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While ALA Connect is a superb professional networking resource for members of the American Library Association, it can be equally valuable for professionals who are not yet members of one of the largest and most active professional asssociations in the United States. Students, consultants, and other professionals with an interest in librarianship will find the resources in ALA Connect extremely valuable for connecting with ALA Members. It's easy to get started....

One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the 2009 ALA Emerging Leaders Group I.
View the original video and transcript.

Be sure to read and provide any comments or feedback to Jenny Levine's Marginalia Blog post --

What Does Virtual Annual Look Like to You?

For the first time this year,  “big ALA” experimented with offering a virtual conference component of its Annual Conference. While some of the divisions have done this in the past (ACRL, PLA) and AASL is currently running a parallel virtual event, this was the first time we’d tried this for the monster, “big kahuna” Annual Conference.

While you may be thinking about MidWinter because it’s just around the corner, we’re thinking about Annual, so the Conference Planning Committee has already started talking about how to improve next year’s virtual Annual. We have a three-year contract with Learning Times, so that will be the platform, but many of the other pieces are up in the air at this point, which makes it a good time to ask for some input.

We can’t promise anything at this point, but what’s your wishlist? There are already some “givens,” but building a structure around them, what would you like to see? Here are just a few of the questions we have, but feel free to give us feedback around other issues, too.

• We can’t do this for free, not if we want to offer a quality, stable video feed. Keep in mind, though, that our members do tend to stream some of the more popular sessions, such as Top Tech Trends, and that will continue. Which sessions are you okay with as volunteer streams versus quality feeds?
• We can’t stream the keynotes because the speakers don’t give us permission, and in fact, they usually forbid it. Otherwise, though, what types of sessions do you want to participate in remotely?
• What does “participate in remotely” mean to you?
• Where are the price points that fit? Are there tiers or does one-size-fits-all work in this type of situation?
• Where can we add value to improve your virtual conference experience? Are you more interested in just sessions, or do you want virtual hallways, networking opportunities, and other comparable experiences, too? If it’s the latter, what do they look like?
• If you’ve seen this done well somewhere else, we’d love to hear about it. Just give us a URL and a description of what you liked about it.

This is your chance to give us input to help shape the future of virtual ALA conferences, so please share your thoughts!

What are groups within ALA doing to encourage new/young librarians to become involved in the Association?

ALA Groups focused on leadership, reform, or bringing in new/young members, etc.:

• Emerging Leaders
• LITA BIGWIG
• Local ALA chapters?
• Mentoring programs across the board. Are any effective?
• New Members Round Table! 
• Progressive Librarians Guild
• Seven Measures Working Group
• RUSA --they've been soliciting for virtual members, and the board just voted to enact some recommendations proposed by their Emerging Leaders Task Force.
• ACRL Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Mentoring Program
• ACRL initiatives for new members
  • ACRL OnPoint Chat: November 12, 2009: Getting Involved With ACRL (10:00 a.m. Pacific | 11:00 a.m. Mountain | 12:00 p.m. Central | 1:00 p.m. Eastern)In this discussion, ACRL Vice-President Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe and Executive Director Mary Ellen Davis will answer your questions about the wide variety of ways to make the most of your membership by getting involved in ACRL. Learn how and when committee appointments are made along with other ways you can become more active in the ACRL community and contribute to the profession. (Kim sat in on part of this)
  • Top 10 Ways to Get Involved in ACRL
  •  ACRL Involvement ideas - attached PDF
  • C&RL article

ALA Groups focused on advocacy:

• ACRL Legislative Advocates
• Advocacy for Libraries
• ALA Advocacy University
• ALA Office for Library Advocacy
• Advocacy & ALA are all over the map in lots of the Divisions and Round Tables, too... searching the ALA site buried me in advocacy groups

Related ALA Connect Communities

• First Career Librarians and Information Professionals
• Gen X Leadership and Networking

Groups outside of ALA
involved in initiatives that we should study and adapt?

• Library Society of the World
• Young Librarians Series.  This is a great virtual space for young librarians (40 & under) to collaborate and build a sense of community.
• Face the Future Flickr project. (Michael Campagna, Barrington Area Library, IL).
• American Education Research Association (AERA)(karen d.)
• AMA -- which AMA? American Medical Association?
• National Assoc. of Social Workers (NASW)
• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• American Institute of Architects (AIA)
• American Psychological Association (APA)
• Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
• Society of American Archivists (SAA)
• LISCareer.com offers practical career development advice for new librarians, MLS students, and those considering a library-related career. Founded in 2001 by Priscilla K. Shontz

Other resources:

• The Encyclopedia of Associations (and the online version
  Associations Unlimited) and The National Trade and Professional
  Associations publication (online at http://www.associationexecs.com/)
  are the best sources for association listings.
• ASAE and The Center for Association Leadership has an active and
  easily searchable blog. Here it is, with a search for advocacy:
  http://blogs.asaecenter.org/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=advocacy
• An article on engaging volunteers. Not directly equivalent, but then
  we aren't paid for the work we do for ALA, and a central point Eric
  made in his presentation to the Executive Board discussed the
  relationship between (volunteer) committee involvement and retention:
  http://www.asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/ANowDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=32255
• Youtube video on What is new professional?

FYI

Title:  Staff Day Success!  Tips for Planning, Delivering, and Evaluating All-Staff Events

Date and time: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 12 pm – 1:00 pm Pacific Standard Time

This webinar will last approximately one hour. There is no charge for this webinar.  Pre-registration is not required.

For more information and to participate in the December 3 webinar, go to http://infopeople.org/training/webcasts/webcast_data/306/index.html

Are you involved with planning and implementing an all-staff event at your library? Thinking about a staff day and wondering about the next steps? A staff day may be a regularly scheduled opportunity for team building and morale boosting or may be a day specifically scheduled because of a building program, planning process or other shift in strategic directions.

Whatever the goals for the day, it's a day with high expectations that is often produced on a shoestring budget by those who are not professional event planners. Planning responsibilities may include finding speakers (often at low or no cost), arranging a venue, dealing with room setups and equipment, developing lunch plans, and ultimately creating a valuable learning experience for library staff.

Those attending the webinar will learn about:

• A planning process that involves library leadership as well as employees in all parts of the library
• Ideas for creative free or low-cost programs
• The importance of "over-communication" and why branding is part of communication
• How to evaluate and document the event to leave a legacy for future staff day planners

Join presenter Mary Ross - who has planned and implemented numerous all-staff events, as well as library-related conferences, workshops and training-as she shares tips, tricks and strategies for success. You'll be able to tackle the challenges in planning and delivering an all-staff event, resulting in a day that is valuable to and celebrates the value of all employees.

Speaker:  Mary Bucher Ross.  Mary Ross has over 25 years of experience working in public libraries and managed the staff training and development program at the Seattle Public Library for eight years. Under contract to the Washington State Library, she designed "Anytime, Anywhere Answers" and "The Virtual Reference Adventure," online training programs for virtual reference providers. She has also designed courses for WebJunction and LibraryU. She is co-author of Virtual Reference Training: The Complete Guide to Providing Anytime, Anywhere Answers, published by ALA Editions in 2004. Currently continuing education coordinator for the Washington Library Association, she is also on the board of directors of the Continuing Library Education Network and Round Table (CLENERT) and was a delegate to ALA’s 2nd and 3rd Congresses on Professional Education.

If you are unable to attend the live event, you can access the archived version the day following the webinar.  Check our archive listing at:

http://www.infopeople.org/training/webcasts/list/archived      

Webinar: Staff Day Success! Tips for Planning, Delivering, and Evaluating All-Staff Events

Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009

Time:  12pm – 1:00 pm Pacific Standard Time

Speaker: Mary Bucher Ross

SUBJECT: Science Information Literacy Wiki

The Science Information Literacy Wiki (http://wikis.ala.org/acrl/index.php/Science_Information_Literacy) was created by the ACRL-STS Information Literacy Committee as a resource to aid librarians in information literacy instruction in the sciences. It is a tool that provides science-specific teaching and assessment ideas, science information literacy tutorials, and a literature review of information literacy in the sciences.

But the wiki was created as a dynamic tool and we look to our colleagues to help drive the content. You are invited to review and contribute to the Science Information Literacy Wiki in order to help make this resource more robust and continue our vision as a forum and resource for science information literacy discussions.

There are two ways to contribute:

• Directly add content to the appropriate wiki pages (http://wikis.ala.org/acrl/index.php/Science_Information_Literacy)
• Email the content you would like added to stswiki@gmail.com

Comments or questions about the wiki may be directed to committee co-chairs Elizabeth Berman (elizabeth.berman@uvm.edu) or Roxanne Bogucka (roxanne.bogucka@austin.utexas.edu).

Please visit and share your successes and best practices with our community. We look forward to your contributions!

—ACRL Science and Technology Information Literacy Committee