign of MSWeb, the primary portal to the content and services of Microsoft's corporate intranet. For a copy of Morville's presentation, visit http://www.semanticstudios.com/events/ola2002/Morville%20-%20Beyond-the-Thesaurus.ppt. The Programming Committee would like to thank every one of this year's presenters for helping us provide a strong showing at OLA. We would also like to extend a special thank you to Jane Dysart, Infomart and Micromedia for their assistance with arranging Peter Morville's trip to Toronto. |
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