The Midwinter meeting in Philly is fast approaching! If you’d like the 411 on committee meetings, visit the handy chart on the PLA web site, sorted alphabetically by committee name.
We are also still recruiting bloggers for the conference. No experience is required, but great writing skills are desirable. Drop us a line through the contact form with your name, title, library, and blog URL (if you feel like sharing), and we’ll get you all set up. If you have submitted your information to me already, you’ll be hearing from me very soon.
Are you heading to Midwinter? What are you looking forward to most? Least? Feel free to leave us a comment and let us know. And don’t forget to hit the 2008 Midwinter Meeting Wiki when planning your trip!
Monday morning I attended Social Media Breakfast 4 in Boston, the brainchild of Bryan Person, a local new media and networking rock star. Social Media Breakfasts are a chance for local media folks (fans, PR people, users, programmers, librarians, the audience is diverse) to get together over some morning nosh and talk about what’s new and hip. The last two Breakfasts have included speakers who talk briefly, and really end up being discussion facilitators, which is very cool. The first NYC Social Media Breakfast just happened in NYC last week, so if you’re interested in attending one, or *starting* one, check out the Social Media Breakfast site for details.
Monday morning’s speaker was Geoff Livingston, co-author of the book Now is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs, and contributor to the blog of the same name, carrying on the conversation started by the book. This morning’s breakfast was a discussion of the differences between audiences, communities, and stakeholders, and how using social media varies from types of user bases. Geoff posted a sort of preface to the Breakfast on his blog, which bloomed into quite a discussion online, and translated to a discussion at the event, which was very, very cool to watch.
What I realized after attending the Social Media Breakfast, as I munched on my bagel and lox, is that for quite some time the PLA Blog definitely has an Audience, a group of people consuming the content. The discussions that came from posting the Service Responses (Stakeholder-oriented feedback), and the comments we receive during conferences are the closest we’ve come to being Community. However, what hasn’t happened here is an all-out Community effect, a full-duplex give-and-take of discussion, ideas, whatever floats your boat as the reader.
So my question is this: In your opinion, what would encourage the growth of community interaction here on the PLA Blog? What would get you posting comments, submitting stories, case studies, questions, and pictures from your libraries, and just generally make the blog more interactive? Do you see this blog as a potential for Community, or is it strictly straight information for you? Is your idea of public librarian Community elsewhere?
I’m very interested in your responses to these questions, whether it’s in the form of comments here on this post, response posts on other blogs, or in email, and I’d like to try to incorporate these responses somehow in planning for the blog going forward. Let us know what you think!
Are you going to the Midwinter meeting in Philly? Looking for an interesting new way to document your conference experience and share your thoughts? Consider volunteering as a conference blogger for the PLA Blog. No experience is necessary! We even a practice blog to get you acclimated before you head off to the real thing.
If you’re interested, drop us a line through our contact form as soon as possible, including your full name, title, library or organization and blog URL (if you have one/feel like sharing it), so we can get you all set up.
For our readers who can’t join us in The City of Brotherly Love, keep an eye on the blog for reports from sessions, meetings, parties, and more!
SPECTRUM DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP: LEADERS WANTED!
Interested in a dynamic career in library and information science (LIS) education, research, or executive level administration? The Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship program is currently accepting applications for students beginning doctoral studies in the Fall of 2008. The deadline to apply is January 18, 2008. More information and application materials can be found at www.ala.org/spectrumphd
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
The University of Pittsburgh and the American Library Association were pleased to announce in 2006 the creation of the Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship program funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and designed to increase racial and ethnic diversity among our profession’s next generation of LIS leaders.
ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP
The Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship provides full tuition and annual stipends of $20,000 to Fellows for the first two years of study.
Partnering programs provide full tuition and stipends to their Spectrum Fellows for all remaining years of study. Six inaugural Spectrum Doctoral Fellowships were awarded in 2007. We are pleased to announce that Fellowships are available for individuals beginning doctoral studies in the Fall of 2008. To underscore the fellowship program’s emphasis on leadership, all Spectrum Doctoral Fellows will attend the expense-paid E.J. Josey Doctoral Leadership Institute held in conjunction with the 2009 annual meeting of ALISE, the Association for Library and Information Science Education, and named for the University of Pittsburgh Professor Emeritus acknowledged as one of the LIS profession’s leading diversity advocates.
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
To be eligible for a Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship:
* Applicant must be a citizen or permanent resident of the U.S.
* Applicants should be of American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino or Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander heritage.
* Applicants must exhibit intellectual curiosity, interest in the LIS field and its sub-fields (i.e., archival science; academic, school, or other types of librarianship, medical informatics; etc.), evidence of academic excellence, effectiveness as a communicator, the ability to excel as a scholar or executive administrator in the LIS field, and a strong commitment to diversity.
* Applicants need not have received a Spectrum master’s-level scholarship to be eligible, but must meet the requirements of each participating program to which they are applying.
* Applicants must be admitted to one or more of the ten participating PhD programs by February 1, 2008.
The ten participating programs are University of Pittsburgh, University of Arizona*, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Michigan*, Rutgers University*, Simmons College*, Syracuse University*, University of Tennessee at Knoxville*, University of Texas at Austin*, University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Applicants must apply to one or more of the participating programs by the January 18th deadline and must inform programs that they have applied for the Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship. Participating programs have agreed to make early admission decisions on Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship applicants, but in order to be considered applicants must complete applications to LIS programs by January 18th and must notify the programs of their interest in the Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship as well. Note this may not be the posted deadline for a particular program.
* Indicates Participating Programs with no 2007 Spectrum Doctoral Fellow in residence. Preference will be given to applicants who have applied to participating programs that do not currently have Spectrum Fellows.
QUESTIONS
Please contact Program Director, Dr. Toni Carbo, Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences and Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, at with questions regarding the Spectrum Doctoral Program.
If you have questions regarding the online application process please contact Gwendolyn Prellwitz, Program Officer, ALA Office for Diversity & Spectrum at 1.800.545.2433 ext. 5048.
email:
website: www.ala.org/diversity
10 Ways to Make Your Library Great in 2008—via Web 2.0
1/16/08 11 AM-12 PM PT / 2-3 PM ET (registration is optional) Excellent note: WebJunction’s webinars are now closed captioned in real time as well as in the recorded archive.
As you think about your resolutions for the New Year, why not resolve to make your library a great educational asset within your community? This webinar will show you how to leverage social networking tools such as del.icio.us and Librarything to enable knowledge sharing and create collections of information around professional development. Ten key themes are presented to empower library staff as well as to increase a library’s value within the community. Presented by guest speaker Ed Rossman, adult services librarian at Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments.
Are you doing everything you can to protect your data? Malware—from viruses to spyware—continues to plague many businesses, not to mention internal security threats. Does your small business have a holistic security strategy in place?
Don’t have a plan to secure your business data? Let the expert editorial staff of PC Magazine teach you everything you need to know. Attend this course of four dynamic online webcast lessons each of which includes practical downloadable coursework.
Even though we aren’t “businesses” per se, libraries are large organizations dealing with computers — public and staff — and their issues. This course, which you can do at your own pace, offers something a bit deeper than your average article about vanilla virus protection, and will give you excellent fodder for your next coffee with the tech folks.
As you gather up the travel guides from the 910s to research your trip to PLA 2008 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, definitely take a look at the Restaurants and Nightlife, Arts and Culture, Don’t Miss, and Resources in the On the Town section of the conference site. You’ll find up to the minute information on tourism, food, parks, and more, including The Rake, a portal specializing in the “daily Secrets of the City, Fiction, News, Events and Restaurants in Minneapolis - St. Paul, Minnesota.”
If you like guided tours and hanging out with other librarians, check out the Tours section of the conference site. Quite a variety of quality experiences is available, some with multiple times to choose from, including:
Life & Times of F. Scott Fitzgerald Tour
Stillwater, Minnesota tour
Take on the Twin Cities! tour
You can also hit the FREE Special Early Literacy-focused Tour on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 10am. The Minneapolis Public Library will offer guided tours of its new downtown library building at 300 Nicollet Mall with special emphasis on the Children’s Library and early literacy environments. The tour will highlight areas of the library that address early literacy learning needs as well as give ideas on how to enhance early literacy environments in your library. This tour is limited to the first 100 people who register via email! Send an email to to sign up.
Kevin Nealon, notable actor, comedian and writer, will present the keynote address at the Closing General Session of PLA 2008 on Saturday, March 29, 2008 in Minneapolis. End a fun conference on a funny note by attending this session!
In other speaker news, the speakers have been announced for the ever-popular author lunches. Just a nibble of the speaker list includes Meg Cabot (author of The Princess Diaries series), Arthur & Pauline Frommer (of the famous travel guides), and Nancy Pearl (book recommender extraordinaire!). For the full menu, visit the Meal Events section of the conference site.
Posting this on behalf of Melanie Kimberly, Media Resource Specialist/Scott State Prison in Harwick, Georgia:
I am the Media Resource Specialist for Scott State Prison (Georgia Department of Corrections)in Hardwick, Georgia. We are in desparate need of up-to-date Health/Medical books, as well as any fiction books in the African American Interest genre and Spanish Language Fiction and Non-Fiction genre (popular books in Spanish as well as Spanish authors.)
We are also in need of books by the following authors: W.E.B. Griffin, Eric Van Lustbader, Robert Jordan, Margaret Weis, Terry Brooks, James Patterson, and Jon Sandford.
Hardcover and softcover books are both acceptable. Acceptable genres include non-fiction (reference, self-help, health/medical) and fiction (romance, fantasy, sci-fi, spy/adventure, mystery, westerns, classics, African American interest, and spanish language).
Donations may be sent to:
Scott State Prison
attn: Melanie Kimberly, Media Resource Specialist
P.O. Box 417
Hardwick, GA 31034-0417
Please note that the P.O. Box does not take UPS deliveries, but the address to send UPS deliveries to is 107 Lawrence Road, Hardwick, GA 31034. Questions may be directed to Melanie Kimberly at 478-445-5649 or prisonlibrarian1 at yahoo.com.
Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Melanie Kimberly, Media Resource Specialist/Scott State Prison
Hardwick, GA
Republished from Jan Sanders’ September/October Public Libraries “From the President” column.
Welcome to autumn — my favorite time of the year! As a child, I loved fall, as it signaled the coming of three wonderful events: 1) the hot, dry days of summer on a dusty farm in Missouri were coming to a close; 2) school was about to start, so I’d see my friends and return to the environment I especially loved; and 3) my birthday was near! Admittedly, some of the excitement has dwindled — especially the birthday celebration part — but I still see this season as a time for new beginnings, and I am still excited by those possibilities.
I hope you have ordered your copy of the newest PLA publication, Libraries Prosper with Passion, Purpose, and Persuasion! A PLA Toolkit for Success, introduced at the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., this past June. It’s a terrific advocacy tool that enables you to use templates, suggestions, samples, and handouts to help library staff, trustees, Friends, and community members become more educated, enthusiastic advocates for libraries. One of the strongest sections gives suggestions on return on investment for libraries in a given community, suggesting how you can create similar values statements. You can use all of it, or part of it. In addition, the resources section gives a step-by-step guide to furthering your advocacy work. I hope you’ll take a look.
Another particularly exciting consideration is the announcement of plans for PLA’s 12th National Conference, PLA 2008, which will take place March 25 - 29, 2008, in Minneapolis. I visited this city just a few weeks ago, and am delighted with the possibilities. I know many of you will be making arrangements to join us for what is historically “the best conference for public libraries.” Visit www.placonference.org for details. As always, there will be stellar programs, numerous opportunities to network and meet with colleagues, and top-notch general session speakers. The work in planning for national conference goes on, as you can probably imagine, for most of the time between the meetings. It takes more than a full year to receive and process all the program suggestions. A large, varied, and strong PLA committee works tirelessly to make sure that you receive as much for your registration dollar as is possible. If you or someone in your organization can only attend one conference this year, this is the one! And this year, we’re offering a special treat. Because we’re in their home town, 3M (one of PLA’s Partners) is stepping up with a wonderful opportunity. You will remember that the Leadership Development Task Force (LDTF), chaired by PLA past-president Luis Herrera, put forth recommendations on how PLA should move forward in creating leadership training opportunities focused on developing change agents within the profession. So, we’re presenting a one-day preconference program dealing with transformational change management. Participants will learn from private industry CEOs how to set a change strategy; what challenges are presented and how to handle them; and what innovations can be most productive in implementing, driving, and defining change. Speakers will be from 3M’s top corporate management, a group that has worked with other CEOs, such as Ritz Carlton’s leadership, for example.
How can you participate? There will be an online application process open to PLA members with at least five years of experience in supervision and decision-making and who are most able to affect change. Entries are due by November 16; approximately one hundred slots are available. The most important segment of the application will be a 250-word essay answering the questions, “What change do you want to implement?” and “What is the difference that making that change will provide?” Applications will be evaluated by LDTF members, and participants will be notified by the end of November. Visit www.placonference.org for more information.
The preconference is completely funded by 3M, including registration fees for the day as well as conference supplies, transportation from the convention center to 3M’s Innovation Center, lunch, snacks, and an evening reception to debrief the experience with other participants. We also plan to provide an opportunity for the class to come together again at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, to give progress reports on how their change implementation is working.
I sincerely hope you will think carefully about putting your name forward for this special opportunity. It’s a wonderful chance to learn from trainers who work with strong presenters from outside our own library community. So start thinking now about what you would change if you could, how you would do it, and what difference that change would make!
Jan Sanders is Director of the Pasadena (Calif.) Public Library; .
Jan is reading Hummingbird’s Daughter by Alberto Urrea and Organizational Development: A Josey-Bass Reader. She is rereading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand for a discussion group.
In exchange for the free reports, recipients agree to write one article (maximum 1200 words) on a topic of national interest by March 2008.
The Librarian Salary Survey has been published since 1982 and covers six positions. The Non-MLS Salary Survey has been published since 2006 and covers more than 60 positions that do not require an ALA-accredited master’s degree in library science. The 2007 Non-MLS Salary Survey also reports salaries for staff employed as librarians but who do not have ALA-accredited master’s degrees in library science.
For more details about the reports, articles, and how to apply, visit the ALA-APA web site. The deadline for article topic submission is November 16, 2007.
Welcome to autumn — my favorite time of the year! As a child, I loved fall, as it signaled the coming of three wonderful events: 1) the hot, dry days of summer on a dusty farm in Missouri were coming to a close; 2) school was about to start, so I’d see my friends and return to the environment I especially loved; and 3) my birthday was near! Admittedly, some of the excitement has dwindled — especially the birthday celebration part — but I still see this season as a time for new beginnings, and I am still excited by those possibilities.
