Military Libraries come in all shapes and sizes. We’re academic libraries, supporting Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees. We’re public libraries, complete with children’s story hours and retiree’s financial resources. We’re also other types of special libraries: medical; history; science, technology & engineering; intelligence; and headquarters support. The Military Libraries Division brings together members from all U.S. military services, Canadian Combined Armed Forces, international military services, contractors, vendors, academic institutions and anyone with an interest in military librarianship. Check us out at http://military.sla.org/. — Gloria Miller is a Librarian at the Headquarters, U.S. Army Materiel Command, Redstone Arsenal (Huntsville), Alabama. She is currently the Chair-Elect of the Military Libraries Division

“[t]he Army must continually adapt to changing conditions and evolving threats to our security. An essential part of that adaptation is the development of new ideas to address future challenges.”

Army Operating Concept 2010

“The Army Learning Concept 2015 is an important component of our effort to drive change through a campaign of learning. It describes the learning environment we envision in 2015. It seeks to improve our learning model by leveraging technology without sacrificing standards so we can provide credible, rigorous, and relevant training and education for our force of combat seasoned Soldiers and leaders. It argues that we must establish a continuum of learning from the time Soldiers are accessed until the time they retire. It makes clear that the responsibility for developing Soldiers in this learning continuum is a shared responsibility among the institutional schoolhouse, tactical units, and the individuals themselves.”

TRADOC Pam 525-8-2, 20 Jan 2011, Army Learning Concept, forward, p. i.

Like most American institutions, the U.S. Army is in flux. Ten years of war, now in three theaters, has changed attitudes about what the institution needs to do to remain viable, relevant, and dominant. Librarians have a part of that discussion. We need to remain viable, relevant, and useful to decision-makers, or we will be replaced by Bing.

So, in the spirit of General (ret) Shinsheki*, I propose a set of development points that are going to be vital for military librarians to navigate through over the next few years. Some are broad issues in the library profession that are being played out in the military microcosm; others are specific to the milieu. Surmounting the challenges below will require all our technical and managerial skills. We can surmount all of them, but not by huddling in our bunkers. Librarians have changed with the profession, and we can continue to deal with rapid and disorienting change.

Libraries have changed more during my 40-year career than in the previous thousand years. Is that great, or what? It‘s a good day to be a librarian.

Ten points of conflict for the military librarian of the next decade:

1. Libraries must welcome mobile devices. This should surprise no one. It‘s a reasonable assumption that every soldier has, or soon will have, a smart phone in his or her pocket. Will libraries be on speed-dial? Can libraries provide timely, relevant information quickly and easily, often without human intervention? Can libraries do that for a dispersed, harried, overworked, very determined clientele? Mobile accessibility is more critical to our survival with each passing year.
2. Libraries, particularly the school libraries, must encourage alumni queries, not limit their work to current students. As learning trends more toward the lifelong model, we will see a wider spectrum of soldiers accessing our resources. Can a deployed Staff Sergeant find the current doctrine on developing training strategies in Central Africa? Can faculty find usable, relevant vignettes on command relationships? Our ability to deal with diverse customers and subjects must improve.
3. Guard and Reserve students need access from their homes/armories. At my institution, we have about two thousand resident students, and at least triple that in distance education programs. Are those citizen soldiers served? Do they even know you exist?
4. More and more, as managers we find ourselves embroiled in licenses and contracting minutiae. This will not get easier! Information aggregators and vendors will demand payment for their services, will require you to define your audience, and will increasingly place restrictions on the use, re-use, and transfer of their products. We‘ll have to mediate these licenses in an increasingly chaotic contracting and copyright environment.
5. Management must be aware of library service requirements to residents and non-residents alike. This is something we should be doing all the time—making the bosses understand we provide a useful service. If they don‘t understand that, libraries will vanish. This isn‘t new, just continuing librarian responsibility. Educating your management is vital. Google may not kill the library, but senior managers who think Google can replace you, will.
6. ILS are swiftly becoming obsolete. Web discovery systems are evolving quickly. Competing systems are cropping up in all directions. The idea of a specialized, expensive, labor-intensive tool that only displays the tiny percentage of your library’s assets is a nineteenth-century artifact. That’s not to say we can give up on cataloging books and maintaining inventory control. But we have to make it easier for folks to use our stuff.
7. As with all levels of American society, military librarians must beware the Google-Wikipedia quick simple answer trap. Educating your clients about sources and provenance will serve them well all their lives.
8. Conflicts between public release, unclassified but sensitive, and classified research are making life harder. Rules on operational security and Personally Identifiable Information are changing daily, often in bizarre ways. They are a fact of life, and a source of much pain.
9. Education vs. training will be a constant friction point in military school systems, curricula, and civilian degree-granting institutions. Does the curriculum provide direct proficiency in a series of tasks, or does it broadly prepare soldiers and family members to respond in intelligent, knowledgeable ways to unexpected events?
10. Copyright is becoming increasingly Byzantine and time-consuming; librarians by default become copyright cops. Lawyers involve themselves in the minutiae of posting anything on the Web.

* “If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.”

Ed Burgess is the director of the Combined Arms Research Library in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is practicing to become a windy curmudgeon in his old age.

by Bethan Ruddock, Europe Chapter, Business & Finance, Leadership & Management Divisions

Reposted with permission from SLA Europe blog

SLA Europe board member Bethan Ruddock spoke on a panel on Alternative Uses of the Library Degree at SLA 2011. Here, she shares her thoughts on what it was like to be part of the panel, and what she learned from the experience.

Back in 2010, Dee Magnoni contacted me to ask if I knew someone from SLA Europe who’d be willing to take part in this LMD/Taxonomy panel.  The person specification?  New professional, based outside US/Canada, working in a non-traditional environment.  I put my hand so far in the air that my feet nearly left the ground – but, in the interests of fairness, we decided to open the chance up to SLA Europe members.  When no-one else stepped forward (to my secret delight), I was in.

Not only was I pleased to have the chance to be speaking at all, and wear the coveted ‘speaker’ ribbon, I was also eager to talk about my work at Mimas.  It’s not something I get to talk about very often, as most of my writing and speaking is focussed on wider professional issues, but it’s profoundly important to me – and I really do love my job!

Fast-forward to 2011, and find me preparing for conference in a fairly desultory fashion, with no real idea what I’m going to do for the panel.  Fortunately, moderator Ruth Wolfish had it all under control – she gave us a set of questions of which we could answer all or some, set out the running order, requested a slidedeck and an introduction, and encouraged us to share our planned slides with the other panel members (Jean Fisher, George Plosker, and Kim Dority).  Ruth also did something rather sneaky, which I would recommend to all moderators: after telling us that we had 10 minutes max each, we found out the night before the panel that we actually had 15 minutes.  And yes, we all used them all – in fact, we finished pretty much exactly on time! Definitely a great way to make sure your speakers don’t run over.

Ruth also took us all out for dinner the night before the panel, which I found enormously useful! It was a fantastic opportunity to get to know the other panellists, to learn more about their views and ideas, and to connect with a really amazing bunch of information professionals – not to mention my chance to try Maggiano’s pound cake!

Ruth also asked us to get to the room early and circulate among the audience – chat to them, ask them why they were there, and what they were hoping to get from the session.  I found the thought of this rather terrifying, so decided to look out for people with first-timer ribbons as a) this gave me a great opening gambit and b) they were the only people in that room likely to be as nervous as I was…

I really enjoyed doing my panel slot.  Lots of speaking experience over the last year has helped to get me over the ‘nervous gibbering wreck’ stage, and I’m now starting to feel more comfortable in front of an audience.  The audience were great, too – they listened really well, and laughed in the right places!  I also found that it having spoken to some of the audience in advance did really help, by giving me a few extra familiar faces in the audience.  I’d suggest it as a tactic if you’re a bit nervous about speaking, especially if the alternative is to be stood self-consciously at the front waiting for the session to start.

Having some idea of what my fellow panellists were going to say was a huge boost too.  As we were all talking around the same questions, it’s not surprising that many of the same themes came out, but it was very reassuring to know that I wasn’t about to be flatly contradicted by the next speaker!

The questions Ruth asked us to address were:

• What is the type of individual, with what skills that are currently successful in your Library?
• What personality skills would you look for in an individual?
• How important are technical skills? What specific skills?
• In your opinion, going forward in the Library profession; what type of individual will succeed?
• In hindsight, what would you do differently in your career to succeed? What did you do that was the most beneficial?
• What trends do you see for the future? How will your type of Library change in the future?
• Name 3 things that you continue to do in order to succeed? (ie. public speaking, networking, classes, SLA ……?)
• Will Libraries exist in the future ? Public Libraries? Corporate Libraries?  How will databases or products change in the future?

We all had a slightly different take on these, and some of us (well, me) didn’t answer them all, but there was definitely some cohesion in the answers.  We all spoke about the need to be flexible, open to change, and willing to learn new skills.  The need to get involved in the profession outside your workplace was also identified as being key – unsurprising, given that the advice was coming from active SLA members.  Each panel member mentioned different technical skills, relative to our different environments, but it was clear that technical skills – or at least the willingness to acquire them! – was a must-have.  And the same message kept coming across:

You have the skills to do this!  You’re an information professional: you have learned how to learn.

Something which I don’t think was stated explicitly, but which came through very strongly, was that to work in a non-traditional/non-library environment you must have a keen sense of two things: adventure, and your own worth.  4 years ago I wouldn’t have said I had either.  Now I’m helping others to find theirs.  Whatever else librarianship may be, it’s certainly one heck of a ride.

Bethan Ruddock is an early-career professional, working as Content Development Officer for Library and Archival Services at Mimas, University of Manchester. She is Awards Chair and Early Career Co-Chair for SLA Europe, and Co-Chair of the LMD Marketing Section.  Bethan blogs at http://bethaninfoprof.wordpress.com/, tweets as @bethanar, and is currently editing a New Professional’s Toolkit (http://lisnewprofs.wordpress.com/), due for publication in 2012.

by Vicki Valleroy, Pacific Northwest Chapter, Competitive Intelligence Division

Recently Best Practices for Corporate Libraries was published, in which 57% of the authors were SLA members!  As one of the authors of the chapter titled “Application of Technology & Change Management in Staff Development”, I would like to share some excerpts that touch on some essential future skills.  Enjoy!

“Future skills include not only specialized skills but pivotal skills, such as project management and leadership.  The requirements for Library Specialist and Librarian positions were reviewed to determine what education or specialized skills were to be extended to include more in-depth technical knowledge, content management and information management skills, in addition to expanded skills/knowledge about copyright, intellectual property, metrics, and process based management skills.  Specialized skills are defined as tactical areas that are not unique across the company.  Acquiring these skills are the responsibilities of the staff as they develop and share their career goals and aspirations with their managers.

As important as the skills themselves is the staff’s willingness to change.  We researched change management principles and practices and chose those elements that we felt we could influence and/or control.  We created programs or activities to address these issues.  We attempted to augment our readiness to change by giving the staff adequate information, social support, participation in decision making, personal impact, and efficacy (an individual’s confidence in their ability to perform adequately in the new environment).

Due to the time needed to plan the approach and the implementation time needed, the staff development team took several years to address the issue of future skills and staff training.  During the first year, we established the future skills needed for our new library delivery model.  In the second year, the team addressed library specific competencies needed for new research and communication tools.  The team restructured the training and self-development goals by targeting specific competencies to support the company’s skills initiative.  A more focused approach to develop technical skills was needed to deliver services.  Building on the Special Libraries Association’s innovative “23 Things” self-directed training program, the team developed the Core Competencies goal, which specifically targets staff applying and demonstrating skills in selected areas.”

As professionals, we need to encourage and support each other  to take control of our own learning, to use available technology to optimize both interpersonal and professional competencies, and to put into use our ever changing lifelong learning skills.

Vicki began her professional career in health information management, developing future skills by supervising over 30 staff members on two campuses; coordinating the upgrade of computer software and hardware for medical records and coding; and participating in staff/management labor union negotiations.

After receiving her master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington, she joined Boeing Library Services.  Currently she is co-leading the merging of the ViRT (Virtual Reference Team) and Research teams, and is particularly interested in using employee involvement best practices in developing high performance teams.   Recently Vicki completed the Change Management certificate program offered through Pepperdine University.  In 2009 she was honored with The Boeing Company’s (SSG) Shared Services Group Service Ambassador Award. She is actively involved in professional associations, locally and nationally, currently serving on the SLA 2012 Conference Planning Advisory Council.   Vicki is a co-author of “The Application of Technology and Change Management in Staff Development” in the newly published book Best Practices in Corporate Libraries.