by Tom Rink, Oklahoma Chapter, Advertising & Marketing Division

This is the definition of “Future Ready.” When you stop to think about it, the future is really only a second away.  We spend out entire lives preparing for our futures. And while we cannot predict what these futures may be, our hopes, dreams, and desires help us steer toward our possible futures. 

Continuous learning is the key to being “future ready.” Informally, we learn from our parents and we learn from our environments and experiences; formally, we attend schools (and later colleges) to prepare ourselves for our individual futures. Our “futures” become our “presents” as we begin careers, but the learning doesn’t stop here; we continue to learn through in-service training, continuing education, and other professional development opportunities in order to stay abreast in our chosen fields.

Being an information professional was not my first career. Once I decided that this was the direction I wanted my life to take, I had to take the necessary steps to prepare myself for this new future. How did I make myself “future ready” for a new career? It all started with a plan. Having a plan/goal (i.e., knowing the direction that you’d like your future to go) certainly helps you transition from the present to the future. I went back to school to attain the formal education required, I read the important journals, I joined the professional associations, I attended conferences, and I networked with other professionals in the field. I immersed myself into the culture of my desired future so that when the opportunity presented itself, I’d be ready to grab this future with both hands and move forward. My plan worked. After a twenty-five year career in one field, I was “ready” for and successfully transitioned to the “future.”

How do I plan to stay “future ready?” I will continue to learn and take advantage of every available opportunity.  For example, I’m not the most “tech savvy” person in the world, but a couple of years ago I understood the importance of the whole web 2.0 and social media movement and completed the 23 Things program just to get up-to-date. I’m hoping to stay up-to-date by embracing and using these web 2.0 and social media tools (blogs, RSS feeds, etc.). 

The only constant in life is change and to be truly “future ready” you must conquer your fear of change, envision your future, and never look back.

Tom Rink is a member of the Oklahoma Chapter and the Treasurer of the Advertising & Marketing Division.  In 2005 he was named SLA Fellow. He is 25-year veteran of the Tulsa, Oklahoma police department who successfully transitioned to academia in late 2007.  He is currently an Instruction Librarian at Northeastern State University – Broken Arrow Campus.  Tom has been active in SLA since 1996 holding numerous leadership positions.

by Deb Hunt, San Francisco & Silicon Valley Chapters, IT & KM Divisions

When SLA’s 23 Things premiered at the SLA 2008 Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO in Seattle, it became one of the most popular benefits of membership in SLA. In 2010, it was time to re-establish the opportunity for collaborative learning, and I, who chaired the original effort, worked with graduate MLIS student Kim McGrath to rejuvenate the package. 

Now, 23 Things is making a new debut.

Some outdated links and resources have been removed, existing lessons have been updated, and completely new material has been added to the package.

A few highlights: Week 6 was remodeled to introduce “Social Media and Networking.”  Now included are Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and how each one can be used to help you find a job, advertise your business, or gain competitive intelligence. Read articles and watch videos that point you to valuable resources you can put to use right away! If you’re a seasoned veteran, we’ve got next steps covered too.

With the Future Ready 365 blog in full swing, try out a few of the weeks, learn something new, and become Future Ready yourself. Spend as little as an hour a week, and reinvigorate yourself with fresh ideas and a mastery of tools like RSS, Tagging and Folksonomies, and more. If you’re new to 23 Things, all you need to do is create a username in SLA’s wiki dashboard to get started.

So what are you waiting for? Jump in and try out all 23 Things, sample a baker’s dozen, or just start with Week 6. No need to go in order, but it helps you experience the full effect. There is something here for everyone to increase employability and career skills, so don’t delay!

Sincerely,
Deb Hunt
Chair, 23 Things

Deb Hunt is a member of the Professional Development Advisory Council. She has held positions in the San Francisco Bay Region chapter and the Board of Directors.

by Kama Siegel, Oregon Chapter, Legal Division

I think most SLA members consider themselves to be tech-savvy, if not “on the cutting edge” of gadgetry, social media and other innovative forms of communication. Even those who find individual forms of communication distasteful make a point of, if not embracing it, then using it fairly competently. The reason one of my colleagues gives for reluctantly accepting Twitter, for example, is because she knows that a fair number of her patrons or colleagues rely on it as a handy tool.

However, what if you run across colleagues who refuse to even try out these new tools, let alone adopt them? Do you just shake your head and leave them to their Luddite tendencies, or do you explain to them how they’re shooting themselves in the foot? I advocate the latter for while it may be uncomfortable to tell someone they are falling behind, it is a far worse proposition to ignore a way for our patrons to slip through the communication cracks.

Here are some reasons why a colleague would eschew the use of some form of technology (hardware or software), and the way you might address each:

• Cost/budget – Most communication platforms cost nothing, and are hosted on the web. It is understandable if someone balks at spending $500 for an iPad or a smartphone, but there’s no excuse for ignoring a tool that even one patron might be using.
• Fear of the new/fear of looking ignorant – The best way to get over your fear of new technology is to play around with it. No one is disapprovingly looking over your shoulder. And if you play around with it enough, you’ll find that you will either incorporate the technology into your routine, or you’ll discard it in favor or something else. Once you’re competent enough to make that choice, you’re no longer going to be ignorant. Additionally, your colleagues are librarians – they’re used to helping people! No one is going to laugh at you.
• Lack of time to properly learn/continue using the technology – This one might be the most difficult to overcome. However, if you can convince your colleague that all they need for competence is a mere 5-10 minutes a day for as long as they feel comfortable, you’ve won most of this battle. The other half of the battle is finding the time to keep using the technology in your everyday job duties. But again, if you start with 5 minutes and work your way up, you may find that it helps with your productivity.
• Lack of interest in a specific software or item of hardware – “Oh I’ll never use _________” says your colleague. Oh no? Famous last words. I nearly gave up on Twitter before I realized just how useful it is as a tool to increase productivity, and industry news feed. Stress to your colleague that some of these tools might need a lot of front-end work before she makes the decision to discard them or move on to the next available product.
• Belief that no patrons will be affected by the librarian ignoring the technology – Have your colleague walk around your organization and see what sort of tools your patrons are using. Tell her to talk to her patrons to find out how they’re using these tools. She might be surprised about all of the different methods by which patrons are harnessing information.
• Not sure about what’s available – Encourage your colleague to follow tech blogs or tech-savvy librarians’ blogs. They need to be at least a little curious about the tools in the first place before they can start to use them.

Ignoring any method of reaching our patrons is the opposite of Future Ready. To do so willfully should constitute malpractice.

Kama Siegel is the President of the Oregon Chapter of SLA and is the Computer Automation and Reference Librarian at the law firm Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt.

by Berika Williams, PR Chair 2011, IT Division/Web Services Librarian, UH-Victoria

I love this profession and I’m completely fulfilled in the work that I do. As information professionals, we adapt to emerging technologies surrounding the access to information we provide. As a result this poses fresh opportunities to organize, manage, represent, and access it.

I believe that being Future Ready is about knowing where your values lie and having goals, dreams, and pursuits that support them. I value the work that I do, time spent with family, friends, colleagues, giving back to the community, and being open to new skill sets and technologies. I am learning to say “no” to commitments, things, and even people that pull me away from my vision.

I am Future Ready at my job and beyond the office by being under the mentorship of those more experienced and absorbing as much training, knowledge, professional development (and interpersonal) skills to be truly successful as a newbie librarian. The greatest part is that this development is continuous and built on life-long learning.

We are service oriented, but we also enhance the goals and missions of organizations by providing consultation in being more efficient in information management. Many of us sit on the brink of technological developments and create new tools and systems that meet a variety of information needs. The versatility of our knowledge base provides immense value. This is why I love this profession.

Berika Williams is the web services librarian at the Victoria College/ University of Houston-Victoria Library. She is currently the PR chair for the Information Technology Division of SLA.

by Sharon Morris, ALA, Colorado State Library

Thinking about the future is an odd thing. How do we imagine something that has not yet been? The best thing to do is to open our minds up to new ways of thinking. Below are some strategies to try.

1. Embrace uncertainty. The thirteenth century poet, Rumi, said, “Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” In other words, to see things differently, one must start with confusion.
2. Take time to dream.  Take a walk, stare out the window, sit quietly and let your mind float from subject to subject. Notice any images or vivid memories that come to mind. Be nowhere and everywhere.  Imagine and dream.
3. Talk it out. Share your ideas about the future with other future-minded people. They will keep you looking ahead. They will help you expand your own thoughts and ideas. Also, listen to them.  It is often easier to see what’s next for others than for ourselves.
4. Join forces. Form a confab with others who read about the future so you can keep each other up on things. Share blogs like this one with each other. Schedule time regularly to talk about new innovations and ideas that each of you is discovering.
5. Don’t just imagine, try stuff.  If you have an idea, do something to make it happen. Jump in and explore. Start small with a pilot project. Even mistakes and failure can lead to wildly unexpected innovation.
6. Read widely. Review blogs, journals, and publications from other fields to determine how they envision the future. This kind of environmental scanning can help you identify common themes and issues that may indicate the salient future trends.
7. Be curious about problems. At times, issues in organizations point to a need for systemic change. Finding opportunities where others see only barriers will open new paths to the future.
8. Give up perfection. We no longer have time to be mired in the drive to do things perfectly. We have to do what is good enough now so we save time to explore what can be.
9. Use our values. When you hear of a new technology, tool, or resource, view it through the lens of our values: access for all, intellectual freedom, privacy, and intellectual property rights. Will the emerging technology or innovation enhance or challenge those values? If there is a conflict, how might you resolve it?
10. See space. When learning to draw, students are encouraged to sketch the space around an object instead of the object. This gets them past their preconceived notions of what a common place object “looks like” and actually gets them to see the real shape. This attention to space rather than the object can apply to many things. You can notice the silence between words as much as the conversation. You can give attention to the time between activities as well as the activities. This builds awareness at a different level and opens us up to perceiving things in new ways.

–If you have remarks or would like to contribute your own strategies for being future-minded, please add them to the comments below.–

Richard Kowalski, Consumer Electronics Association

I began my 2011 at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year. This was the fifth consecutive show that I have worked at, and again I was amazed by the advances in technology in just the past year. The show itself was a reminder to me that information professionals need to maintain their technology literacy in order to be Future Ready.

Keeping up to date on the latest gadgets can be challenging, but it is well worth it as an information professional. If you know what the newer devices are capable of, they can be more useful to you in both your personal and professional life. Your technology literacy can make you more efficient at what you do, and fostering technology literacy among your coworkers can help them become more productive as well.

As I see it, the devices to watch right now are e-readers, tablet PCs and smartphones. They are allowing us to do things we haven’t been able to do before. E-readers aren’t just for books. They are gaining popularity as an easier-on-the-eyes format on which we can read electronic documents of all sorts. Tablets and smartphones on 3G and 4G networks are allowing for information access in places and at speeds that we haven’t seen before, which is likely to heighten our colleagues’ expectations of information delivery from us and our services.  

These new devices are also bringing us into the world of apps. Although some apps simply provide information that could otherwise be found on the Internet, they usually allow for quicker access to that information than navigating through a mobile browser.  More importantly, many apps go beyond what a browser could offer by providing ways to manipulate information or by using information from your cell phone such as location data. Read Ryan Jones’ Bridging the Google Gap, with an App for more on the possibilities of apps.

I don’t see any of the new devices outright replacing computers, our traditional portals for Internet content. Instead, they are becoming part of a broad ecosystem of devices that we can use in the enterprise. A key thing to pay attention to will be the compatibility and portability of information among new types of devices. At the least, information professionals should stay aware of the useful software that is readily available on these devices. Some of us may find ourselves developing our own apps and services for these devices when the need arises.

How can you keep updated on tech? Educate yourself by asking people about their new smartphone or tablet PC. Talk to sales reps at electronics stores. At the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), we have a monthly show-and-tell lunch where we talk about our newest gadgets. Sites like CNET, gdgt, and PC Magazine can keep you up to date with reviews of new products. Tech bloggers like David Pogue, Walt Mossberg, and Rob Pegoraro provide useful insight into the ever-changing world of technology. For keeping updated on apps specifically, see Appolicious or browse the app stores themselves: iTunes App Store and Android Market.

Here’s to getting the most out of your gadgets in 2011!

Rick Kowalski is the librarian at the Consumer Electronics Association. He is a member of the Washington D.C. Chapter and Competitive Intelligence Division of SLA. 

by Maria Bagshaw, Minnesota Chapter

As a self-described info-nerd with a passion for information and knowledge, I feel that these actions have helped prepare me for becoming an Information Professional (AKA Librarian) of the future.  In this information whirlwind, you can do a few things that will make the job easier.

1. Take advantage of online and in-person seminars and professional development.  You always learn something new and something that can help your patrons, too.  Especially note and test new technologies that your patrons may be into so at least you are aware of what they are and how they can be used.
2. Focus on customer service.  As you can see with all the “like” and ranking that happens via Facebook, Twitter, Travelocity and other sites, the time of the anonymous patron is in the past.  Be kind and listen with respect to all points of view with the knowledge that everyone can’t be made happy, but everyone can come away with the feeling of being respected.
3. Strive to have a good understanding of the balance between traditional and print media and new technology.  Although the medium is different, the basics are the same: delivery of information and, hopefully, knowledge.  Know when to use each one for the most effective service to your patron.
4. Become free from fear (I borrowed this from Seth Godin’s Tribes).  Don’t be afraid to try new things and get out of your comfort zone. Have a willingness to accept various points of view and even to change yourself, while maintaining the integrity and mission of being a librarian.

by Christy Confetti Higgins, Rocky Mountain Chapter, IT & KM Divisions

Connecting and integrating is a critical piece in being future ready within your organization and in the delivery and management of your information services.

The term “connect” can relate to so many areas of the work that information professionals do.

Connecting….

• People with knowledge
• People with information
• People with people
• Information with information
• Information to innovation, knowledge, development, growth, and learning
• Information with social networking tools

Especially today, with the robust tools available to us to connect with our customers and create conversations around information services, it’s even more critical to leverage these tools within our organizations to stay relevant to the organization.

Tools such as blogs, wikis, microblogs, virtual worlds, instant messaging, and community tools all provide natural ways for us to embed ourselves into existing communities, create our own communities and networks, and connect ourselves and our services to the organization. Here are a few examples of connecting and integrating by leveraging technology and social networking tools in the enterprise.

• This example illustrates integrating information services into exisiting communities, leveraging wikis, and RSS feeds. This was the MyLearning portal at Sun Microsystems where we had our information video podcasts, eBook services, and news stories integrated into the home page. In addition, a search within MyLearning resulted in information from the LMS, internal information and knowledge, as well as information services purchased by the organization. Another key integration point!

• This example shows information services leveraging the virtual world space on the Second Life platform for Sun Microsystems employees. We invited employees from all over the world to participate in interactive events, conferences, and activities related to information services, and information and knowledge sharing.

• This last example is a recent example of leveraging social networking tools to communicate with and create conversation around information services at Oracle (Sun was acquired by Oracle in February 2010) where I have a larger audience and a new set of employees to engage around information. These tools have provided me a very effective way to quickly connect – in so many ways! I can’t show screen shots at this time but an internal Twitter-like application, internal Facebook-like application, and our internal blog have created great momentum for information services – it’s a matter of getting out there and leveraging the tools in order to CONNECT!

These are a few of the ways which have enabled us to more quickly and effectively impact our organization by providing them with information services that are highly connected to the business.

The efforts have resulted in new key relationships and partnerships with stakeholders and users. In addition, it has provided another way for current users of information services to connect with us and others users, and to stay informed.

So, Just Connect and grow your information presence in your organization, start meaningful conversations, integrate, and create additional value add to the business!

Christy Confetti Higgins is Cybrarian, Virtual Information Services (VIS) at Oracle Corp.  She is a long-time member of SLA, and currently serves as the Bulletin Editor for the Rocky Mountain Chapter, and is a member of the Virtual Worlds Advisory Council.

by Diana Menashi

One topic that has been raised by my professors regarding the future of the field is the relationship between librarianship and technologies, such as e-readers (Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes and Noble’s Nook), social networking sites (Facebook), and an ever-expanding selection of search engines from Google to Bing. The popularity and frequency of use of these technologies raises the question as to the role of libraries and librarians and the way in which they are perceived by the community at large and/or by corporations in the present information age. There are those who argue that the presence of these technologies renders or has rendered libraries and their services obsolete. Still, there are those who argue that the information searching and research skills of librarians are invaluable and will continue to be so as the ease of access to information increases.

Libraries and librarians have addressed this issue by maintaining an active online presence on the Internet through social networks, and by promoting services through library websites. This serves as an example of the ways in which the field considers users’ needs and desires when identifying platforms that would be most effective at providing services.

I would like to see the profession ‘reborn’ in the minds of those who perceive libraries and librarians as antiquated artifacts of the pre-information age. I would like to see libraries and librarians demonstrate that skills such as online searching are much more complex than a search engine would have one believe – that constructing a search query requires deeper thought and consideration beyond imputing two or three word phrases into a search box. I would like to see librarians show their users that the skill set that they have acquired and developed over the years goes beyond tasks such as reference services and cataloging.

Librarians should conceive of ways in which to demonstrate that their skills could be used to directly impact the success of the firm or the corporation. Librarians should breathe new life into the profession by stepping beyond the desk, identifying problem areas, and using their skill set to determine a possible solution. Their skill set would provide a unique perspective on the problem which would serve as an additional option for the heads of the firm or the corporation to consider when devising a solution. This would dispel the idea that librarians’ skill sets can be easily duplicated by computer programs and machines which serves as evidence that human involvement is still a necessity and an invaluable tool within the information age. Librarians should continue to develop Knowledge Management so that it is easily understood by those not versed in it. This could ease librarians’ attempts to explain its purpose and therefore increase the extent to which it is sought out by users and applied by librarians which would be mutually beneficial to both parties.

Diana Menashi is an MLS student at St. John’s University with a concentration is in special libraries. She is planning to take courses in law librarianship to acquire an additional skill set.

by Ryan Jones, Pubget

Researchers are turning to free search engines over licensed databases because of familiarity, simplicity and access to free content. By starting there, though, they face a fragmented experience across free and paid resources that’s fraught with dead ends, different formats and broken user interfaces. They also may pass up a perfect resource because it doesn’t crop up on the first page of the many results on Google. These shortcomings make up the Google Gap.

The Google Gap (or PubMed Gap or Science Direct Gap, etc) has been well explored by the library community. Technologies like link resolvers and federated search have cropped up to bridge the gap—with limited success. Link resolvers often mean errors in holdings (subscription collections), confusing resource choices and more dead ends. Meanwhile, federated search solutions connect resources at too high a level to provide a satisfactory experience and ignore holdings, the quality of metadata and the format, and usability of content.

So if link resolvers and federated search won’t do, what can bridge the gap between closed and web-based data? The “what” has to be something with enough computing power to provide a simple experience, yet span the web, free and paid content.  It has to be something with a high understanding of all the content types that sit at the end of each search task. The answer, it turns out is not a website or database at all. 

It’s an app.

Apps, as you’ve come to experience them on your phone or desktop, host more purpose-built code and processing power than traditional websites (as Chris Anderson wrote in this excellent piece in Wired ). Apps can provide enough intelligence to overcome content fragmentation among the user, the web, and library resources to deliver the simple yet powerful experience users ask for. They connect content destinations in highly customized ways, with intelligence, and can thereby standardize user experience across disparate resources. Apps can perform tasks in the background, fetching resources or content in anticipation of users’ needs. Apps can present a familiar and simple interface to the user.

This extra intelligence benefits the library, too. Apps can provide comprehensive data from both users and platforms, which in turn means better content management and more efficient libraries.

At Pubget, we think more intelligence is needed in the way users, the web, and resources are connected. As Chris Anderson says, “The World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting.” At Pubget, we think there’s an app for that.

Ryan Jones is the President of Pubget, which provides full-text access to life sciences research. You can follow them on twitter.