by Nettie Seaberry, New York Chapter, Leadership & Management, Solo Librarians Divisions

Several years ago, I had an idea that would have put my organization at the forefront of providing a service that our constituents would have wholeheartedly embraced. The research was done, interested parties queried, price structures developed and legal counsel consulted, but no matter how many times I sent emails or called staff meetings to discuss the concept, I couldn’t seem to move the needle. It was apparent that the timing just wasn’t right. Retirement and leadership changes were cause for this revenue generating idea to be placed on the back burner. It slowly simmered but I never let the flame die.

Fast forward, new leadership, new ideas for moving the organization into the future were beginning to unfold. The organization’s past has been recognized as the cornerstone in the industry, but new leadership wants to chart a new direction. The time was right to reposition the idea. I used this shift to reintroduce the project and it was enthusiastically embraced. The green light has been given and it will be launched in 2011. As we work through a strategic plan for the organization under the management, I have several ideas on tap that I envision will bring more value to the information center and benefit the organization.

If you have the good fortune of staying the course within your organization you’ll have the opportunity to show your value time and time again, but you have to put yourself out there. You can’t sit in a corner, you can’t hide your talents and creativity, you have to make your moves when the time is right, stay focused and position yourself and your services to show that you’re ready, willing and able to be future ready.

Nettie Seaberry is the Director of the Minority Business Information Center at the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) in New York City. As a solo librarian she is responsible for development, implementation and administration of the Information Center, which includes establishing policies, collection development and management, research, staff supervision, information technology management, Webmaster and Volunteer Coordinator for NMSDC’s annual conferences. She currently serves as a Director on the Board of SLA.

by Libby Trudell, San Francisco Bay & Silicon Valley Chapters, IT & LM Divisions

At ProQuest and Dialog, we’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to help our customers become future ready. For the last 2 years, we’ve been working to develop a new platform to enable customers meet their strategic goals.  The intuitive, powerful search capabilities were designed through thousands of user contacts to enhance the skills sets  of users ranging from students to professionals.  It has a whole suite of tools to help info pros and end users share their work collaboratively.  It’s what customers have told us they are looking for to meet information needs into  the future.

But another aspect part of future readiness is the ability to work through change.  Moving from a comfortable and known service to something new is a big adjustment for both librarians and users.   Migrating to the new platform will require that all customers  adapt to change, whether they currently use Dialog, DataStar, CSA Illumina, ProQuest Dissertations, or a ProQuest full text content collection.   We invite SLA colleagues to get a feel for what’s  on the horizon for the new ProQuest Dialog™ service and the new ProQuest platform.   We’re getting ready to embark on an exciting journey.

– Libby Trudell, on behalf of the whole ProQuest and Dialog platform development team. Read more and get reacquainted with us at http://www.dialog.com/about/.

by Donna Slaton, Kentucky & Tennessee Valley Chapters, Solo Librarians Division

Selection is the librarian’s most valuable tool for the future. Selection is not censorship. Librarians of the future should select for value and purpose with clearly defined goals in mind. When the whole world can “Google” anything in print pretty much, what will set libraries apart is the professional arrangement of valuable and useful materials, not the inclusion of vulgar, pornagraphic or trendy material just to say they are not censoring anything. It is time to “control” your stuff and choose wisely, not catalog anything and everything but choose selectively so that libraries are a respected resource not a less than “Google” sized collection of anything and everything.

Selection policies need to be reviewed often in this changing world not to reflect the largest possibilities for gathering in but the most specific scope for the library and its population to be served. Public and academic libraries more than special libraries have continuously grown beyond reason because they have in the last two decades tried to collect everything. But even special libraries that have a more narrow focus have been growing with the attitude that bigger is better to the point where storage and staff expense is not in line with value given to anyone except other librarians.

Weeding is also a necessary tool of selection. Once you have selected it, you have to recognize if it is not in use, or has never been used, you should move it out to provide space for necessary materials. Too many librarians still horde old stuff because they cannot bear to throw away a book. There is simply too much stuff in print for anyone to ever read and too many copies of most of it.

With the advent of OCLC network and Inter Library Loan accessibility, budgets for that continuously grew as well. When I graduated college in the mid 70s, ILL was for serious scholarly research – not for the public, private or special libraries to loan each other at growing mail expenses( which is more than the cost of a paperback), either the second oldest James Patterson novel, or an obscure author that is only held by three libraries, because his second cousin in another state just decided he wanted to read it.

We have promoted libraries as the respository of everything without focusing on needs instead of wants. Libraries cannot out google Google. We do not accept paid advertising. The sooner we realize that and specialize in what we do best as the original search engine the more ready for the future we will be with valuable materials and useful information, not just a room full of stuff.

With sharply focused collections, bibliographies of materials, and links specifically addressing our unique clientele’s needs, special librarians have an opportunity to lead the way in guiding users to the needed materials without gathering all of it ourselves. Future ready is smaller and smarter.

Donna F. Slaton is Librarian II for the Green River Correctional Complex – a medium security prison in Kentucky’s Dept of Corrections. She served 10 years as Associate Director of the Hopkins County-Madisonville Public Library and switched from public to special libraries in 2008, joining SLA in 2009. She writes a weekly column for the Madisonville Messenger newspaper and blogs under LibraryUp and LibraryLadyWrites and is Past President of the Kentucky Storytelling Association. Her web site is www.misspockets3.com.

by Catherine Lavallée-Welch, Florida & Caribbean Chapter, Academic, IT and Sci-Tech Divisions

Could you describe the design of an academic library constructed in 2016? It’s easy to imagine following current trends: emphasis on the learning process and the creation of a learning community, more collaborative work, the increasing amount of electronic resources, the use of technology, increased interdisciplinarity, accountability and sustainability.

What about designing the building for 2031? Or 2061? Today’s librarian in charge of designing a new building must cope with a library evolving at a rate faster than any time since Gutenberg.

Faced with such an opportunity, I recently attended a conference on library space planning and revitalization. My main takeaway was to put the emphasis on the infrastructure, and not on fixtures or furniture. Key components are flexible, multi-use space, lots of natural light, extensive electrical wiring and the presence of quiet study zones. The types of services offered and the roles and functions of librarians and staff are evolving.

The new library is a place that is used simultaneously physically and virtually; a place that permits users to participate and collaborate in a learning, scholarly community.

Should we mention the “p” word? Yes, there will be “print” collections. Some new libraries opt for a digital-only collection through extensive storage and digitizing. Other lean toward the digital-heavy approach – see Helen Josephine’s excellent post on this blog on the new Engineering Library at Stanford University. I believe that libraries will utilize select print monographs until publishers use business models for e-books that meet all libraries’ and users’ needs. Don’t hide your print books; use the stacks as architectural elements to create zones. Libraries still have a huge symbolic value and book stacks are the clearest representation of such.

Conference attendees had the opportunity to visit the recently renovated Thompson Library at the Ohio State University. With large glass walls, the book tower is a prime visual focus. However, the building stays user-centered with a variety of seating areas for individual, communal and collaborative work.

I spoke to students about their library habits. A finance junior admitted to not checking out books and rarely using the electronic resources.  Still, he chooses the library to study over myriad options spread over the campus. He found when students go to the library, it’s to hunker down, get to work and study seriously. It’s the building – and the atmosphere within – that attracts him.

User studies offer one of the best ways to develop the library design. Users are usually thrilled to be a part of the process and the studies provide insights into unarticulated needs. Don’t limit recruitment to library staff, student workers or your regular users. Most important are the people who are not currently using your library.

What is keeping them away? What tools, spaces or services are you missing? What will convince them to utilize the facility? Don’t neglect to poll the school’s administration. What are the organizational strategic goals?

Gather input beyond surveys and focus groups. You can use design charrettes; usage observation; user diaries; photo surveys; usage mapping; interviews outside the library; late-night residence hall visits; reply cards left around the facility, etc.

Campus space is at a premium and financial resources are scarce. This situation may continue for a long time. Rest assured though that success in the short and long term will go to the flexible academic library closely aligned with user and organization culture and goals.

Catherine Lavallée-Welch is the Director of the University of South Florida Polytechnic Library. One of her current projects is planning and design of a library and learning commons  for her institution’s new campus. Catherine is a board member of the Florida and Caribbean Chapter and of the Academic Division. She’s a candidate for Division Cabinet Chair-Elect for the 2012 SLA Board of Directors.

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 Steven A. Lastres, New York Chapter, Knowledge Management Division

Since the earliest days of libraries, librarians have served as knowledge managers. Whether they were maintaining the scrolls at the Library of Alexandria, creating the catalog for the House of Wisdom (a Ninth Century Islamic library), or assembling annotated links for the law firm intranet, law librarians have always been in the forefront of organizing information and adding value to it. Librarians have long excelled at getting information into the hands of the people who need it. The precise definition of knowledge management (KM) is an elusive one, but one pillar of KM practice holds that knowledge management “is the process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets.”¹

Steven Lastres

Becoming Business Managers

What has changed is that the librarian needs to wear a new hat–that of a business manager. The array of tools available to today’s librarian has driven that change. No longer restricted to offering only upon-request services, librarians can instead embrace a broader view of their professional role. They actively manage their organization’s information assets rather than passively respond to requests.

KM, as evolved from traditional librarianship, today means identifying business opportunities within our organization to help our users practice more efficiently and effectively. Librarians need to understand how our users work, not just anticipate what their information needs will be.

As librarians expand their professional roles, their efforts at KM must align with their organization’s business objectives. Librarians need to become business managers. If we take the business view, librarians are selling a product (knowledge and information) to a market (our users) that needs to be serviced effectively (the right product), efficiently (at the right time), and cost-effectively (at the right price). Figuring out how to improve upon that business model is what knowledge management is all about. When it comes to knowledge management, the emphasis should be on management.

Why do librarians make good knowledge managers? The answer may be that librarians tend to be more eager to adopt new ways of sharing information than our users. Librarians look at new technologies and services with a critical eye to understand how to meet current and emerging information needs. KM is not technology for technology’s sake. Instead, librarians focus on content and its seamless delivery. In many ways, they can decipher what our users need before our users even ask. (After all, that’s what reference interviews are for!) They know the resources, they know how the resources are delivered, and they know how to find the information that our users ask for.

In addition to their skills, when it comes to knowing the content available, most librarians fit well into the KM mold because of their technical sophistication. Today’s librarians are perfectly at home in the online world. And unlike the past, when any project that lived on a server was automatically the ward of the IT department, KM projects are now managed by librarians. Library staff members drive the selection of tools to deliver content, the adoption of interactive services such as wikis and blogs, and the promotion of KM applications such as work product retrieval. This is a major change in librarianship, in which librarians are innovators and technologists, as well as content managers. Most librarians bring considerable technical savvy to their professional work. Librarians, in short, should select the information resources that best fit the practices they support, but they also should be involved in selecting the best delivery platforms. That includes managing the graphic display of information on portal or intranet pages and creating a Web-based presentation that is easy to use and search.

As librarians adapt to a changing world, it’s a good idea to understand some of the changes they face, including these:

• Users expect to receive information faster than ever.
• Users expect to have no impediments to get the information they need.
• Users depend on knowledge managers to keep up with KM innovations and best practices.

As knowledge management becomes more ingrained in corporations and law firms, KM managers need to become experts in three specialized fields: librarianship, legal technology, and business management. Librarians need to understand the technical possibilities–not just the nuts and bolts of the software but also the realistic research needs of the lawyers.

Change is propelling librarians forward in a world where they must adapt to new ways of thinking about the information over which they are stewards. This changing world means new opportunities for librarians, as librarians redefine themselves as KM managers who create value for the firm by effectively managing the information for which they are professionally responsible.

¹ Megan Santosus & Jon Surmacz, “The ABCs of Knowledge Management”, CIO Magazine, 2001.

Steven A. Lastres is Director of Library and Knowledge Management at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. His e-mail address is salastres@debevoise.com.

by Cindy Romaine, SLA President

For my first official business trip as the new president of SLA, even before the mid-January board meetings and SLA Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., I flew to Las Vegas and walked the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show. For two days I explored the Show with Bay Area senior member Cindy Hill. We were immersed in new handheld technology, new reading tablets, and new cell phones. A tremendous amount of energy is going into the simple task of getting more, and better, information into the hands of consumers at warp speed.

Trends
There were nearly 2700 exhibitors and I was blown away by the sheer volume of new tech toys and applications on display from the hundreds of companies vying to be The Next Big Thing. But frankly, the energy and enthusiasm of the show were even more fascinating to me; there was no shortage of optimism about the future on that floor. Here are few distilled thoughts, stats, and trends from CES:

Stats:

• 80 new tablet devices were announced, including the new Motorola Xoom
• 20,00 new consumer electronic products were released
• 140,000 people attended the show

3D: 3D graphics are being showcased in gaming, sports, and art. The entertainment industry is leading in this space again, but expect to see high-end graphics soon in medical, educational, and other technical applications.

Convergence: Data, because it exists in the cloud, is more and more platform agnostic. Form factors—that is, your data device, whether it is a cell phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, car console, or smart TV—are converging in their functionality.

Social: Consumers are saying ‘I want to share my life as it happens’ and products, telecommunication capacity and  apps are making that possible. Social networking was integrated into games, such as X-Box Kinect, smart TVs and apps. Copia.com is an interesting app for book clubs.

Capacity: Capacity is increasing as cell networks transition from 3G to 4G, and there is an increase in computer processing speed as well. Expanding capacity enables complex problem solving, immersive entertainment, and new experiences.

Design: Data devices, or form factors, were very elegant and restrained. It seemed that there was an effort not to overwhelm the consumer with technical options, but to simplify and curate.

Implications

The CES is the leading tradeshow for an $186B industry that is driving economic growth and is an enabler for the new knowledge economy. Consumer electronics are an underpinning of the information industry, regardless of which corner of it you occupy. An interesting factoid is that now 80% of electronics are purchased by consumers, not businesses. It was not long ago that businesses were driving the purchases of electronic goods.

With all these new products and optimistic marketing, our clients—that is people using and consuming information resources—will be even more demanding of content delivered on the form factor that is just right for them. They’ll want information that is curated, edited, and analyzed to fit their needs. And information  that is customized to their locale and time zone.

The consumer electronics industry is moving very, very fast—and will eat our lunch if we are not moving at least at its pace of change. To keep up, we need to adopt a strategy of being flexible, adaptable, and resilient. In short, we need to be Future Ready!

Enchantment

As enchanting as it was to handle all those gadgets, one of the highlight of my visit to CES was listening to, and later engaging in discussion with, Guy Kawasaki. Author of The Macintosh Way and Selling the Dream, Kawasaki is the former Apple “wunderkind” who encourages his readers to rise above the usual marketing clutter to find emotional levels of attachment to products. He encourages marketers to morph into “evangelists” who create movements, not just spreadsheets. He epitomizes one of the ideas behind my push to make members more Future Ready – he wants us all to Think Big.  

In his book, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Kawasaki tossed SLA members a great compliment when he told his readers to “suck up to a research librarian.” I liked the way he put us on a pedestal, because it reminded me that ours is an honorable profession, and we add value. Someone obviously impressed Guy Kawasaki at one time.

After his talk, he and I chatted for a few minutes about his new book Enchantment: The Art of Changing Minds, Hearts and Actions. I asked him to consider posting for the Future Ready 365 blog. He seemed delighted to be asked and his thoughts will be posted here, tomorrow, February 22!

Are you feeling future ready yet!?

by Reece Dano, Oregon Chapter, Advertising& Marketing Division

Much has been made about design-thinking and its supposed ability to summon up innovation and transform organizations. True, its flashier proponents have led many to question the scope of its utility. However, working as an information specialist within a design consultancy, I’ve seen how carefully designed systems, products and communication methods can change lives. So what is it all about?

In brief, design-thinking is any process that allows you to change your point of view. These processes often use abductive thinking to promote creativity and temporarily subdue logical constraints. Participants in design-thinking activities are asked to make logical leaps in service of idea generation. The more ideas generated in this manner, the more your default (and possibly stale) thinking patterns are shaken and called into question.

The change of perspective design-thinking grants can lead to the acceptance of information that opens you to greater flexibility. For information professionals, this flexibility can inspire more relevant user-oriented services, career agility and the chance to envision even greater opportunities.

Design-thinking isn’t that hard. Changing your point of view is.

If you’re interested in opening your current services to a creative examination, here are some questions you can ask yourself to kick off a design-thinking session. Some of these questions are challenging. Others may seem a bit silly. However, the insights gleaned from all can easily lead to new and fruitful perspectives.

• If I were to plot my services on an axis from least-used to most-used, what would I see?
• If I were to plot my services on an axis from most-mission-critical to least-mission-critical, what would I see?
• If I transformed these axes into a Cartesian coordinate system, where would my services lie? Would I feel the need to reposition any of these services to a new quadrant?
• If the CEO or president of my organization suddenly became my assistant, what would I have them do? Why? What would that say about me and my role?
• If the receptionist of my organization suddenly became my assistant, what would I have them do? Why? What would that say about me and my role?
• How would I characterize the differences between the tasks I would assign the CEO versus the receptionist? What does that say about me and my role?
• If I had to take away all my services, save for one, which one would remain? Why? Would this remaining service be the core of my identity? Should it?

As you can see, these questions are loaded with imaginary scenarios that could easily lead to oversimplification. However, the purpose of these questions is not to generate carefully framed hypotheses – at least not yet. Rather they are meant to provoke thought, begin dialog and reposition perspectives.

Try them out. Come up with your own. See if you can use them to spot emerging opportunities for you, your customers and the information industry as a whole.

Reece Dano is an embedded Information Specialist within the Consumer Insights and Trends Analyst Group at Ziba Design. He has worked in both corporate and academic libraries since 1999. He holds an MLIS from the University of Washington iSchool. He currently serves on the board of the Special Library Association’s Division of Advertising and Marketing and is Chair of SLA’s First Five Years Advisory Council. He was a recipient of the SLA Rising Star Award in 2010.

by Kim Dority, Rocky Mountain Chapter, Business & Finance Division

The best way to predict the future is to create it. – Alan Kay

Almost anyone who’s talked with Cindy Romaine about the Future Ready initiative will end up wanting to take that energy and strategic thinking to the next level: what is one thing that each of us can or will do in the coming year to help our careers – and the profession – become future ready?

Thinking about that question, I’ve realized that for me and possibly for many others in the information profession, the answer lies not in preparing for what the future may look like, but rather in going on the offensive to create the future we want.

How to do that? Well, some things we know already:

• Technology will continuously change what we do and how we do it
• Companies – if not entire industries – that once seemed paragons of stability will contract if not disappear
• Other companies – and industries – will spring up to take their place
• For both information professionals and those we work with, there will be innumerable threats and opportunities and often they will be one and the same, depending on what we look for and how we frame them
• Information  will continue to be a critical part of decision-making for individuals, companies, communities, and nations – but will undoubtedly be aggregated/formatted/delivered in ways barely imaginable today

Knowing these things, how might we go about creating our own futures?  I tend to believe Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter was on to something when he said that entrepreneurism brings about a wave of creative destruction that, as it destroys established ways of doing things, simultaneously opens up new opportunities for innovation and fresh solutions. The challenge: being on the right side of that wave…in other words, creating the future we want to have.

In an attempt to stay ahead of that cresting wave, and thus create my own professional future, some of the things I’ll be doing are:

• Systematically monitoring the industries of existing clients to identify anomalies that may evolve into emerging growth trends – or contracting lines of business – so I can respond strategically
• Checking out all “innovation” award winners in various categories such as those offered by Fast Company, Mashable.com, and Inc. magazine with an eye toward unusual ideas that could signal growth opportunities (who knew the “casual learning” industry was now a $9 billion/year powerhouse?!)
• Practicing identifying the hidden opportunity in every perceived “threat” situation
• Continually rethinking how I can create and/or provide information that offers high-impact value, knowing that my ability to do so will determine my continued professional viability

Bottom line: perhaps our best approach to being Future Ready is to start actively creating the future we want today.

Kim Dority is the founder of Dority & Associates, Inc., an information consultancy with expertise in research, writing, editing, information process design, and publishing. Ms. Dority is on the advisory board of the University of Denver’s Library and Information Science graduate program, where she also teaches as adjunct faculty. She is the author of numerous articles and several books on information, Rethinking Information Work (Libraries Unlimited, 2006).

by Josh Walters

At the end of 2010 I reviewed and reported on the goals I’d set for my work-year back in January.  These included top level categories like service delivery, business partner engagement, advocacy and outreach, and strategy and communications. Tactics within each of these areas involved extensive use of web communications vehicles and online business networking platforms. Time and time again I was called upon to join teams as a consultant, a critical ear, or to aid in the redirection of a team mired in its own detail.

I should mention that technically, I’m an Access and Interface librarian–that means I do web design, usability, optimization; I “productize” services we’ve traditionally done as manual processes using the web, or translate business partner and end user needs into a service we can “sell” inside the enterprise to other groups.  In many cases, this leads to innovation.  In others, it means greater user-awareness and more work.  In either, it’s exposure, proof, leverage, an elevator speech… that said, considering the words “access” and “interface,” and using a broad interpretation, it may be apt.

We have a leadership attribute inside our company that translates to: Finds a way.  It implies that when the road is ill-defined (or non-existent) one who will succeed is one who taps some inner reservoir and marshals a solution.  During this current economic downturn–as we have fewer resources, people and consequently, time–it is often the punchline to a dire joke.  But it’s serious as a heart attack to librarians under the gun.

Librarians jump into new platforms and mediums as easily as breathing.  New social bookmarking app?  Librarians are in it.  Putting web pieces together using JQuery and AJAX?  Librarians.  Extending the blog as a strategic communications vehicle? Turning a wiki into a publishing platform? Tying together underpowered SharePoint environments for greater collaboration? Teaching groups that there’s more to the library than what they ever thought possible?  Librarians, librarians, librarians… librarians.

In reviewing my goals at the end of 2010 I noted that in more than one of my focus areas ‘come 2011, I’d be putting “Finds a Way” to extensive use.  Being “Future Ready,” none of those subject areas are going away:  Service, engagement, outreach, strategy, communications: open the tool box, find a way.  The fun is just beginning.

Talk to you again soon,
Josh

Josh Walters is a librarian with The Boeing Company. He spends extensive time consulting on projects throughout the enterprise related to optimal use of tools and collaboration environments, supporting the Knowledge Management effort, and talking about effective communications practices using social business platforms.  Though physically located in Durham, North Carolina, and with due respect to the locals, he considers himself an SLA-Southern California Chapter member in diaspora.