by John Tomlinson, New York Chapter, Knowledge Management Division

To me, being future ready means supplementing my studies toward an MSLIS with reading outside our field. Casting a wide net in what I read provides a different perspective than LIS-related sources, and sometimes provokes different insights and ideas. It’s made me more creative in thinking about library/information-center related issues.

Two specifically information-related fields I try to keep up-to-date on are design and journalism. Journalism is particularly relevant because it’s facing challenges/opportunities similar to those in our field -massive technological changes affecting the collection/delivery of information and the expectations of our clients. The Poynter Institute’s Romenesko blog, Jay Rosen’s PressThink blog, and the NPR show On the Media are among many excellent sources.

I also try to read a bit about management and business. Here, the McKinsey Quarterly, various Harvard Business Review products, and the Stanford Social Innovation Review are examples of great resources.

Depending on your background and interests, fields such as cognitive psychology, computer programming, information security, architecture, law, marketing, or others might be most useful in being future ready. In any case, open eyes/ears are just as important as an open mind in our rapidly changing profession.

John Tomlinson is Senior Communications Manager at Synergos, a nonprofit organization fighting poverty and inequity around the world, and an MLIS candidate at the Pratt Institute, where he manages the website for SLA’s student chapter.

Reposted with permission from LexisNexis’ 2011 Best Practices for Government Libraries  http://www.lexisnexis.com/tsg/gov/Best_Practices/Best_Practices_2011.pdf

by Chris Vestal, Washington, DC Chapter, Government Information, Leadership & Management Divisions

My iPhone’s turning me into a digital media junkie. Not because of the cutting edge apps, music, or media-but because it’s made me a podcast addict. I listen to podcasts everywhere (the gym, during lunch breaks, on the metro to drown out noisy passengers, driving, at the grocery store…you get the idea).

The best way to explain podcasts is that they’re like radio programs on demand that can be streamed or downloaded on computers or mobile devices. There are video podcasts but the majority take the form of a simple audio recording. If the thought of listening to people talk seems boring with innovations like streaming media and ebooks duking it out for our attention, think again. By devouring podcasts I’ve learned to watch out for exploding lakes (Stuff You Should Know), been moved to tears by everyday people giving their oral histories (NPR StoryCorps), literally lol-ed at the outlandish advice doled out on a comical advice show (My Brother, My Brother, and Me), gotten guaranteed strategies at being the life of any dinner party (APM: Dinner Party Download), heard Nora Ephron talk about her career and forgetting (The Free Library Podcast), and of course been captivated by the king of podcasts (This American Life).

It’s so easy to learn from or just enjoy podcasts. Since most of them don’t require you to actively look at your device you can go through them virtually anywhere while you’re multitasking (confession: I’m chuckling to a Superman parody on Superego while I write this). I was actually listening to a podcast at the grocery store when I first realized that if I was podcast addict then maybe other librarians would like them too.

I met with some DC/SLA members to try to work out just how we could develop a podcast series for the chapter. The consensus was to establish a series that provided audio coverage from our professional development events so all our members could benefit from the event even if they couldn’t attend it live.

The chapter had launched a DC/SLA YouTube channel last year that did just that, but with video content. We ran into a few of problems right away though. The biggest problem was recruiting a volunteer with a digital video recorder to attend events. Then given the average size of video files we had to figure out how to send the video to our YouTube volunteer without relying on email. Another annoying quirk was that YouTube limits clips to 10 minutes or less. Since most of our events are over an hour our YouTube volunteer had to watch the entire video and try to find appropriate stopping points to break the video into shorter clips.

Watching our videos on YouTube wasn’t very convenient for our members either. Trying to watch our segments was confusing since YouTube didn’t reliably display them in chronological order. Also at the time YouTube was only allowing users to stream video and that required an active high speed internet connection to watch. That really limited how many people could view the videos on the go with their mobile devices.

We were hopeful that a podcast series would overcome our YouTube channel’s shortcomings. The barrier to entry was surprisingly low. We purchased a digital audio recorder and a noise canceling microphone for less than $100. The audio recorder and microphone are small enough to fit in someone’s pocket so transporting them to events has been easy. DC/SLA President-Elect, Lois Ireland, has done a fantastic job of getting them to our events and setting them up to get the best sound quality possible.

One small snag we encountered was how to send the audio file to each other for editing after recording. The file size is way too large (although much smaller than a video file) for emailing and it wouldn’t be convenient for Lois and me to frequently hand off the audio recorder to each other. Fortunately Lois had the great idea of uploading the file to the chapter wiki so I could just download it from online.

Another minor problem was that recorder’s default output file is a WMA file type that’s incompatible with GarageBand on my Mac at home. This was a pretty easy fix too though; I spent $10 and downloaded EasyWMA from the Mac App Store. This app quickly converts the WMA file into an MP3 file that I can edit with GarageBand.

Once I have the file in a MP3 format I open up GarageBand and get to work. Since for branding purposes we decided to call the series DC/SLA Radio and one of the goals of the podcast is to drive people to our website, I add a brief intro that mentions the series’ name and our website URL. I also add a closing statement at the end of the podcast directing people to our website for more information about the DC/SLA and our events. Finally I bookend the opening and closing statement with a short jazz jingle just to give the podcast a theme.

After I think everything sounds good I upload the episode to the chapter wiki and tell our  technology guru DC/SLA’s Past-President, James King, that it’s ready to go live. James designed a webpage from scratch to host DC/SLA Radio and adds each new episode to it.

We thought loading the series into software like the iTunes Store or the Zune Marketplace would be an extra convenience for the our listeners; they could subscribe to our podcast series once and then each new episode would automatically be pushed to them each time they opened the software. Then they could listen to it from their computer or even synch it automatically with some mobile device to listen to on the go. Unfortunately both platforms require the files be hosted on an XML feed and won’t let us upload each file or submit each file’s URL to them. Our current website doesn’t have the XML feed capability so we haven’t been able to load the series into either platform yet-but James and I are already working on a way to get this loaded into them in the near future. In the meantime after James uploads the episode to our webpage I send an email announcement to DC/SLA list serve as well as to several other library lists so that people know it’s there and ready for listening. Our audience can then go the page and stream the episode online or download it to their computer or mobile device.

We announced DC/SLA Radio at the end of March and in three days had almost 300 hits. In one month DC/SLA Radio had over twice as many hits as our YouTube channel did in over a year! We had librarians in other countries congratulating us on its launch. I have to admit I was pretty surprised with the enthusiastic response. But then again perhaps it’s not really that surprising, librarians tend to be information junkies and podcasts are a great way to get your fix.

Chris Vestal is a Supervisory Patent Researcher with ASRC Management Services on its contract at the US Patent and Trademark Office. Chris is also DC/SLA’s 2011 Communication Secretary.

by Roberto Sarmiento, Illinois Chapter, Transportation Division

For a while now I have been bumping into “revolutions.” Not only the political kind (Buddha knows that we are having plenty of those lately), but in remote areas of my personal thinking and reading.

Like all good stories, it all started for me before the holidays last year…I do not know if it was the cold, the darkness or the arbitrary finality of another year, but I sensed that deep within me the time was coming to fix me some Molotov cocktails, crank up The Police (my proven revolutionary soundtrack – let’s leave this one for another time) and start looking for banners.

And lo and behold, “revolutions” started popping up no matter what I read: music, management, innovation, education, information… People kept calling me to arms to start, to pick-up, to continue, to fight against/for something…and I said YES…I am ready…I want a change, I need a change…and only I can get myself ready for it. So I started my revolution!

No bloodshed, no tear gas, no burning tires…but a deep strong commitment to do better, to be better, to be nimble, to be prepared, to recognize and anticipate change…to be present. I am living my revolution.

So, now it is my turn to raise my (right) arm and insistently whisper into your ear: Future Ready is a revolution, or more precisely: it is part of my and shouldbe part of your revolution!

You may be thinking: am I ready for this? If deep down you have this funny (and not ha-ha funny) feeling that what you got right now will not be good enough in the future, then I urge you to take matters into your own hands and start your own revolution to be become a better you, a more prepared you…a ready you.

Now, GO…do what you need to do! Write in your own little red or black or pink book – but do it with passion, be bold, go on the streets and with your chin jutting out and wrists on your hips tell the world “to bring it on,” you are ready.
Now, look to your left…that’s me next to you…look to your right and behind you…that’s the rest of us who believe in being future ready. Welcome to the revolution…

…don’t forget a good playlist!

Roberto “Brother-in-Arms” Sarmiento

Roberto is currently the head librarian at the Northwestern University Transportation Library. He is the former director and reference librarian of the Panama Canal Commission Technical Resources Center (a former US government agency). In addition he has been a consultant on transportation information to the US government and international organizations, an exploration geologist, a mentor to librarians and a former member of the SLA Board of Directors.  He has personally experienced a couple of honest-to-God revolutions and a shooting invasion. Roberto has received several awards, including the SLA Transportation Division 2010 Innovation Award and the 2008 Professional Achievement Award. He holds an MLIS from Dominican University and a BA in Geology from St. Louis University.

by Deb Hunt, Candidate for SLA President-Elect, San Francisco Bay Region and Silicon Valley Chapters, IT, KM and Leadership & Management Divisions

Trends related to LIS employment show that in 2007, 15% of employers were not libraries and  in 2008, that number jumped to 27%.  In this same study, an analysis of emerging jobs outside of libraries shows a wide variety of titles: emerging technologies librarian, usability analyst, information architect, and more. With these types of titles in mind, the skills required and requested by employers continue to expand and change, including taxonomy creation, knowledge of metadata standards, etc.

As Stephen Abram noted (and I’m paraphrasing here): “LIS skills are good currency, but only for those with the flexibility and insight to exploit the opportunities. “

We must add flexibility, insight, and recognition of opportunity to our essential core skills! We need to move outside our comfort zone and reflect on our accomplishments so we can communicate them to current, future and prospective employers or clients. Else, how will they know what we can do and what we bring to the table?

Career sustainability (my candidacy theme) is about growing in our jobs now and in future jobs as we continue to deepen our expertise and experience. (Please join the Career Sustainability LinkedIn group.)

Many LIS jobs are not coming back or are coming back in a whole different way. We need to be resilient taking our skills with us no matter where we go. I believe that we have much potential and energy to move forward to career sustainability.

I’m passionate about what I do and what we can do as a profession. Together we can create a more healthy and sustainable future as we grow our skillset and shout from the rooftops the value that we bring to our employers, potential employers and clients.

Deb Hunt is Principal of Information Edge which empowers clients to find the information they need to do their work. Information Edge specializes in enterprise content management, knowledge services, professional research, and library design and automation.

Deb has been a member of SLA since 1986 and is a candidate for SLA President-Elect. She served on the SLA Board as a Director from 2008-2010 and is the creator and team leader of SLA’s 23 Things. She is a past President of the San Francisco Bay Region Chapter and a member of the Silicon Valley chapter and the Library Management, KM, and IT divisions. She is an active member in the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) and served on its Board of Directors from 2001-2003.

by Doug Fine

Ever wonder what would happen if you popped into the Quickie Mart for a quart of juice and some batteries and found the shelves were empty…permanently? I do. Here’s an essay I wrote on this issue, which I’ve thought about for several years and which partly explains the Digital Age Carbon-Neutral life I’m attempting here on the Funky Butte Ranch. It ran in theWashington Post’s Sunday Outlook section, and has since been picked up by the Denver Post and other publications. It’s scaring a few people, judging by some of the feedback I got from the Beltway. Heck, the essay’s scaring me. That’s the point. That’s why I wrote it. It seems that my first three or four decades on this planet have, against all odds, turned me into a –gulp– survivalist.

Not that I’m rooting for a collapse. Comfort is good. But it seems mainstream to at least wonder about it, given the goings-on of the last two thousand years. Or the last two. Meanwhile, cross your fingers that building a Green economy is going to help the world thrive into the foreseeable future and beyond.

http://www.youtube.com/leafrockfeather#p/a/f/0/evjICqDFXgI

Doug Fine is best known as the author of the petroleum-free bestseller Farewell, My Subaru.  From his Funky Butte Ranch in New Mexico, where he posts Dispatches From the Funky Butte Ranch, he often speculates on whether he is equipped to survive if Digital Age Box Store Consumerism ever went away.

by Jamal Cromity, North Carolina Chapter, Information Technology and Leadership & Management Divisions

Being future ready will enable you to adapt to using tools that improve communication and help you develop new work flow paths. When using social media, the path to making successful community connection is not always certain. While you may have a desire to use one or two networking tools consistently, you will hear about another tool that sparks your interest which can also cause feelings associated with “information overload.” With so much information available from a number of directions, it becomes difficult to discern and synthesize people and services.

….Step back, take a deep breath, and be more determined to move forward. Follow these steps:

• Continue to you use the one or two services that work for you
• Through status updates or blog posts, schedule time to post either daily or weekly
• Read and reply to others you follow or are connected with

Your community connections will grow over time.

Here is a tip…

For personal or as an enterprise competitive intelligence site, those using tools such as Facebook and Twitter can consider converting these micro blogs into a newspaper format using Paper.li to help improve the way you discern, synthesize, and share information from the community connections you make.

In the image on the right is a paper I created called, “The Co-Lab Tribune” to help review post sent via links by those I follow.

Jamal Cromity has worked in the information industry for over 15 years. He is currently a UX Specialist for ProQuest Dialog and is Associate Editor for the New Review of Information Networking. Jamal holds an MLS from NCCU , an MBA from NYIT and is PM (Project Management) certified. He has received awards and honors from many associations including ALA, SLA, NCSLA, and NCLA.

by Christian Gray, Southern California Chapter, Pharmaceutical & Health Technology Division

Thinking about SLA President Cindy Romaine’s core tenets of Future Ready it is easy to see the convergence between pillars of Future Ready–career agility, alignment and community–and Corporate Social Responsibility/Social Responsibility (CSR/SR).

Your participation in CSR/SR can enhance your skill set and give you an opportunity to take on new roles and responsibilities giving you a more agile career.  CSR/SR is a very high profile matter for many public companies and other institutions. You will find yourself aligned with senior management’s desire to be a socially responsible organization by providing direct support to that department. And as CSR/SR relates to community, well it doesn’t take much effort to explain. That is what CSR/SR should be about, making a real difference in your community or the community that your organization represents.

I have several working hypotheses regarding CSR and SR which I hope to validate over the next few months:

1. Your personal participation in an SR program can increase your quality of life.
2. Your active support of your company CSR goals and objectives can have a positive impact on your career.
3. Being a leader for CSR/SR programs in your organization can lead to greater satisfaction in that role.
4. Professional associations and other business organizations benefit from participation in CSR.
5. Being an advocate and champion for CSR/SR programs can provide direct benefit to your clients, company and partners.

Recently I had a very late night of introspection and an honest evaluation of the many gifts I have in my life and had been aware of my growing need to be active in a community organization. I started researching non-profit organizations and even wrote a few checks. I joined the board of a local arts organization, Create:Fixate, and began to more actively participate in a group for which I had previously been a donor, LA’s BEST. Through that participation I reconnected with former associate Jim Howard, the founder of the Room to Read Los Angeles chapter.

Jim put the book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, in my hands and told me a little more about Room to Read. I was hooked before I even finished reading the book. I initially helped out informally, then facilitated their chapter strategic planning session. After visiting the global offices in San Francisco, I realized that what had begun as a conversation with an old friend had turned into not only an incredible project, but also a great and very personal passion.

My new-found commitment to caring and helping aligned with the broader community of colleagues I work with in the publishing and information industry, including clients, prospects, partners, publishers and even the Special Library Association. I was happy to discover that my commitment was also shared even closer to home, when I was casually speaking to my CEO at Reprints Desk, Peter Derycz, in December 2009 about life outside of work. While sharing my interest in Room to Read he got a funny smile on his face and began telling me about his own experience trekking in Nepal, how he wanted to start a school or library but was concerned about it being sustainable.

So like many good intentions, time passed and Peter’s plans faded until our conversation rekindled his own interest in creating a sustainable, positive change. Over the following weeks, Peter’s personal interest became a corporate initiative and a new partnership was formed between Reprints Desk and Room to Read. The result: basically every time there is a transaction (we deliver scientific articles to some of the largest research and development organizations in the world) Reprints Desk drops a small percentage in the Room to Read bucket. That commitment has, in one quarter, generated enough to fund more than 12 years of girls’ scholarships, including bikes and uniforms as needed, or more than 50 percent of a library, or more than 3,000 new books in local languages.

By integrating corporate social responsibility into Reprints Desk’s DNA, as we grow the company, the financial support and direct impact on children’s lives will grow with us. And that does not even count the impact of the initiative’s growing fan base. Both inside and around Reprints Desk, employees are making a difference around the world. While writing another line of code or providing customer service, our employees know clients are often thrilled to learn that their choice to use our services how has the added value of making the world a better place. As Peter and other senior managers have visited with the world’s largest publishers and they’ve learned about our partnership with Room to Read, many of these publishers are now asking how they can participate.

Over the past several years I’ve presented a series of talks about Career Agility to SLA Chapters and Divisions, sometimes solo, other times partnered with Cindy Hill or Kim Dority. One of the themes in these talks is emulating some of these positive characteristics of corporate leaders.  One key take-away has been that it is not only important to understand our own strengths, but to look at ways to channel our strength into action. I believe we have the means to do just that. To be an effective and valued contributor at your organization, you must consider becoming directly involved in your company’s CSR program. If your organization doesn’t have a CSR program, now is the perfect time to initiate one. Why? You will benefit by increasing your exposure to senior management, you can make a difference outside your enterprise and inside the “cause,” and you’re likely to gain tremendous personal satisfaction from your participation.

I hope this is the beginning of the conversation about CSR/SR and the role of the special librarian/info pro. We had a very engaged group during the SLA CSR Unconference session and we will continue the conversation via the SLA Social Responsibility group just started this week.

With over twenty-years of sales, marketing, business development and public speaking experience, Christian Gray has a unique and diverse perspective of technology, software and information companies. As a Strategic Account Manager for Reprints Desk, Christian has worked directly with many of the world’s largest life science companies including Amgen, Gilead, Genentech, Johnson and Johnson and Allergen, as well as other Fortune 500 Companies including Sony, Disney and Sun Microsystems.
Christian has been an active member of the Special Libraries Association since 2002 and is a past Board member of the Southern California Chapter and recently received an SLA Presidential Citation for his work on Future Ready 365.

Christian has given presentations to numerous SLA Chapters and Divisions and published a series of articles for Searcher Magazine, an Information Today publication on Enterprise Social Software. He has also been published in the Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles Business Journal.

30 Years ago I graduated from Library School – and the future was in front of me…
By Stephen Abram, Toronto Chapter, Business & Finance, Information Technology, Leadership & Management Divisions

Part 2
In part one I listed nine things I wished that my 1980 self (the freshly minted MLS) knew when I graduated in order to be future ready. Here’s another ten philosophies that I believe would help most people be more future ready (and I hope happy) :

1. Prefer Action over Study.
   If you or your team is studying something to death – remember that death was not the original goal! Although information professionals have a great core competency in research and study, we must know when to fish or cut bait. Recognize that studying something too long is staying in your comfort zone instead of making progress. In our somewhat risk-averse culture, this can be particularly difficult. What needs to be learned and understood is that delay is as big a risk as poorly considered action. Pilots and good process reduce your risk (and provide learning opportunities too). You can iterate your way to the future. This philosophy is closely related to the one where an enterprise values its conservative culture and gradually declines due to its lack of adaptation to modern expectations or changing external conditions.
2. Get Out of Your Box!
   It is unlikely that you are the alpha user profile. Understand that. I know that as an older, experienced librarian I am pretty limited in my ability to really connect and empathize with the challenges faced by newbie library, web or database searchers. I am not saying that I can’t overcome this, but I have to be explicitly aware that my training, biases and experiences have forever changed me and my perceptions of the information world. Also, my experiences are an old part of a different world and may not be fully relevant to today’s valid experiences of new librarians and end users. It also means that when I am designing services for seniors, kids, teens, challenged communities, the differently-abled, or even other professions like lawyers or engineers, I have to keep in mind that I need to be aware and prioritize their needs and competencies over my own. I need to build on their strengths and not repair them based on my perceptions of their weaknesses! I find that it pays to remind myself that I am not trying to create products and services for mini-librarians and that this is a poor goal in the first place. I need to understand the user’s context and needs and not project my own biases on them. For instance, it is likely that the end-user doesn’t actually want ‘information’ but, more likely, wants to be informed, entertained, taught and/or transformed in some manner. Libraries are great environments for that.
3. You can’t step in the same river twice
   This is ancient Confucian wisdom. It means, in our context, that our knowledge of new information or technology developments means that we probably cannot easily see all of the potential pitfalls or even its great potential. I remember when AltaVista was first introduced and many colleagues said that this couldn’t be the future of searching. After all, it had no fields, no true Boolean, and it didn’t allow the use of set searching! How could this be the future of online searching? Then along came relevancy ranking driven by the search engine’s algorithm – again pooh-poohed by my colleagues (and me for a while). Now along comes Blekko and I hear the same refrain. This time I am not so sure. After all, Google Scholar is still an infant. Can you point to someone’s beautiful baby and criticize her as being a lousy accountant? Keep yourself open to the movement of the river – it’s always changing and the river is strong. In the battle of the river and the rock, the river wins. Just look deep into the Grand Canyon and see the power (and beauty) of steady progress. Today we must invent a future for libraries that exists in a world of users who are literally changed in their perception of information use and the role of technology. Spend time understanding the beauty and strengths of your own box and then take a break outside of it occasionally.
4. Have a Vision and Dream BIG!
   “How will you shape the future?” When you try to be future focused and ready you are making a choice – to shape the future not just be ready for it. Have the confidence to build the future with your ideas and energy. I have seen the power of vision in every workplace I have been employed in. When it is absent or lost the workplace is missing something and verges on a horrible environment. When a shared vision is present we have achieved great things. When the vision doesn’t have enough stretch in it, things seem mediocre. Think back to great work environments you’ve worked in or great leaders you’ve worked for and you’ll usually find there were some great and compelling visions at work there. And for those who don’t dream big and have a vision, they’re doomed to an endless series of the present. I hope they love the way things are.
5. Ask the Three Magic Questions:
   a)What keeps you awake at night?
   b)If you could solve only one problem at work, what would it be?
   c)If you could change one thing and one thing only, what would it be?I have discovered that these questions are truly magic. They start conversations with users rather than delivering simple answers. They’re open-ended instead of closed-ended, yes or no answer questions. They avoid assumption. Just set the context and ask away. I have used these questions with primary school kids, titans of industry like Bill Gates, librarians, IT managers and cabinet ministers. These questions work every time to delve deeply into our users’ needs and personal goals. When we are armed with that knowledge then our libraries are unstoppable.
6. Feedback is a Gift
   One of my closest and dearest friends taught me this when In was having trouble dealing with a round of public and negative feedback. She told me that, like that wedding gift from Aunt Sally, you can keep it, display it, return it, or hide it in the closet. It’s your personal choice. Don’t overvalue one piece of out-of-context feedback or let it loom out of perspective and balance. I have learned over my life that objections to my ideas are best handled two ways: listening more, or framing the objection as an opportunity for more information and education. Feedback is best digested in the aggregate rather than in small doses. Squeaky wheels are fine and need to be oiled. But if it’s the engine that needs attention, then that poorly oiled wheel is just a distraction. Feedback shouldn’t be cause for stomach-wrenching stress. You are in control of how it can be dealt with (good or constructive or bad) and need to hear and accept this gift from your stakeholders. Do you have feedback mechanisms in your life?
7. Sacrifice is the Magic Sauce of Setting Priorities
   Every person and organization has thousands of ideas that are worthy of consideration. No one can do them all. That’s the tough part. When you have 100 good ideas to choose from the critical skill isn’t choosing the best 5 but sacrificing 95. Learn the skill of temporary sacrifice. You can store your good ideas in an idea parking lot and bring them forward into the strategic planning process as projects are completed. If you don’t focus and choose to limit your energy to achieving success on those that will deliver the most value to your enterprise and users, then you are choosing mediocrity. Sacrificing ideas isn’t forever or a loss. Time was invented so everything doesn’t happen all at once. Give your ideas time to grow and gain acceptance.
8. Build for the Future and Embrace Ambiguity
   Too often projects that are planned for 18-36 months naively assume that things will stay the same technologically. Remember the lessons of the past where the things mutated quickly – DOS became Windows, diskettes became CD-ROMs, Netscape begat MSIE which begat Firefox, online dial-up became web broadband, etc. You can’t be certain of the future but you can’t wait for total stability either. That’s the ambiguity. Dealing with ambiguity is a key competency in change management and introducing innovation. Stability is a chimera. Only fossils are truly stable.
9. No Mistake is Ever Final
   One of my better bosses had this phrase framed in needlepoint on the wall of her office. We were part of a skunkworks that was tasked with re-technologizing a major corporation as well as introducing transformational cultural change into a huge publishing sector. No small task. Not only did we make many mistakes, but we learned from them. If we weren’t making mistakes we weren’t trying hard enough. Albeit, we tried to limit the exposure of our experiments, but like learning to ride a bike, if you’re not falling down, you’re just not learning well enough. Her sign “No mistake is ever final” encourages us to try just that little bit harder to achieve greatness because we knew we had her support. If you want to change things for the better, you have to be a change agent and that means you have to be more comfortable with making mistakes and dealing with them effectively – and learning all the time.
10. Have some Fun!
    We are often too serious. Our work is serious and our impact on our communities and the world is enormous! However, working creatively, trying new things and being innovative is fun. Take the time to recognize that and live your life to the fullest. Celebrate your successes and your team’s work. Champion your library’s achievements! Reward your colleagues when they succeed. Don’t ever get so heads-down that you can’t see the big picture. It’s a wonderful world.

Congratulations to Cindy Romaine, SLA, and the SLA board and network for actively seeking the future for over 100 years. I am more future ready for having been involved with SLA and learning from such a great group of colleagues.

Stephen Abram, MLS is a Past President of SLA and is Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and Markets, for Gale Cengage Learning. He is an SLA Fellow and the past president of the Ontario Library Association and the Canadian Library Association. In June 2003 he was awarded SLA’s John Cotton Dana Award and the AIIP Roger Summit Award in 2009. In 2011 he is Canada’s CLA Outstanding Librarian of the Year. He is the author of Out Front with Stephen Abram and Stephen’s Lighthouse blog. Stephen would love to hear from you at stephen.abram@gmail.com.

by Thomas Sullivan

Loyalty expert James Kane gave a remarkable talk on the last day of the SLA 2011 in Philadelphia. He emphasized how essential it is for SLA members to build strong relationships with the people who use the information we find.

Mr. Kane took this a step further: He said that we have the strongest relationships with people who understand us. And if we really understand what information users want – including needs they haven’t articulated – we can become deeply valued partners. Mr. Kane said, “You become valuable when you anticipate the needs” of those we work with.

Author Gary Klein offers a great example of how anticipating needs pays huge dividends in his 2009 book, Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making. Mr. Klein describes how, during World War II, a U.S. Navy Captain was studying intercepted Japanese messages, trying to understand where Japan would attack next.

Capt. Rochefort noted that one location, “AF,” was appearing frequently in Japanese messages, and suspected that AF was the next place Japan’s armed forces would strike. But what was AF? Capt. Rochefort had a hunch that AF was Midway Atoll. To test his theory, he arranged for the U.S. base on Midway to broadcast an un-encrypted message stating that the garrison’s water-distillation plant was malfunctioning. Two days later, U.S. forces intercepted a Japanese message that the AF base was having problems with producing drinking water.

Armed with this information, the U.S. Navy moved quickly to bolster Midway’s defenses, and inflicted a major defeat on Japan, a turning point in the war in the Pacific.

Mr. Klein writes: “Rochefort wasn’t waiting for the data to come to him. He wasn’t seeing his job as simply deciphering Japanese messages. His job was to figure out what [Japanese Admiral] Yamamoto was planning.”

(Read: “Streetlights and Shadows,” pages 194-195.)

Thomas D. Sullivan is a business researcher based in New York who is looking for new professional opportunities. He has researched companies and industries in manufacturing, energy, transport for firms including Morgan Stanley, Ernst & Young, and JPMorgan. He earned an MLS from Queens College CUNY, and a BA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, and can be reached atthomasdsullivan@earthlink.net.

by Cherine Whitney, Rhode Island Chapter, Food, Agriculture & Nutrition Division

Inspired by Cindy Romaine to share an idea on 6/12, I am sharing my story. In April 2007 Emily Wild, a geographical librarian at US Geoogical survey presented a Powerpoint on GIS (Geographical Information Systems). Little did I know then that this knowledge would come in handy about 4 years later in ways I could have never anticipated. I was readying myself for my future.

July 7, 2007, my father died in Hospice Care of RI after complications of surgery. This was a significant event. Just as important, is that I used Hospice’s bereavement services for processing my grief.

Two years after his death, I became a Hospice Volunteer. I returned that love that came my way over those years. November 2010 I took a patient to a doctor’s appointment, and also delivered a food basket to him and his fmily. On that delivery, they shared with me that he had just been given 6 months to live. I hugged the wife saying let you find hope and peace for even one hour. April 2011, delivering another food basket (of course in my various seasonal hats ):) I found they had no volunteer to help. In middle May, weeks later, after helping them little, I was asked to find a map of a hiking area the patient had loved. The Hospice social worker wanted him to have meaning and a purpose in his life to help him not think of his impending death. She was planning to use this map for her own hike at a later date. So, using their tip to call the Town Hall, I asked for maps, picked them up May 20. I delivered them to the patient. Talking to him face to face, I found he loved these regular maps. But he needed something else. Using my information interview skills gently, I found out he needed a topographical and/or aerial view map.

After I left to prepare for Penelope Campbells’ talk/stay at my house, I called Town Hall from my car while still on their property. I asked the town clerks if they had this type of map. They said no, but GIS staff might. I called him. He was in. Explaining the urgent need for a Hospice patient, he asked me questions about the map requested. I said I did not know. Then I thought: have him talk to the patient. So, going back into the house, I told them I found someone to help the patient. They spoke. What an excellent, animated interaction!!! We all smiled and laughed! May 23, I picked up the map, a huge 36” by 36” topographical AND aerial. Delivering the information that day, the patient and family were overjoyed. I called the GIS staff person days later to thank him. He was away May 26-June 3! That was meant to be for me to be at that place at that time!

Wait, there is more! Best of all, the GIS guy waived the fee, and said he wanted to help make detailed maps of trails that existed and for non existing maps of trails. This patient’s knowledge, love of life, and nature would be his legacy for the future. He was doing it NOW! He had his purpose. He was making future ready trails! How awesome! I had helped him do this. What a connection!

Many thank yous came from the family, the social worker (who had sought the map for months from another volunteer), and the Volunteer Coordinator. I am honored to have given my skills, knowledge, love, for something that truly is important. The immediate need was met expeditiously. I used all of my skills. I did that EXTRA big time. Thank you SLA, Emily, and Chapter, filling Tony Stankus’, now a Fellow, shoes.

Cherine Whitney received her MLIS from the University of Rhode Island in 1998.  She has had a myriad of library experiences from children’s specialist at Providence Public Library, to special collections cataloger at Boston College, to her current position in Research Services at Providence College.  For more than five years Cherine has volunteered at Hasbro Children’s Hospital as a Childcare coordinator, reading and playing with patients in the Dental Clinic’s waiting area. With Home and Hospice Care of RI, she does vigils and visits with patients, and has worked with Camp Braveheart, for grieving children ages 4-17 (dressed in her marvelous hats, of course!) Cherine is President of the Rhode Island Chapter of SLA and has been so since 2009.