by Sara Tompson

SLA needs to be growing and supporting continuously competent professionals. In a field that changes as rapidly as does ours – I know I am not the only one who originally learned to search online using BRS After Dark, a 300 baud acoustic coupler and thermal paper (!) – continuous learning is absolutely critical in order to survive and thrive and be of value to our organizations.

I have long seen competencies as a very useful framework for professional development, have written and spoken on this view, and have used SLA competencies in teaching LIS graduate students. Therefore I am pleased that SLA’s Professional Development Program is ranked fairly high in importance on the new Strategic Vision we all helped create. I would like to see competencies made even more explicit in the plan, though they are strongly implied therein.

The first order of business we’ve set for ourselves for 2012 includes defining and documenting a new strategic approach that integrates professional development opportunities throughout the year and in different modalities, not just annually face-to-face at Continuing Education conference workshops. Great! We are moving towards a continuous learning program.

This new approach to SLA professional development requires feedback from the Professional Development Advisory Council (PDAC). PDAC currently helps SLA staff review CE workshop proposals and has been charged with reviewing and proposing updates to the SLA Competencies document (which also should be a living, continuous document). Again, great! This should help integrate the competencies framework. In addition, SLA President Cindy Romaine has recently appointed a special task force to help fast track the competencies document review. I hope to see a re-energized PDAC partnering in that effort in 2012.

We also plan to reach out to iSchools to examine and propose opportunities for professional development programming. Once again, great! The iSchools (I would include LIS programs in a broad definition thereof) are training the next generation of librarians and information professionals, and it is exciting to have a hand in that effort (as those of us who teach know!). PDAC had a fruitful Skype discussion with some SLA leaders earlier this year about the importance of competencies for iSchools, including the need to promote relevant special libraries competencies into curricula where possible, noting that ALA competencies are more woven into these graduate schools than are SLA’s. I hope to see everyone who is or has taught information professionals contributing to professional development/graduate information school partnership ideas.

Moving forward, we want to pilot and evaluate some partnership and solo programs, and refine them as necessary. We also want to look at partnering with other professional schools, e.g. MBA programs in business schools, for further opportunities. I think we can do this right, so the sum of the whole of the partnerships is greater than our impact individually.

Hoping to chat with many of you in SLA about professional development, via phone, email, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. (See, we’ve all come quite a ways from that 300 baud dial up!)

Sara Tompson is one of SLA’s Directors, 2011-2013.

Howdy from the beautiful Rocky Mountains! The Rocky Mountain chapter of SLA is thrilled to contribute this week’s FutureReady365 posts. We are a small, diverse community of 150+ members spread across a four-state region (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and South Dakota). We have a medley of posts from public school, government, higher education and independent professionals that we hope will prompt conversations, comments and thoughts on being future ready. Happy reading!

SLA types tend to be people people as well as info and tech people. And that’s a source of our future power and alliances.

When I joined SLA a decade or two back, the library director who brought me on board mentioned that SLA conference attendees were known to drink more per capita than people at any other conference. (Note: neither SLA nor information work promotes or leads to excessive alcohol use.) My way of understanding this phenomenon was to frame it against certain traditions in the library field. Who had been the “typical” librarian? A woman. A career woman who went out and made her way in the world of employment and business, even in times when that wasn’t the norm. This woman was independent, gutsy, self-led, and self-taught and she delivered the goods for her clients. She was a pioneer by definition. Naturally she would value getting together with like minds to celebrate achievements (over a glass perhaps) and absorb new ideas for the next challenge.

Her tribe of men and women love the thrill of the hunt for information; the thrill of creating order, meaning, and message; the thrill of delivering the solution. They are in information work because they love it. Their joie de vivre causes those glasses to be raised. We know this is the place to be—where information intersects with the user experience and customer focus and technology to create progress.

And this is where our power and partnerships lie. The people who live in a narrowly tech-defined space need us to humanize and dimensionalize what they do, and to build a bridge from Planet Code and Planet Data to this world, where people scan for information, grab it and run with it, and put information to use.

SLA types speak the language of data technology, the language of info seeking behavior, and the languages of our clients—users of specialized information in specialized work and business environments. We invented metadata to provide access to information in the narrowest and the most cross-disciplinary professional niches imaginable. We have been about access and findability since Day 1. We recognize techies as our allies. They are welcome to join with us and enrich our tribe and our association and both tap into and help expand the future-power of the information professional. May we raise toasts to each other, figuratively or tangibly, in an aligned and mutually beneficial future.

Connie Clem is lead writer, researcher, communication designer, and bottle-washer at Clem Information Strategies (http://cleminfostrategies.com), where she creates change through information for nonprofit and government clients. She is the author of Government Online (http://bit.ly/GovernmentOnline) and active in AIIP as well as a Director in the Rocky Mountain Chapter of SLA (http://rockymountain.sla.org). Follow her on Twitter @ConnieInfo.

by Christine Hamilton-Pennell, Rocky Mountain Chapter, Competitive Intelligence and Taxonomy Divisions

Associating with entrepreneurs is energizing! I have spent much of the last eight years working with entrepreneurs of all stripes. My definition of an entrepreneur is “someone who perceives an opportunity and creates and grows an organization to pursue it”—whether a for-profit business or a social enterprise. Some of these folks have been wildly successful, while others have struggled and some have experienced dramatic failures.

Based upon the encounters I’ve had with successful entrepreneurs, I have identified several characteristics and habits of mind they exhibit that I believe we as information professionals can incorporate into our own thinking:

1. They are optimistic—sometimes to a fault. They are confident that they can change the world and create a successful venture.
2. They are persistent. If one avenue, approach or method doesn’t work, or if they run into roadblocks, they look for alternatives. They don’t take “no” for an answer.
3. They constantly look for ways to innovate in the products and services they offer, their distribution channels, and their avenues for marketing. They look for niches and gaps in the market—customer needs that no one else is filling.
4. They take calculated risks, weighing the insights derived from both their intuition and analytical reasoning before making business decisions. This is what Roger Martin calls “abductive reasoning” in his book, Design of Business (Harvard University Press, 2009).
5. They recognize the importance of building a good leadership team, one that possesses the complementary suite of skills required to successfully run their business or enterprise.
6. They recognize that they cannot succeed alone. They are not threatened by collaboration, and actively seek out strategic partnerships. They see the value of teaming up with “competitors” and others in their industry space—creating a “team of rivals”—in order to construct a stronger value proposition in the marketplace and create a win-win scenario for all involved.
7. They spend time both working in the business (doing the essential work of the enterprise) and working on the business—exploring new opportunities and developing the processes and strategies required for future growth.
8. If their initiatives fail—even miserably—they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and say, “Well, I learned that next time I will try this instead…”

Thinking like an entrepreneur is about having “internal locus of control,” a psychological construct that refers to the practice of looking at what you have control over, and how to change it, rather than focusing on external factors and playing the victim.

An example in the library world of an entrepreneurial thinker is Sara Jones, director of the Carson City (Nevada) Library. She and her deputy director, Tammy Westergard, have created partnerships with business and economic development entities across the city and have made significant contributions to the city’s economic revitalization. Through their initiatives, the city created a Business Research Innovation Center that houses city business offices, business service providers, the local arts agency, and a business research center run by the library. I have written about her efforts on my blog, http://bit.ly/kWaBtw, and also included the case study in my e-book, Creating an Entrepreneur-Friendly Public Library, http://bit.ly/jIFQxp.

Special librarians and independent information professionals already understand that they need to demonstrate their value to their parent organization and clients. And there is no question that we are experiencing challenging times in our profession. But an additional shot of entrepreneurial thinking can help us develop a level of confidence and creativity that allows us to see these challenges as opportunities. We can identify niches that no one else is filling. We can team up with unlikely partners to expand our reach and impact. We can innovate by offering new products and services. Like a successful entrepreneur, we can learn to say, “What if…?” and “Why not…?” and know that we really have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Christine Hamilton-Pennell, Growing Local Economies, Inc., is a librarian and information professional who currently spends her time consulting and training in communities and libraries across the country to support local economic and entrepreneurship development efforts. She can be reached at christine@growinglocaleconomies.com.

By Karen Huffman, Washington D.C. Chapter, Knowledge Management Division

Future Ready Toolkit

This post is from SLA’s new Future Ready Toolkit. The Toolkit was constructed by SLA members who have drawn upon substantial professional experience and alignment research to help you hone your skills in a way that is relevant and global. The toolkit is collaboration, alignment, adaptation, and community put into action.

Overview

Organizational growth is closely correlated to individuals who are willing to network and collaborate outside their normal sphere of influence. People able to span the organizational hierarchy and build internal and external networks cannot help but grow and adapt. Growing adaptive organizations, transformational leaders realize the importance of blurring organizational lines, supporting collaborative communities and breaking down silos to encourage transparency. (Image on right: Wordle.net word cloud based on a Wikipedia article on “Stakeholder Analysis.”)

Definitions

Engagement

An act where two or more parties agree to a predetermined commitment.
Related terms: User adoption; collaboration; benefits.

Networks

Interrelated connections that can be physical, virtual, or both. Networks are relational-based. See also articles shared on the Future Ready 365 blog tagged “network.”
Related terms: Relationships; connections.

Partnerships

Two or more parties who have agreed to work towards a common vision, mission, purpose, and/or goals.
Related terms: Purpose-driven relationship; actionable, accountable relationship.

Project Management

A purposeful process that includes planning, organizing, securing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. The success of a project often relies on an analysis and involvement of stakeholders.
Related terms: Structured goal-oriented approach; task breakdown and analysis.

Stakeholders

Organizations and/or individuals who are positively or negatively impacted by decisions and/or actions. Anyone with a vested interested in a project, event, and/or outcome. Related terms: Users; clients; key, primary, and secondary stakeholders; stakeholder analysis.

Key Elements and Ideas

Crossing Boundaries for Growth and Collaboration

One of my ongoing goals is to foster collaboration and learning opportunities as well as continually grow personal and professional competencies. Last fall at KMWorld 2010, the speakers who spoke about “Optimizing Organizations through Collaboration” discussed the idea of “boundary crossing” which relates to some key elements and ideas around this topic on building a network to engage and partner with stakeholders:

• Analyze social and organizational networks to understand knowledge gaps.
• Ensure communities of practice are aligned to the business goals and encourage sustainability through people to people connections and participation.
• Capitalize on the power of social networks to build effective and adaptive learning organizations.
• Grow expertise and competencies requires knowing your current proficiencies, setting goals, and crossing many boundaries to grow new ideas and expand your knowledge.

The mind map (below) developed by Karen Huffman is based on David Snowden’s ASHEN framework (2000) and Patrick Lambe’s KM competencies for knowledge managers (2008).

SLA Members Shared Ideas

• Being there – being present: It’s an ongoing process of growing and cultivating relationships, building networks, gaining trust. ~Mary Talley
• Forming a community/building a network is a process that harnesses on-going process development and refinement as well as project management skills. ~Aimee Babcock-Ellis
• The goal and criteria for success when developing a network is to make it equally useful to both individuals and corporate management. ~Peggy Watkins
• Informed opinions about the possibilities and measured objectives that are jointly agreed upon. ~David Stern
• Stakeholder analysis – figuring out what they want – as well as marketing and negotiation skills. ~Vicky Platt
• Crossing Boundaries for Growth and Collaboration. ~Karen Huffman

To read more about their ideas, click here.

Models and Templates

Stakeholders

• MindTools offers some great “getting started” models/templates on Stakeholder Analysis and Stakeholder Management. It includes information on stakeholder analysis, winning support for projects and building communication from stakeholders. Great templates to employ with any project.

Project Management

• GovLoop’s Project Management Guide – the templates that capture the essential aspects of project management.
• Project Management Institute (PMI) website.

Resources

Books

Levin, Ginger (2008). Improve Your Interpersonal Skills to Achieve Greater Management Success! (Url: http://www.facebook.com/notes/management-concepts/are-you-connecting-with-your-stakeholders/422512295431.)

Sampson, Michael (2010). User Adoption Strategies: Shifting Second Wave People to New Collaboration Technology. (URL: http://www.michaelsampson.net/useradoption.html target=”_blank”.)

Blog

Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design

• Setting Up Business Stakeholder Interviews, Part 1 by Michael Beavers on 2007/03/26. (URL: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/setting-up-business.)
• Setting Up Business Stakeholder Interviews Part 2 by Michael Beavers on 2007/04/01. (URL: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/setting-up-business22.)

Karen works for National Geographic Society as part of the Software as a Service (SaaS) team in the Information Systems & Technology division. She supports the enterprise’s business needs with hosted solutions such as Google Apps for Business as well as develops customized solutions for targeted customer groups within the organization. She has been a member of SLA since 1999, serving in various roles including chair of the KM division (2009-2010) and developing resources for SLA-sponsored initiatives like 23 Things.

by Allan Foster, Europe Chapter and Business & Finance Division

For more years than I care to remember I have been charting developments in business information use through an annual survey of information managers. This is the Business Information Survey published each March in Sage’s quarterly journal Business Information Review. The focus of the Survey has changed over time, from a concentration on sources of information to key issues in information management.

The methodology has also changed, from an open, widely distributed questionnaire to a series of in-depth interviews with a small number of senior corporate information managers. These are mainly based in the UK but many work for global businesses and have responsibilities for international services. If I was being pretentious(!) I would describe it now as almost ‘ethnographic’, a series of ongoing conversations with trusted colleagues, trying to chart year on year changes in their services, roles within their organisations and strategic priorities. It has only been possible to do this and to get brutal honesty from respondents by honouring a rule of strict confidence and aggregating results so as to avoid disclosing any identities. Most but not all respondents are involved in the Survey each year. In it’s 21^st year, the 2011 Survey¹ included seventeen of the interviewees from the previous year whilst another four were new participants.

Although the respondents represent a range of corporate information, library & research services, across industrial sectors and of varying sizes, I claim no statistical representativeness whatsoever for the Survey. But, given the seniority and frankness of the respondents, the findings provide a rich narrative of current practice and future intentions. It’s the latter which I’m concentrating on here as a contribution to the ‘Future Ready’ discussion.

Whilst massive turbulence in the business and financial environment is the new norm and technologies change so fast, the Survey results suggest that the crucial ‘future ready’ attitudes and skills in the corporate information scene are and will be in the next five years pretty much the same as those exhibited in successful information services now. This may be a disappointment to the ‘everything is changing’ lobby who are looking for new magic bullets and a cookbook formula to succeed in the corporate information/knowledge management world.

The key approaches and skills that define successful information management, now and in the next few years, amongst the 2011 Survey group of senior professionals, are:

1. Access to, and a good relationship with, senior executives, preferably at board level.
2. ‘Business strategy & culture fit’ – the ability to develop the information service in harmony with the company’s strategic objectives and organisational culture.
3. Developing a shrewd political instinct, having sensitive antennae amongst users and senior managers and being adaptive in consequence.
4. Financial nous – contributing to the increased profitability of the company, streamlining processes and services, reducing costs.
5. The ability to work globally with all that this implies – building alliances, harmonising & integrating services – whilst understanding different cultural and business practices which shape the environment.
6. Develop hard nosed negotiation skills with content vendors. And getting harder.
7. Responding to the growing emphasis on compliance work.
8. Managing capacity & workload, with flexibility and responsiveness.
9. Ensuring that your information/research/knowledge staff are embedded within business project and work teams.
10. Continuing to look dispassionately at alternative organisational and delivery models including outsourcing and off-shoring.
11. Embracing and handling internal ‘know-how’ as well as external data.
12. Enhancing knowledge management skills (note small rather than capitalised ‘KM’) – knowledge sharing, capturing tacit knowledge, using stories, applying appropriate technologies.
13. Use social media when appropriate. A number of respondents are somewhat sceptical of the business case for such deployment in terms of their information and research services.
14. More attention should be given to measuring the impact of the information services (including outsourcing/off-shoring), through ROI and other metrics.
15. New IT systems should be implemented in line with technological opportunities and trends but most of all to improve access to content and cost-effectiveness of services.
16. IS/KM staffing – the most important internal resource of all. Improve communications, provide development opportunities, undertake succession planning.
17. There’s no substitute for persistence and hard work.

1. These and other issues are developed much more fully in “Let’s save the company money” – the new orthodoxy. The Business Information Survey 2011. Business Information Review 28 (1), March 2011.

—————–—————–

Allan Foster (allan.foster@gmail.com) is an information industry consultant and writer, previously Director of Information Services at Keele University and a senior information manager at Manchester Business School, Lancashire Polytechnic, Sheffield Polytechnic and the British Institute of Management. He presented these findings at an SLA Europe session, Is your information service ‘Future Ready’?, in Manchester on 22^nd March 2011.

Karen Sawatzky, Librarian, Tapper Cuddy LLP, Winnipeg, MB

Reposted with permission from Slaw.

Everyone’s talking about the future. From LegalTech New York, where the closing keynote was the practice of law in 2020, to IT’s role in the library of the future, and SLA’s FutureReady365 blog. It’s interesting to be reading about predictions on where our profession may be going. One document I came across a while ago was the Association of Research Libraries’ 2030 Scenarios : A User Guide for Research Libraries. I started reading it (it’s 92 pages!) to see if it had any application for a law firm library.

Can you imagine the world in 2030? I can’t, but the ARL Scenarios do. It’s not quite the future that I would like to see, but then, is the present what anyone predicted 20 years ago? The scenarios envision a world where researchers are free agents, and universities scramble for funding. (Hmm…how is that different from today, at least the second part?) There are four scenarios presented: Research Entrepreneurs, Reuse and Recycle, Disciplines in Charge, and Global Followers. Each one outlines a particular day in the life of a star researcher, Hannah Chen. The world is described slightly differently in each scenario, but varies on the theme that government funding of universities will dry up, mainly due to declining tax revenues, universities will seek more partnerships with businesses, and both students and faculty will be competing for meaningful positions.

So what are the strategic implications of these scenarios? Scenario 1: Research Entrepreneurs, resonated the most with me. Note the following strategic question that arose:

How do we begin now to develop the library professional of the future – a highly capable and credible service provider who can work directly with researchers with data preparation and curation capabilities? What skills are we currently developing in our library professionals that may not be valued in the future? (p. 39)

Replace “researcher” with “lawyer”, and we’re already at this scenario, at least regarding data preparation and curation capabilities (think compiling case law on a point of law, and determining which resources have the authority to be used to develop an argument). As to the skills we’re currently developing that may not be valued in the future – how about some of the audiovisual equipment training! All kidding aside, most of the skills I have are transferable across many occupations, and even something as library-specific as cataloguing can be useful in cross-training to write computer languages.

So how does this relate to the law firm library of the future? I’ve been thinking a lot about the physical space necessary to define the library of the near future, say in the next five years or so. My current space is fairly traditional – lots of shelving for (mostly) reporting series that are no longer collected, and a small work area. I haven’t quite figured out what is the best use of the space if I had the opportunity to renovate. Should there be more social areas, equipped with comfortable chairs and tables, to encourage use of the library as a place to meet and discuss? Or should it be a quiet area, where lawyers can review the resources they need without being disturbed? My personal preference is to see the space become more conducive to conversation – kind of like the lawyers’ lounge without the bar.

There have been a number of discussions of law library space recently. I especially enjoyed Louis Mirando’s posts, Rebuilding a Law School Library. Any ideas on what the future holds for law libraries? Will private firms outsource part or all of them? Or will it be a competitive advantage to house your own knowledge management team? What skills will we need? What does 2030 look like to you?

Karen Sawatzky is a law librarian at a business law firm in Winnipeg, MB. She is passionate about marketing and personal brand building.

by Gretchen Leslie, Oregon Chapter, Science-Technology Division

I am writing this post because I believe we, as an association, have not really done a good job of researching our industry—the information industry—and using that research to better position our members  and our association in the future.  We talk about being “Future Ready,” but I have not seen us applying our core research competencies to scoping where the growth is and what the trending is in the information industry, what skills we need to find work in the coming information industry scenario, who our potential partners can be, and where the hidden snakes lay on our path to the future.  The research, data, and analysis are out there, generated by companies such as Outsell Inc., Simba, IDC, and Gartner.  Are we using it?  If not, why not?

So I guess this post is a call to action for the association leadership to begin a program to buy and use the published research about the information industry. Perhaps we could even partner with other associations, and cooperatively build a sustainable way to get the needed data and analysis on a continual basis.  That way, we could always benchmark on where we are as informational professionals, vs. where the information industry is headed.

What do the rest of you think of this “info pros – research thyself!” approach to mapping out what Future Ready means?  I’d like to hear from my colleagues in SLA about the idea of using market research on ourselves; making market research of the information industry part of our websites and continuing education, applying the ideas of where the information industry is moving to how and what we teach in information science graduate programs, and ultimately, building a better understanding of the global information industry and where we fit in the future as information professionals.

Gretchen Leslie has a 35+ year career in special libraries, and has always wondered why we cannot do a better job of analyzing our own industry.

by Victoria Harriston, Washington DC Chapter

Innovation, always on my mind, sitting in traffic and yes even in my sleep. Why? Because I know that no matter what our Research Center is doing there’s always room for improvement, to be better than we are. Nothing earth-shattering here, just a few thoughts and musings on innovations that have given our Library/Research Center greater visibility from the top down, fostered increased demand for our expertise and services and kicked the value of our contributions to the organization up more than a couple of notches.

One of the best ways to keep your finger on the pulse of the organization and really get to know your stakeholders is to start a Liaison Program. No huge start-up effort and the rewards are a win-win for everyone. Know what’s going on within your organization, recognize and seize business opportunities.

Every librarian is a business entrepreneur. You’d be amazed how forming partnerships opens innovation doors. Partnership with our Staff Development Programs office gave us the financial support for our successful training program.

Advocate for your stakeholders. If your organization publishes reports organize public Forum events and invite internal staff contributors to speak. Spend time learning about programs or events within your organization to get the library involved. We regularly participate in our Graduate Fellows program. Showcase library value, publish an Impact Report (saved project staff 20 research hours, proposal research contributed to new project funding, citation analysis validated key report recommendations).

Gather those publisher backfile collections and create an Intellectual Heritage Vault. Innovation includes not reinventing the wheel (if you don’t have to!). Use publisher online tutorials for databases, use your Delicious guides as classroom instructor tools.

Victoria Harriston is Manager, at the George E. Brown, Jr. Research Center, National Academy of Sciences. Her 35 year career includes several management positions in special, corporate and academic libraries and serving for 2-years as Public Relations, News Bureau Manager for a telecommunications company.

by Ethel M Salonen, Boston Chapter and SLA Past-President

What do I mean by GET INVOLVED? Involved in what? Get involved with your customer’s work program…get involved in their meetings…get involved by attending the meetings, programs, or conferences they attend…basically let them see your commitment to learning as much about their discipline as you can in order to provide the relevant products and services that will meet their needs.

How do I get involved?

• Work programs – Many information professionals are now embedded within their customer organizations. The MITRE Corporation has a group of 16 information professionals who are either physically located with their customers or are assigned to specific centers. They also have their work funded by these centers. Each of these individuals knows the issues and the problems that need solving and by using their research and analysis skills, are able to produce targeted products and services. They are considered as “business partners” or “subject matter experts.” What a terrific recognition of their efforts.
• Meetings – Attend customer meetings, programs or conferences, either in-person or via another communication medium. Customers will notice your attendance and as you contribute to the conversation, they will begin to see you as a business partner and as a valued member of the team.

How do I prove the ROI for this involvement?

Secure feedback from your customers and specifically request stories that demonstrate the value of your involvement. These stories and your reputation for getting involved with your customers work program will be enough to show that you are becoming Future Ready.

Ethel Salonen is the Department Head of Information Services at The MITRE Corporation.

by Jill Hurst-Wahl, SLA Board of Directors

As a faculty member, I interact daily with LIS students.  These students are arriving in their programs feeling ill-prepared for their futures, yet also being future ready in terms of having creativity, energy, enthusiasm and the ability to collaborate and share information in ways foreign to many practitioners.  They have been users of both public and academic libraries, but few have any knowledge of where they might be employed outside the traditional domains.  While LIS programs can introduce students to corporate and embedded librarianship, etc., what makes non-traditional librarianship real for them is interacting with practitioners through panel discussions, one-on-one conversations, internships, and even part-time job opportunities.  In other words, those of us out in the field need to take time to introduce the students to our world where the jobs of the future are being incubated.

Practitioners, consider these ideas for reaching out to LIS students:

• Invite the LIS students in your region to tour your library.  Locate them through the nearest LIS program as well as through announcements on local library discussion lists.  (Place announcements in multiple places to improve your chances of connecting with distance students.)  Show them where you work and the resources you use.  Have 1-2 of your clients talk to them about the benefits of your work.
• Contact an LIS program (e.g., the one closest to you or your alma mater) and offer to guest lecture about your work either in person or via a video conference.
• Contact LIS programs about possible internships or student/group projects.
• Offer to review student resumes and cover letters.  While students do have campus resources for this, they appreciate a practitioner’s perspective.

Students, take these steps to connect with practitioners:

• Use the SLA directory to locate a practitioner in an area that interests you, and then schedule a time to talk with that person either in person or by phone.  Ask the person about his or her background, work, and advice.
• Attend SLA chapter events, even if it means going out of your way to do so.  Then employ some networking strategies to meet and interact with others at the event.  Remember that the people who are there can help you become the professional that you want to be.
• Volunteer to help with events that librarians and knowledge/information professionals will be attending.  Every event could use help and some will allow volunteers to attend the event for free.
• When a practitioner guest lectures in one of your classes, get the person’s contact information and then follow-up with the person to ask more pointed questions as well as seek advice.  If the person is bombarded with follow-up requests (and wouldn’t that be awesome!), offer to coordinate a group meeting.

Are there other ways of getting involved? Yes.  Follow your instinct and imagination.  Just keep in mind that it is up to us — practitioners and students alike — to ensure that when the future arrives that we have information professionals ready for it!

Jill Hurst-Wahl is an Assistant Professor of Practice in Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies.  She is a member of the SLA Board of Directors and several SLA units.  She co-authored The Information and Knowledge Professional’s Career Handbook: Define and Create Your Success with Ulla de Stricker.