Joint Chapter Professional Development Day in Seattle

by Barbara Holder and Debbie Millward

(L to R) Keith Low, Patricia Cia, Debbie Millward, Coral Payne, Lance Nordstrom

On April 21, 2001 Vancouver special librarians made a road trip to Seattle to a joint Western Canada Chapter/Pacific Northwest Chapter/Oregon Chapter professional development day. The original idea was to have a joint chapter "regional" conference, but plans were scaled back to reflect realities of volunteer time and budget constraints.

Generous sponsors included DIALOG, EBSCO, Factiva, Intelligence Data, Kiplinger, Lexis-Nexis, Micromedex, RoweCom, and Silver Platter. The stimulating program for the day featured SLA President Donna Scheeder and Joanne Marshall, Yan Souci and Joe Matthews as speakers.

Donna Scheeder, Keynote Speaker, came at SLA International's expense as part of a normal chapter visit. Donna presented inspiring and engaging views on future directions for the Association. Her talk was based in part on her presentation to the Winter conference in Savannah.

Joanne Marshall, Dean, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, kept us thinking and smiling as she spoke about "Proving Our Value".

As we dug in to the best conference luncheon I've experienced, Yan Souci of Nike Inc, told stories of success outside the typical librarian realm in her talk on "Non-Traditional Librarian Roles in the Corporation".

Joe Matthews of EOS International talked about "Determining the Value of Your Library Catalog". In short, we had a valuable day of discovery and networking together.

The day was the culmination of a drive to pool resources with nearby chapters to stage professional development events to benefit SLA WCC members. SLA WCC contributed funds, advice and encouragement. PNW members handled local arrangements and program.