Chris Rhodes from the Statistics Resource Unit, House of Commons Library in the UK was the Leadership & Management Division sponsored ECCA award winner. He was asked to respond to the questions/presentation from the library students at the LMD tea.

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I attended the SLA conference for the first time this year after winning the Early Career Conference Award co-sponsored by SLA Europe and LMD. I found the conference fascinating and the opportunities to learn about information practices and meet information professionals from other parts of the world were quite incredible.

I was invited to the LMD afternoon tea on Monday and so got to hear the very interesting talk from Ning Han and Jennifer Keane of LSU. Among the various questions that they addressed regarding the nature of leadership and management, one was ‘what is the value of the LMD?’

One of the greatest challenges facing new LIS professionals, certainly in the UK, is the lack of a clearly defined career path. In some ways this can be viewed as an opportunity because it means that we don’t have to rigidly stick to the footsteps of our predecessors – we are free to enact our own path, without the constraint that professionals in other fields are subject to.

However, this can also be daunting. The vast array of names given to similar posts and the fact that organisations often have widely differing expectations from posts with similar names means that even choosing an appropriate job to apply for can be challenging. Added to this is the perfectly understandable (but frustrating) fact that salary scales in one organisation rarely even resemble their counterparts in other organisations.

One of the most straightforward ways for new LIS professionals to begin to make sense of this baffling situation is for them to study the career paths of senior librarians, who, by definition, have already negotiated this tricky path. And herein lies one of the most valuable aspects of LMD. Having the opportunity to meet and get to know LIS professionals who have become established within the profession serves to reassure that there are ways to progress up the career ladder, and also provides useful information about sensible roles to peruse and interesting ways to enliven a career or broaden experience.

There is a great pool of interest in the career paths of other librarians in the UK, born partly out of the necessity explained above, and partly out of general interest – librarians seem hugely interested in what other librarians are doing. With a view to this, some of my colleagues in the UK established the Library Routes project. This wiki collects the career stories of librarians from all over the world, in any sector and at any level of seniority. The wiki is endlessly interesting, and would only be made more so if some members of LMD were to add their biographies to it. So if you have time, please consider further enhancing the value of LMD, and the Library Routes Project, by putting something about yourself up there.

- Submitted by Chris Rhodes, ECCA award winner

Wow! SLA may finally have a new name…The Association of Strategic Knowledge Professionals. Are we all happy now? Well, if we can all agree that research and open collaborative discussion are key proceedings in making decisions, than the members of SLA should be excited. After two years of research and discussions conducted by the Association on how to best align the national organization with the institutions and clients we serve, the leadership of SLA are taking action based on their studies.

I for one am excited because I am interested in seeing how members can embrace change and how we as an association can establish a new brand of professionals. Now, I am very aware there are some “haters” out there and among other reasons they do not feel a name change is necessary because changing a name does not change what we do. However, if handled as a business entity that puts forth a new focus to promoting our profession as Librarians along with Knowledge Managers, Strategic Planners, High Tech Anthologies, Taxonomy Developers, User Experience Specialist, etc. the name change opens the doors for new opportunities. These new opportunities allows our Library Schools to align their curriculum with many of these positions that are being established around the skill sets that librarians possess. This does not take away from traditional aspects of Collection Management, Reference Services, Cataloging, etc. The name change simply promotes what we do for our organizations and allows our profession to grow. 

So, can old dogs learn new tricks? Can librarians learn to grow? Who knows, along with the name some of us might change what we do.

Often, Librarians and Info Pros are initially hired to fill supportive roles and over time in tough economic climates their roles are perceived by some as less than a critical part of the core competences necessary for the operation of the business.  In fact, in many cases the information departments are identified as a disposable cost centers and not a vital component of the decision making process that can ultimately lead to informative discussions that generate the revenue needed for the business to function. Info Pros must change this perception.  Librarians must find ways to involve themselves with projects, products, and plans that not only extend their employment but also have a positive effect on the company’s bottom line.  As professionals, we need to make every effort to make a maximum impact within the organization as the success of the business is to some degree a reflection of our careers.  It is important to remember the positive impact that Librarians are able to make now leaves a blueprint to success for generations of library professionals and Info Pros to come. Whether it is in line with generating revenue or preventing the loss of it, Info Pros need to continually reinventing their role and effectively align themselves with the primary objectives of their organizations.

Patricia Cia asked that people post here what we may have posted about the conference elsewhere.  Below are links to blog posts I did about the conference.  What struck me about the conference?

• 5,856 attendees from 30 countries.  The largest number of conference attendees in six years.  In a down economy, it was heartening to see that people valued coming to the conference and found ways to make it happen.
• Excellent keynote speakers who understood and talked about the value of information. It was thrilling to see the diversity among our keynotes speakers!
• Sessions where I learned from the presenters as well as from the audience.
• Great conversations during the unconference sessions.  I helped to facilitate unconference session #3 and was very pleased with the interaction. (notes)  Attendees really valued time for conversations like this.
• A wonderful location near historic places and beautiful architecture. 
• Realization that we all need to understand the Alignment Project and its results.  The results are meant to help us as librarians and information professionals to position ourselves as well as position the Association.  As part of the Association’s repositioning, a name change will again be proposed.  The potential name change idea when immediately into the spotlight and may have forced other aspects of the Alignment Project into the shadows.  Gloria Zamora and Janice LaChance announced at the SLA Second Life Unconference session on Thursday that a vote is anticipated before year’s end.  (Note from the in-world unconference session will be posted here.)

The 2010 annual conference will be in New Orleans on June 13 – 16.  Start planning now to be there!

Related blog posts:

• Remember to look up
• We tweet, therefore, we are!
• Soaking Up vs. Giving Back
• What a week!
• Wikis, Tweets, and Blogs, Oh My!
• Google bashing? No, but some truth-telling.
  
• Funding for the Future: Preserving the Past

Jamal Cromity Co-Chair LMD Blog

Leadership, what a great topic of discussion! It is fitting that my first article on the LMD blog  focuses on leadership. No other profession needs leadership more than libraries and the information profession. Faced with an eroding economy, limited funds for resources, and potential employer cutbacks, Librarians and Information Professionals (Info Pros) everywhere must be more focused and intentional to illustrate the value of their respective positions.

 At the January 2009 Leadership Summit held in Savannah, Georgia the need for leadership was made abundantly clear as the executive board of SLA revealed results of the SLA Alignment Project . The purpose of the project was to study the library profession, in effort to bring cohesiveness within positions, to express the core purpose of the vocation, and to enforce more effective communication about the value of SLA and those in the occupation.

From the data gathered in the alignment project, the board requested SLA members use the results as a framework for discussing the inherent value in the profession in a cohesive manner. You can find some valuable information related to the alignment project under the “Inside SLA” link of www.sla.org. One great way for Librarians and Info Pros to position ourselves is by understanding what executives think…

Outsell's report What Executives Think of Information Management

Jamal Cromity is a Product Developer for Dialog LLC. He is the President-Elect of the North Carolina Chapter. Jamal obtained his MLS from NCCU and his MBA from NYIT. He can be reached at  jamal.cromity@dialog.com

On Sept. 24, Ulla de Stricker and I did a free webinar called Welcome to the profession: Where will you be in 25 years? Is that where you want to be? We know that some people who wanted to attend could not, so we’ve posted the slides online (see below).  The audio from the event will eventually be in the archive on the SirsiDynix Institute web site.  The audio is important since the slides do not encompass everything that we discussed.

If you have questions about our presentation, we hope that you’ll leave comments here.  (I believe the blog does allow for anonymous comments, if you need to be anonymous as you think out loud about your career moves.)