How we tried out new tools, worked with lots of people and what we expectedly (and unexpectedly) learned along the way

by Katie Daugert and Lauren Sin, Washington DC Chapter, News Division

NPR’s Digital Media division recently implemented quarterly “Serendipity Days” in order to innovate in likely and unlikely ways. On Serendipity Days, staff is given the opportunity to take an entire day and a half away from their regular duties and develop a project or an idea of their own choosing. There are two simple rules to follow: the project must benefit NPR in some way and participants have to present their findings to each other.

For our Serendipity Days experience, we decided to create a training video to teach our colleagues both near and far how to run a basic search in NPR’s new internal archives and transcripts database. Artemis, named for the goddess of the hunt, contains all 40+ years of NPR’s programming metadata. The metadata has been created by NPR librarians over the years; Artemis, also developed by librarians, just launched in November.

We participated in Serendipity Days partly out of necessity (the video was one small part of our training/marketing strategy for Artemis), and partly out of curiosity. The luxury of having time to play around with a new idea has standout appeal!

A colleague recommended TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio, a screen capture software that allows you to record and edit screencasts and share produced videos. We collaborated to master the use of the software, wrote and edited a script, voiced and recorded the audio, and selected and added music, all within our allotted time.

The result? We now have a two-minute introductory video that allows our users to learn at their own pace, whenever they have time, wherever they work. Based on the overwhelming positive feedback we received from our video, we went on to create five more videos as part of our Artemis launch campaign. Check out our videos posted on Vimeo!

Our first Serendipity Days experience encouraged us to play with ideas and gave us the time and space we needed for creative thinking. The concentrated planning time and quick turnaround paid off – our project evolved into a major stepping stone in our outreach efforts. We collaborated with our clients, librarians and our Digital Media colleagues. We created new roles for ourselves, shifting from information curators to dynamic instructors and video producers. We are taking technology-smart approaches on how to engage our users and explore future methods of content delivery. Perhaps most importantly of all, we were delighted to find out that we can get a lot accomplished in a concentrated and intensive amount of time.

Katie Daugert is a Reference Librarian at NPR and co-leads the library’s training and outreach efforts. She partners with journalists and staff to research story ideas, track down and evaluate facts, audio resources, and public records. Her MSIS is from UT Austin.

 

Lauren Sin is a Broadcast Librarian at NPR, combing NPR’s vast media archive to help journalists create sound-rich content. She also manages the Library’s spoken word resources, a collection consisting of over 60,000 culturally and historically significant recordings. Her MLIS is from UCLA.

by Jose María Ortiz

(English Translation follows)

El mundo de la información está lleno de numerosos caminos. En muchos de ellos nos perdemos por el desconocimiento en la selección de fuentes, por la avalancha de datos constante e inmediata. En una biblioteca de una escuela de negocios el tiempo es uno de los valores más apreciados y compete a la biblioteca generar medios y difundirlos para engrasar la rueda de la docencia y la investigación.

Visibilidad interna y externa

Parte de un plan de colaboración debe incluir las medidas adecuadas para no generar procesos repetitivos que impidan al staff estar al 100% orientado hacia el usuario. Pensemos en los procesos de catalogación, donde la mayor parte del trabajo está en origen ya hecho y en realidad se requiere formación en compartir e importar datos. Esto mismo tiene dos consecuencias, la primera y ya comentada, se descarga al bibliotecario de trabajo mecánico en pro de un mayor servicio a su comunidad de usuarios, traducido a mayor visibilidad interna de nuestro centro de información.

La segunda, la confluencia de nuestra actividad en el entorno de la información, en los catálogos colectivos, los grupos de trabajo y las redes profesionales, que a su vez genera espacios para la visibilidad del trabajo y la marca de nuestra biblioteca hacia el exterior.

Rentabilidad y eficiencia que impulsan la visibilidad

Es una primera consecuencia, el hecho que la colaboración implica reducción de costes y un mayor aprovechamiento de los recursos disponibles en una biblioteca. Si nuestro centro de información forma parte de un consorcio que opera en materias de préstamo interbibliotecario, compras consorciadas de recursos electrónicos, sabremos que obtenemos beneficios directos en nuestras inversiones y condiciones generales de nuestras licencias.

Pero sumado a esto, pensemos que el hecho de participar colaborativamente en estos foros nos lleva también a crear una posibilidad para la presentación de nuestros servicios, a definir lo que nos posiciona en un carácter distintivo y atractivo dentro de una comunidad académica.

Piensa en global, colaboración es participación

Parte de mi trabajo diario es fomentar las posibilidades y dotar a la biblioteca donde trabajo de herramientas participativas que permitan un eficiente servicio a nuestros usuarios. Siempre que pienso en cómo podemos colaborar y participar en diversos foros, me pregunto ¿de qué manera contribuirá esto a la visibilidad y posicionamiento de nuestra biblioteca, y también de toda la organización?

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The world of information is full of many processes. In many of them, we get lost due to ignorance on the selection of sources, due to the onslaught of constant and immediate data. In the library of a business school time is one of the most cherished values and it is a function of the library to generate and disseminate resources to grease the wheel of teaching and research.

Internal and external visibility

Part of a collaborative plan must include appropriate measures to avoid creating repeatable processes that prevent the staff from being 100% oriented towards the user. Think of the cataloging process, where most of the work is already done originally and actually training is required to share and import data. This also has two consequences, first and already mentioned, it takes the librarians time away from better service to its community of users, translated into greater internal visibility of our information center. The second, the convergence of our activity in the information environment in the catalogs, working groups and professional networks, creates space for visibility of the work and the mark of our library to the outside.

Profitability and Efficiency driving visibility

It is a first consequence, the fact that collaboration means lower costs and better use of available resources in a library. If our information center is part of a consortium that operates in the areas of interlibrary loan, consortia purchases of electronic resources, etc, we know we get direct benefits from our investments and general conditions in our licenses. But, in addition to that, we think that participation collaboratively in these forums also leads us to create an opportunity for the presentation of our services, to define the ways that make us distinctive and attractive in an academic community.

Think global, collaboration is participation

Part of my daily job is to promote opportunities and provide the library where I work with participatory tools that enable us to provide efficient service to our users. Whenever I think about how we can cooperate and participate in various forums, I wonder how this will contribute to the visibility and positioning of our library, and also of the entire organization.

Jose María Ortiz is Associate Library Director in IE Business School, one of the top business schools on the FT rankings. He has an MLIS and is also a constant reader and learner on how librarians influence society.  Follow him on Twitter @josemaLIS.

San Diego, California is home of beautiful weather, spectacular beaches- and a group of highly motivated, driven and future-ready information professionals. The SLA-San Diego Chapter is proud to join in the conversation with our SLA peers about what it means to be Future Ready.  Our San Diego membership boasts a wide range of professional experience and expertise, and we hope that you find our contributions to the FutureReady365 blog to be both thought-provoking and useful!

by Dolly Goulart, San Diego Chapter, Competitive Intelligence, Engineering, Legal, Leadership & Management, and Science-Technology Divisions

At your next meeting, look around. Who do you see sitting at the table? What roles do they fill? Are you regularly sitting amongst librarians or information providers, or are you regularly sitting with a cross-functional group, representing various business units, roles, or functions? If your answer is the first, why isn’t it the latter?

The overused stereotype of the librarian as a back-office or behind-the-scenes support person makes it easy for those in our role to resign ourselves to a position of reactiveness. As highly knowledgeable professionals within the organization, it is in the best interest of everyone involved – you, the client, and the organization – for information professionals to recognize their value and forge themselves a seat at the table.

Recognizing one’s value doesn’t always come easily. It takes self-reflection, future awareness, and the ability to part with comfort. Understanding the importance of our role is not enough. If you understand, but don’t demonstrate your value, you are not any further ahead. Consistently demonstrating your value requires one to evaluate the role they want to fill. The way we present ourselves determines the success we’ll encounter. Do you want to be an advocate for comprehensive information that answers strategic needs, or do you want to be a fill-in secretary, providing transactional-based support without building an equally respecting relationship with your clients? I know which role I want to fill and work every day to make sure the team I manage is viewed in the most professional capacity possible. I don’t fight for a seat amongst other highly competent business professionals. I let the work of our team speak for itself, resulting in strong partnerships across the company and strategically aligned participation. Do we still have work to do on this front? Yes. Is there alignment that we still need to strengthen? Yes. Do we increase our value almost daily, thereby increasing the level of respect and ultimately inclusion? Absolutely.

Back to the stereotype. Why is that we spend so much time evaluating old stereotypes and using them as crutches to keep us from moving forward? It’s so easy to think that someone doesn’t need a librarian in the room, or that they’ll come to us when they need us. Isn’t it more important to look towards the future, forget about the past, and for each and every one of us, determine the best approach to making sure we’re included in the discussion, whatever that discussion is? Personally, I get excited about tomorrow. I get excited about the possibilities and the potentials. I don’t dwell too much on why or why not and I don’t look too far back. Am I a risk taker? Maybe, maybe not. More than anything, I’m passionate about my role and the role librarians can fill. I don’t apologize for that passion because that is what keeps me engaged. It is also what gets me invited to the table.

Dolly Goulart has over seventeen years of experience in the information industry, including more than ten years of corporate experience in wireless and telecommunications. She is currently the manager of Research & Analysis for Qualcomm Library & Information Services, leading a team that supports a global population of Qualcomm employees. In addition to providing industry research and competitive IP intelligence, the team partners heavily with strategic and cross departmental groups to provide business critical research deliverables.

San Diego, California is home of beautiful weather, spectacular beaches- and a group of highly motivated, driven and future-ready information professionals. The SLA-San Diego Chapter is proud to join in the conversation with our SLA peers about what it means to be Future Ready.  Our San Diego membership boasts a wide range of professional experience and expertise, and we hope that you find our contributions to the FutureReady365 blog to be both thought-provoking and useful!

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When librarians talk about what it means to be “future ready,” the topic of conversation often turns into a discussion of the latest and greatest technology. In broader terms, though, doesn’t being “future ready” really just mean preparing your library to best serve your users in the future? At the San Diego Zoo Global Library, we’ve spent most of the last year thinking about just this—how to position ourselves in order to provide the best service possible. This has involved assessing our abilities, focusing on what we’re good at and envisioning what we want to achieve (rewriting our mission and vision statements), and, yes, adopting new technologies.

This two-part post will explore both librarians’ perspectives on their work at the San Diego Zoo. Part I comes from Talitha Matlin, Associate Director of Library Services, with Part II authored by Amy Jankowski, Assistant Librarian with responsibilities for the San Diego Zoo’s archives.

Part II — Amy Jankowski, San Diego Chapter, Museums, Arts & Humanities Division

When I graduated with my MLS degree in May 2011, I never could have guessed that within two months I would be moving cross-country for a dream job focusing on the archives collection at the San Diego Zoo Global Library. After the anticipation of relocating, starting anew, and assuming a professional title abated, the reality of my situation gradually sunk in. Like many new information professionals, everything was the “future” to me, and it seemed like quite a lot to feel ready for after going straight from graduate student to solo archivist in one gleeful leap. At the same time, I realized that the future was going to come whether I felt ready for it or not. I just needed to take a few deep breaths and simplify. Before taking on any big projects or making any major decisions, I stepped back to think about how my position fits within my organization and how I may grow to better serve my users.

In contemplating where to start, I looked at two key aspects of the archives that will be vital in remaining viable for the future: collection management and opportunities for use and outreach. First, I analyzed how the archives collections could be best housed and managed to align their organization, description, and accessibility with professional standards. Like many special libraries, the SDZG library and archives have a modest budget in comparison to larger academic and research institutions, yet there are a number of affordable ways that we could move toward optimal archives management. These include gradually setting aside money in our budget for archival quality housing, translating legacy finding aids to comply with current professional standards, and exploring implementation of popular open source archives management software. Together, all of these changes would enable me to provide better archival reference service and help potential researchers explore the contents of what are now relatively hidden collections.

Beyond basic physical and intellectual organization, I also recognize a big opportunity for expanding use of SDZG archival materials. To approach this objective, I analyzed how the archives collection fits within the organization as a whole. The majority of work at the zoo focuses on innovative, forward-thinking animal management, education, and conservation research with little focus on the past. However, the archives lends historical evidence to the organization’s development, progress, and change over time; the collection’s presence is a source of pride documenting the zoo’s legacy, which fuels nostalgia and appreciation among employees and the visiting public alike, who come together through common memories of a shared past.

Historical materials have long been a point of pride for the San Diego Zoo and a popular stop during backstage facility tours, plus they periodically serve as a reference for development and public relations department projects. However, public access to unpublished archival documents at SDZG is extremely limited. Therefore, I recognize a major opportunity to expand our user base by connecting with the public through various social media and digitization outlets. I will soon be working with the zoo’s social media guru to explore incorporating historical themes, facts, and images into regular rotation on the zoo’s Facebook and Twitter feeds. I am additionally considering creative ways by which to employ digitized archival documents on the library’s webpage—for example, creating a dynamic timeline or digital exhibit using an open source web publishing platform.

As time goes by, ideas seem to pop up faster than I can jot them down. Clearly a little momentum seems to be the best preparation I could have asked for in terms of jumping in to meet the needs of my niche position. I am gradually learning that a big part of being “future ready” in a special library means being creative, adaptable, doing the best you can with available resources, and maintaining a vision of the role you seek to play within your larger organization!

Amy Jankowski is the Assistant Librarian at the San Diego Zoo Global Library, where she focuses on managing the archives collection. Amy received her MLS with a specialization in archives and records management from Indiana University in 2011. In addition to the Special Libraries Association, Amy is a member of the Society of American Archivists and Society of California Archivists.

San Diego, California is home of beautiful weather, spectacular beaches- and a group of highly motivated, driven and future-ready information professionals. The SLA-San Diego Chapter is proud to join in the conversation with our SLA peers about what it means to be Future Ready.  Our San Diego membership boasts a wide range of professional experience and expertise, and we hope that you find our contributions to the FutureReady365 blog to be both thought-provoking and useful!

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When librarians talk about what it means to be “future ready,” the topic of conversation often turns into a discussion of the latest and greatest technology. In broader terms, though, doesn’t being “future ready” really just mean preparing your library to best serve your users in the future? At the San Diego Zoo Global Library, we’ve spent most of the last year thinking about just this—how to position ourselves in order to provide the best service possible. This has involved assessing our abilities, focusing on what we’re good at and envisioning what we want to achieve (rewriting our mission and vision statements), and, yes, adopting new technologies.

This two-part post will explore both librarians’ perspectives on their work at the San Diego Zoo. Part I comes from Talitha Matlin, Associate Director of Library Services, with Part II authored by Amy Jankowski, Assistant Librarian with responsibilities for the San Diego Zoo’s archives.

Part I — Talitha Matlin, San Diego Chapter, Biomedical & Life Sciences Division

In March of this year, the previous library director retired, leaving me with some very large shoes to fill. As the first professional librarian for the San Diego Zoo, she had developed the library and archives into the valuable resource it is today. When she retired, I felt honored and extremely fortunate—I can only describe working as a librarian at the San Diego Zoo as my “dream job.” However, I will admit to moments of being overwhelmed, feeling like there was no way I could maintain, let alone improve upon, the services my predecessor had provided. As a new librarian with almost my entire professional career ahead of me, I had to step back, assess the situation, and take responsibility for my own future.

Throughout this last year, an overarching theme has been present in my work—setting realistic goals based upon honest self-assessment. When I first became a librarian in 2010, I was excited about everything NEW. I was going to innovate and bring about change! However, the future I wanted for myself and for the library was one in which we best supported the zoo’s important research. For our library, this meant we had to re-focus on the basics, not reinvent ourselves. I asked myself two questions:

• Were we meeting our users’ basic needs?
• How could we best leverage our available resources to reach more users?

For the most part, I thought we were meeting our patrons’ needs, not only providing what people wanted, but also anticipating what they might want. However, taking an honest look at my weaknesses, I knew I didn’t have the training to care for our rare books and archives. The San Diego Zoo will be celebrating its centennial in 2016, and the library definitely wouldn’t be meeting our patrons’ needs without greatly improving access to our archival holdings. By being realistic about what I could and could not accomplish, I realized that I had to hire a self-motivated librarian who could take on this responsibility. Doing so has proven to be invaluable—I know without Amy (the newly hired librarian) and her archival expertise, we would never be able to provide our current level of value-added service.

In regards to expanding our patron base, I have so far relied upon tried and true methods. With only two full-time librarians and a half-time research assistant, we don’t want to overreach and set unattainable goals—better to first go for the “low-hanging fruit” and affect the biggest change with the least effort. So far, this has entailed keeping statistics on our patrons for the first time, revising our library’s website without a complete overhaul, and adopting simple outreach methods such as a monthly e-newsletter. However, the most effective tactic so far has been to position the library as a friendly, welcoming space—comfy chairs, attractive book displays, and a full candy jar has worked wonders to entice people to linger and take advantage of all we have to offer. Decidedly low-tech, yet so far highly effective.

I hope you will check back tomorrow to read about Amy’s experiences at the zoo!

Talitha Matlin is the Associate Director of Library Services for San Diego Zoo Global. Talitha received her MLIS from San Jose State University in 2010 with a focus on instruction in academic libraries. Her other professional activities include adjuncting at MiraCosta College and serving on the board of CARL-SCIL (California Academic and Research Libraries – Southern California Instruction Librarians).

San Diego, California is home of beautiful weather, spectacular beaches- and a group of highly motivated, driven and future-ready information professionals. The SLA-San Diego Chapter is proud to join in the conversation with our SLA peers about what it means to be Future Ready.  Our San Diego membership boasts a wide range of professional experience and expertise, and we hope that you find our contributions to the FutureReady365 blog to be both thought-provoking and useful!

by Kathy Elliott, San Diego Chapter, Biomedical & Life Sciences Division

Anticipation … no, not the 1971 hit song, and not the feeling you get sitting down to a Thanksgiving feast. I am talking about the act of preparing for the future before it arrives. As information specialists, we often find ourselves juggling too many tasks, struggling to keep them all up in the air. Who has the time to look into a crystal ball? But that just-in-time attitude only has us treading water in tough economic times. Anticipating future trends can give our clients the added value they need to succeed and thrive. This is true for businesses, academic institutions, hospitals, museums … every type of organization that uses information.

What can a special librarian do to anticipate future trends? Obviously, research plays a critical role. But we’re information specialists, not necessarily subject specialists. So I have one more word for you: networking. An idea may start out with one or two people, but librarians are connected to a world of colleagues who are in this business because they love to help others. As a former scientist retooling for a career in libraries, I’ve been struck by this supportive culture. And when librarians reach out to non-librarian specialists, synergy happens.

What does this model look like in the real world? I’ll offer one example. My sister, Judy Kammerer, is the managing librarian for the health sciences library of University of California, San Francisco, Fresno Center for Medical Education and Research and the hospital library of Community Regional Medical Center, while I have experience doing genomics research in the lab. We decided to collaborate on a project that anticipates the application of new genomic medicine discoveries to clinical practice.

As a first step, I am writing a paper on this topic for a Medical Librarianship course at San Jose State University. I started by collecting background information from the literature. Then I posted a questionnaire for hospital librarians on several listservs, asking if clinicians (doctors and nurses) were requesting information in this field, and what resources the librarians recommended. The survey feedback was great. It suggested that this hot new field has not yet made significant inroads into clinical practice. Next, Judy and I plan to network with clinicians and genomics researchers. A key step will be to design an algorithm that can identify articles about clinical applications of genomic discoveries. Finally, we will create a website with links to these articles, relevant RSS feeds, and other resources that will enable clinicians to monitor and understand new applications as they arise.

Experts in the field predict that translation of genomics research into clinical uses will accelerate rapidly. We hope that our website will help doctors and nurses learn about new applications without delay. Reducing the time lag between discovery and application may save not only money but also lives.

For the future-ready librarian, just-in-time is not good enough. Anticipation rocks!

Kathy Elliott is a graduate student in the MLIS program at San Jose State University. She received a BA in Zoology from Humboldt State University and an MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. After teaching high school biology, Kathy returned to the laboratory, performing molecular biology research at SIBIA Neurosciences, Merck Research Laboratories, TorreyPines Therapeutics, and in 2009 she played a major role in the start-up of Pathway Genomics. Her career change to librarianship is providing new opportunities to apply her scientific background. Kathy is currently Student Liaison for the San Diego chapter of SLA.

Kathy shares her home in San Diego, California, with one husband, two dogs, and three lizards. In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, singing, hiking, and volunteering for American Brittany Rescue and the San Diego Zoo.

Image: By Courtesy: National Human Genome Research Institute (http://www.genome.gov/17516876) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons”

San Diego, California is home of beautiful weather, spectacular beaches- and a group of highly motivated, driven and future-ready information professionals. The SLA-San Diego Chapter is proud to join in the conversation with our SLA peers about what it means to be Future Ready.  Our San Diego membership boasts a wide range of professional experience and expertise, and we hope that you find our contributions to the FutureReady365 blog to be both thought-provoking and useful!

by Britt Mueller, San Diego Chapter, Business & Finance, Engineering, and Leadership & Management Divisions

Years ago I was told a third hand story that had a huge impact on how I thought about my career and defined success in my work. In essence, it was one of the best pieces of advice that I have been given to make me “future ready.”

The story was about a person in a large company who was working on a project with a lot of visibility. Quite a few very bright and highly competent people were on the project and worked tirelessly on it for several months. They had great communication skills and worked effectively as a team but in the end the project did not fulfill the objectives that were laid out and failed to impress senior executives. When discussing the project with an executive, the lead described the significant teamwork, the long nights, and how hard people had worked. The executive listened to the project leader and simply said, “You are confusing effort with results.”

Although I was hearing this story third or fourth hand, the clarity and simplicity of this statement rang true. The fact that it came from someone who was in a high level position was also critical in that it clearly delineated what was important to leaders. Getting results counts – both personally in terms of what I deliver as an individual and also for the Library as an entity within the larger organization. I can develop personal and professional skills, my team can work hard, we can be busy – but in the end gaining and developing skills or trying hard is meaningless if you cannot produce results that matter.

I think there is a lot that library and information professionals can learn from this statement. I have attended many conferences, communicated with peers, read our literature over more years than I would wish to admit and I am often disheartened by the emphasis with which we work to define ourselves. I am sure many people would agree that they cannot attend a library conference without some mention by attendees of how nice a group of people we are, that we need to position ourselves for the future and develop new skills, or the oft cited lament on how people outside our profession don’t understand us and we have to get better at communicating our value. These are all good and often true observations in and of themselves, but they should never be how we define our success or our ability to be meaningful. These are attributes, tools and approaches that should help us do the final necessary step – get results that matter to our organizations, our leaders, and our clients.

I personally use the idea of results over effort to define what I work on, what strategic initiatives the organization I manage focuses on, and to communicate value to my leaders. It also requires me to be my own worst critic – to look for continued opportunity to produce results that matter. The outcome of focusing on results creates the best use of resources, assures that the work I do is meaningful and important, and positions the Library as a critical and necessary service – not a nice to have. Never confusing effort with results actually creates outcomes (or results) that we can all consider successes including recognition, support, resources, and growth as we position ourselves, our libraries and information centers as critical to the success of any organization.

Currently serving as President of the SLA San Diego Chapter, Britt Mueller is the Sr. Director of Qualcomm’s Library & Information Services department. Serving a global employee population of over 20,000 people, the Qualcomm Library provides just-in-time information, research and analysis to enable employees to increase performance and productivity for competitive advantage.

by Lorri Zipperer, Rio Grande Chapter, Leadership & Management Division

Learning from failure is a key element of the systems thinker.¹

As my colleague and SLA Board member Sara Tompson and I have touted, systems thinking sensibilities illustrate an opportunity for librarians and the organizations they serve². To build onto the element of learning from failure that Edmondson³, Shumaker⁴ and others have stated it is important for an organization to learn, I’d like to suggest a new special librarian: the failure librarian.

Organizations need to have a strategy in place to learn from their mistakes. Whether the mistakes are one at a time – as in health care – or affect a huge customer base (i.e. Netflix) the understanding of how information, evidence and knowledge can be brought to bear to understand what happened is critical. This approach looks at evidence to inform direction, identify risks, strategize new approaches, and gain from employee/participant experiences to enrich the decision making process. Who better to help with that then the special librarian, as:

• We understand networking.
• We understand the value of information and how to find it.
• We understand what evidence will be most applicable where, when and for whom.
• We understand our leadership and what makes them tick.
• We understand how biases can affect decision making which enables us to seek to counteract them with good information and evidence⁵.
• We understand the boundaries and silos in our organizations and how to navigate them successfully to connect knowledge workers to enable innovation and problem solving.
• We understand that both explicit and tacit knowledge are important for decision making and seek to find both types of knowledge and respect the conduit no matter where it may exist in the organizational hierarchy.
• We understand that blame-free exploration into what went wrong is the only way to move improvement forward.
• We understand that mental models can both have negative and positive effects and seek to reveal those when they affect decision making and action amongst our staff, our peers and our management.
• We understand that a commitment to generating evidence-based solutions will enable them to be sustainable, efficient and effective.
• We understand we too can play a part in failure and seek to improve our own processes and behaviors to counteract those factors.

Or at least we should.

Our future has within its sights the potential as a positive force in many industries if we deeply understand these things and are ready to recognize failure as an opportunity to partner, innovate, and excel.

1. . The Fifth Discipline. New York, NY: Random House; 1990.
2. . “Systems thinking: a new avenue for involvement and growth.” Information Outlook. (December 2006): 16-20. (http://www.sla.org/io/2006/12/) Find Articles has posted the article as well http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FWE/is_12_10/ai_n27098382/
3. . Strategies for learning from failure. Harvard Business Review. April 2011;89:48-55. Available at: http://hbr.org/2011/04/strategies-for-learning-from-failure/ar/1
4. . ‘Brilliant Mistakes’: Finding Opportunity in Failures. Knowledge@Wharton (http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2869)
5. . Before you make that big decision… Harvard Business Review. June 2011;89:50-60, 137 Available at: http://hbr.org/2011/06/the-big-idea-before-you-make-that-big-decision/ar/1

Many thanks to my colleagues in the Rio Grande chapter who had a spirited conversation on the Edmondson article that contributed to the thinking that helped to generate this post, and Sara Tompson for editing the draft.

Lorri Zipperer, MA is a cybrarian and the principal at Zipperer Project Management in Albuquerque, NM. Lorri has been in the information field for over two decades, over half of which have been focused on health care. She was a founding staff member of the National Patient Safety Foundation and currently works with clients to provide patient safety information, knowledge sharing, project management and strategic development guidance.  She was recognized with a 2005 Institute for Safe Medication Practices “Cheers” award for her work with librarians, libraries and their involvement in patient safety and her expertise was highlighted in the June 2009 Medical Library Association policy on the role of librarians in patient safety.  Ms. Zipperer contributed chapters on knowledge sharing work for medical librarians and systems thinking as a strategic development approach to core library management publications in early 2011.  She is currently editing two books for Gower Publications, UK on knowledge management (http://www.gowerpublishing.com/isbn/9781409438830) and knowledge evidence information sharing in patient safety (http://www.gowerpublishing.com/isbn/9781409438571).

by Cynthia Berglez, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Legal Division

From California’s earliest days of physical and economic upheaval, we Californians have tended to be a little more comfortable with change than citizens of less volatile states. And there is no word that better describes the world today than change.

When I began thinking about this post the economy seemed to be improving, but today the Dow is down again, and who knows what it will be when this is published. How can we be ready for the next curve? Look forward, far forward, where the path is clearer. The terrain seems flatter when seen from a distance. See where you’d like to be in ten years, then pull back to where you are now and plan for it.

Business schools used to teach business planning for 5, 10 or 15 years. But for the past 10 years or so, organizations have been saying, “we can’t plan, it’s hard enough to just hang on for the ride.” Maybe they have forgotten the value of planning. A good plan will help a business change with the times, and it will work just as well for an individual, even a librarian. If you plan what you can but don’t carve it in stone, you can be ready for change. But try to keep that distant focus.

Why make a plan?

• It forces you to take a hard look at your current skills. This is good news. You can always add new skills, which helps your brain to stay active too.
• A plan will show you how much money and time you will need to get where you want to go.
• A plan gives focus and direction, relieving stress, streamlining your actions and eliminating distractions.
• Planning compels you to do your homework on market forces and the business environment. This will keep your skills current, and make you aware of changes as soon as possible.

Now, take the first step. You’re a librarian, which means that while you might not know everything, you know how to find it. Find a plan to take you into the next 10 years. There are loads of business and marketing plans on the Internet. We have relevant books in the libraries to which we belong. I just now looked for business plans and our friend Google said “about 88,500,000 results.” I’m sure there must be one you can use.

Think of your career as a business–YOUR business. Network and build your professional support group, among and beyond your librarian colleagues, and develop best practices for your future. I know you’re busy; you have important things to do. Who is going to invest in your career? You are!

References

Debaise, Colleen. “Why you need a business plan,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 28, 2009. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125391138155241963.html

Wikipedia “Business Plan” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plan

Cynthia received her MSLIS fairly recently from San Jose State University, after spending the previous 12 years using her MBA in International Transportation. She was looking for something more stable. Flexibility and marketing her skills is something that she has learned by necessity. She enjoys helping others to find a comfortable path in the changing world.  She is currently the President of the San Francisco Bay Region Chapter of SLA, and the West Coast Research Librarian for the law firm Ropes & Gray.

One aspect of the new SLA Strategic Vision asks everyone in our Association to think more broadly about who could value from having SLA as their professional home. The specific language from the strategic vision is:

“The information profession is evolving faster than ever, thanks to the rapid rate of technological change and innovation. In this evolution lies opportunity to grow SLA’s offerings to new and nontraditional sectors of the information profession, and to enhance SLA as a professional home for these groups—e.g. competitive intelligence specialists, IT development specialists, and software and standards trainers.”

I’m sure we all find ourselves working more and more with professionals in allied fields – computer specialists, research analysts, brand managers, etc. Many of us are also probably working in these fields, taking our skills and knowledge and applying them in very different ways than what we had thought we would when we were in school. I personally have been an “Internet Librarian” and a “Web Analytics Manager” as well as an “Information Resources Specialist” and finally in my current position as a “Librarian.” Throughout my career I have worked with a large number of professionals in the information arena that would have benefited greatly from having a professional home like SLA.

The reality is that while many SLA members share a similar career path, there are a lot of people working today with data, information, and knowledge that could benefit from the networking, professional development, and connections they should make within SLA. SLA members can also benefit from the participation of these groups as well.

There are plenty of organizations that cater to one niche or another but SLA is unique in the diversity that exists within our Association already. How can we market what we have to new and growing sectors of the information marketplace? Are there opportunities for collaboration across Chapters and Divisions that could draw even more of these non-traditional information professionals into SLA? Can we give them a professional home where they can grow and help us grow so that we can meet the challenges in front of us today and in the future? I think so.

The SLA Board of Directors – and specifically your Division and Chapter Cabinet leaders – want to hear from you about how SLA can diversify and grow. You can comment on this post, reach out to a Board member, write your own blog post or just initiate a dialogue between the members of the SLA units in which you are active. We have an opportunity to broaden our impact and share our experience and the Association wants you to be part of this effort.

Richard Huffine is SLA’s Division Cabinet Chair for 2012.