UNYSLA

SLA Votes to Keep the Name

According to a SLA press release, members of SLA have voted down the proposal to change the association  name to Association of Strategic Knowledge Professionals.

SLA Name Will Stay: Alignment of Association to Continue

Alexandria, Virginia, December 10, 2009- The Special Libraries Association (SLA) announced the results of its association-wide vote on a new name today. Voting in record numbers, SLA members failed to approve a proposal to change the organization's name to the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals. 50 percent of those members eligible to vote participated in the referendum, with 2071 voting yes and 3225 voting no.
Read the full press release.

For more information and to participate in discussions of the vote see Twitter #slaname.

2010 SLA Annual Conference Call for Papers

SLA Annual Conference Call for Papers
"Entering SLA's Next Century: Let the Good Times Roll"
Success stories in action!

How are you putting your hard work into action? How are you using the long-planned, expertly-vetted, SME-approved technologies in your library? How are your users responding to these new services?

SLA is now accepting proposals for papers to be presented at its 2010 Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, with the theme "Entering SLA's Next Century: Let the Good Times Roll!" Accepted papers will also be published on the SLA Web site.

Every SLA member is eligible and encouraged to apply. Proposals will be evaluated by a panel of SLA members in a blind review, and the best will be selected for development into full papers, which are due 7 May 2010.

Requirements for Acceptance
Paper topics should be related to library science, information management, research or other issues related to customer service, technology, or administration in special libraries. Proposals will be judged on their relevance to the conference theme, "Let the Good Times Roll", as well on the strength of the idea, quality of the writing, and potential member interest.

Proposed papers must also meet these requirements:

• At least one author is a member of SLA.
• At least one author commits to presenting the paper at the annual conference.
• The proposal is received by the deadline (18 December 2009)
• The paper has not been published in or submitted to any other publication or conference planning group.
• The author (and any co-authors) must be willing to sign a copyright assignment form that will permit SLA to use the paper in various formats.

Full guidelines, including formatting instructions

Deadlines
Submit an abstract of your paper via e-mail to chris.mulready@boeing.com no later than 18 December 2009. Abstracts should be 250-300 words in length, which is roughly one page in 12-point text.

View papers presented at SLA's 2009 Annual Conference.

SLA's Proposed Name Change: Voting Starts Next Week!

Please cast your vote on SLA’s proposed name change
Linda Galloway, President, UNYSLA

E-voting will open on November 16 and close on December 9. The proposed name, the Association of Strategic Knowledge Professionals, was selected to help members communicate their value to their organization and reflect the depth and breadth of Special Librarians’ expertise.

The process of selecting a new name began back in 2007 and was funded by profits from the sale of SLA’s previous headquarters. The alignment project team, lead by Fleishman –Hillard, conducted a comprehensive analysis to help  bring clarity to the core identity of information professionals. After a series of specific alignment initiatives that included a great deal of primary and secondary research, focus group testing, testing of language and ideas that resonated with members and employers and then eliminating names that were currently in use, this name was selected. The Alignment Team looked at many options and selected a name that represents our value, is meaningful internationally and is not currently in use.

Before you cast your ballot, remember that librarians and other information professionals use our knowledge to teach our users to find information on their own; we teach them—share our knowledge so they can learn, find, discover, think, and excel. We may also provide information to our stakeholders – to help them make decisions based on the information provided. Certainly most of us can think of examples where we present information that permits our constituents to make informed decisions based on the strategic knowledge we provide. Please vote for the name change as it represents a chance to convey the value of special librarians and information professionals in a way that makes sense outside the library community.

Janice LaChance has just written an excellent blog post on this topic. Here’s her last paragraph:
“When you cast your vote on the proposed name change, I ask you to consider not whether you like the name Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals, but whether it does a better job than SLA in conveying your value to organizations that hire people like you.”

Discussions on the proposed name can be found on Twitter (#slaname) and on the SLA wiki.

New Member Profile: Jane Minotti

Jane Minotti is Librarian at the NYS Department of Transportation Research Library, where she began working in October 2007. The Library is located in the DOT Main Office in Albany, and provides library services to eleven regions throughout the state. Prior to DOT, Jane spent her career in public libraries, and was Director of the Sand Lake Town Library in Averill Park before making the switch to a special library. Currently serving as Transportation Division Treasurer, she enjoys and benefits from networking with colleagues in SLA’s Transportation Division. Jane earned her MLS at University at Albany and received her BA in English from SUNY Potsdam. In her spare time, she likes to knit, read, spend time outdoors, and plays cornet in the Averill Park Community Orchestra.

Librarian's Toolbox: Increase Your Web Presence

By Ruth Williamson

At UNYSLA’s fall meeting, Blake Carver, the Technical Librarian for the New York Power Authority and founder of LISNews.org, gave an informative and interactive presentation on increasing your library’s web presence using free and inexpensive tools. Mr. Carver stated that as librarians we need to understand our web audience and their needs and the tools that can best be used to reach that audience. “Tools are to enhance, not control, what we’re doing. And the best tools don’t control you.”

“Tools are to enhance, not control, what we’re doing. And the best tools don’t control you." -Blake Carver

The goal in using web tools is to make our lives easier. Web tools can be used to enhance our libraries’ connectivity, productivity and presence. Some of these tools are free, but may have backend costs. Mr. Carver asked some librarians what is in their “toolbox” that helps them stay connected, productive and present in their careers and the online community. The results of his mini-survey are as follows:

Minutes for September 2009 Board Meeting Posted

UNYSLA Board September meeting minutes have been posted to the wiki.

Librarian's Toolbox: LibGuides and Other Tools

by Kim Montenyohl

At UNYSLA’s recent fall meeting, The Librarian’s Toolbox, Christian Miller and Linda Galloway presented an overview of several inexpensive and free online tools that librarians can use to share information and improve collaboration.

They began by discussing LibGuides, an online content management system that allows librarians to create multimedia subject guides. LibGuides are simple to set up and maintain, easy to customize for different groups of patrons, and they enable librarians to combine a wide variety of informational tools within one subject guide, such as RSS feeds, embedded videos, and chat reference features. LibGuides also has an active user community of librarians, so new users can get inspiration for creating their LibGuides by browsing the LibGuides of other libraries. In addition, advice and tips are readily available from Springshare's online discussion forum. Miller and Galloway created a sample LibGuide for their presentation to demonstrate some of these features.

Ex Libris Mid-Atlantic User Group Meeting 5&6 November

Ex Libris Mid-Atlantic User Group Meeting
5 & 6 November 2009

The Ex Libris Mid-Atlantic User Group promotes the exchange of ideas and innovation between users of all Ex Libris products (Aleph, Voyager, SFX, MetaLib, DigiTool, Verde, and Primo) in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Eastern Pennsylvania. In addition, we invite users from any other state or country.

The annual Ex Libris Mid-Atlantic Users Group (EMA) Meeting will be held at Binghamton University’s Downtown Center in Binghamton, New York on November 5th from 9am to November 6th till 2pm, 2009.

Information and registration available on the official conference website. 

Upstate New York Science Librarians Meeting on 26 October

Registration for the Upstate New York Science Librarians Meeting is now open!

This year's meeting will be held in Ithaca at Cornell University. The program includes topics ranging from public services, reference & outreach to technology, data and open access issues. Come join your colleagues!

In addition to the posters and presentations, there are several tours scheduled around Cornell's campus, including the Lake Source Cooling Facility and the Biofuels Laboratory. A welcoming reception will be held at the Lab of Ornithology on Sunday night before the meeting. If you can't make that, don't worry: join the Lab of O for their Monday Night Seminar!

New Member Profile: Beth McCalister

Beth McCalister is currently employed by Bureau Veritas Consumer Products Services, in Buffalo, New York, working as a library assistant in the Information Resources Center. Working in a corporate library has given Beth an entirely new perspective -- for which she is grateful -- on libraries and librarians and she looks forward to being an active member of UNYSLA.

Beth received her B.A. in Environmental Design from the University at Buffalo in 2003 and is presently working on her Masters degree at the same university. In her free time she most enjoys spending time with her 4-year-old daughter, reading and supporting Buffalo's local NHL hockey team, the Sabres!

UNYSLA Communications Committee Welcomes Newest Members

Meet the newest members of the UNYSLA Communications Committee:

Karlen Chase is a reference librarian at D'Youville College. She received her Master of Library Science from SUNY University at Buffalo in 2008 and her Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College in 2005. She served as Secretary of the Upstate New York Chapter of SLA in 2008 and now joins the Communications Committee, updating job postings on the UNYSLA Jobs webpage. In addition to her work with UNYSLA, she has served as Chair of Mentoring for the New York Library Association's New Members Round Table since October 2007 and as Web Chair of the same group since November 2008.

Dawn Wilson received her Master's of Science in Library Science from Simmons College in 2002. She's spent her career in special libraries, most recently as a researcher for BlackRock Financial Services. Prior to that, she was a librarian at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and a photo archivist at the Chicago Tribune. She's recently returned to Syracuse from a year in San Francisco where she spent time volunteering at the library in the Exploratorium, a museum of science and art, and the Prelinger Library, an experimental research library of books, periodicals, printed ephemera and government documents. Currently, Dawn is working as a contractor and pursuing a certification in book indexing. In her spare time, Dawn loves to cook and eat and serves on the board of Slow Food CNY.

One of the most popular sections of the UNYSLA website is the job listings page. Keeping this up-to-date requires a fair bit of time scouring email lists and Web sites to find what is new and what needs to be taken down. Despite these challenges, Karlen Chase and Dawn Wilson have been working in tandem the past month keeping the site running smoothly.

On behalf of the Communications Committee I would like to give them a big public "Thank you!" in appreciation for all that they do.

Register Today for "The Librarian's Toolbox"

The Upstate New York Chapter of SLA Presents

"The Librarian's Toolbox: Enhance Your Connectivity, Productivity, and Presence."

Friday,25 September

Increasingly, your clientele is accessing information online. You may only know them via email requests or chat or they may have never contacted you at all. You've put together Web pages and guides hoping that they use them and find the information they need, but how can you be sure that you are reaching them?

Join UNYSLA as Blake Carver will show free and inexpensive tools that can be used to increase your Web presence, Linda Galloway & Christian Miller will discuss ways to enhance productivity using a variety of collaborative tools, and Elena MacGurn will guide you through the creation of an outreach strategy to boost your credibility and to ensure that these and other Web tools get in the hands of your patrons.

Register online today!

Program details:
Date: Friday, 25 September 2009
Time: 8:30 - 3:30
Location: Craftsmann Inn, Syracuse, NY (map)

Networking dinner:
Join us for a networking dinner at the Saucy Swan on Thursday 24 September at 6:30. (map)
Please RSVP for the Networking Dinner.

Accommodations:
Overnight accommodations are available at the Craftsman Inn, Fayetteville, NY. Call the Craftsman Inn at 1-800-797-4464 and  reference UNYSLA. Cost is $90 and reservations must be made before 14 September to secure this rate. 

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Student Shadows

Download Student Shadow Application (PDF)

Attention students: Are you interested in networking with information professionals? Keen to improve your public speaking skills? Want to add a few lines to your resume?

If you answered “yes!” to any of these questions, consider volunteering as a “student shadow” during our fall UNYSLA Meeting .

Shadows will introduce speakers and sit with them at lunch. The shadow will also write a short article for the UNYSLA newsletter. In addition, your registration fee will be waived. Deadline for application is 16 September.

Sponsorship Inquiries

Interested in becoming a corporate sponsor for this fall meeting? Contact Charles Lyons, the Upstate New York Chapter Chair of Vendor Relations for rates and more information.