Best Practices for Federal Libraries:

Professional Development

A Collaborative Document

2007

Compiled

by Marie Kaddell, M.L.S., M.S., M.B.A. Information Professional Consultant

LexisNexis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ANDREA IN AFGHANISTAN – EXTREME PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Dan Odenwald, LexisNexis Research Consultant

BITE-SIZED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Marie Kaddell, Information Professional Consultant, LexisNexis

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT – IT’S SINK OR SWIM David McBee, Senior Reference Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Library

SIX STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS

Paul Henriques, Contractor, U.S. Postal Service Headquarters Corporate Library

THE MENTOR … WHO, ME?!

Bob Farina, Director, Trademark Law Library INVEST IN YOURSELF: ASSOCIATE AND PARTICIPATE

Peggy Garvin, Chair, SLA Government Information Division PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE POWER OF PEERS

Adriana Younskevicius, Special Assistant to the Director, U.S. Department of Justice Libraries

FEDERAL LAW LIBRARIES AND THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERESTING COLLABORATIONS

Blane Dessy, Director, Library Staff, Justice Management Division, U.S. Department of Justice Libraries

A RECIPE FOR A STATE DEPARTMENT LIBRARIAN–COMMUNITY UPDATE

Eileen Deegan, Librarian / Program Analyst, U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNICATION

Janice Litten, Librarian, United States Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California

MEETING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT REQUIREMENTS Mary Grady, Law Librarian, Environmental Protection Agency

ROLL YOUR OWN—PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES YOU CAN CREATE FOR YOURSELF

Pat Alderman, Systems Librarian, National Defense University Library

FEDERAL LIBRARIANS CONTINUING EDUCATION

Cornell Winston, Law Librarian, United States Attorney's Office, Central District of California

CHANGING JOBS: A MEANS TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Betty McKibben, LexisNexis Research Consultant SUMMER TIME - AND THE LEARNING IS EASY: MAKING THE MOST OF THIS SUMMER'S EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING!

Michael Saint-Onge, Senior LexisNexis Librarian Relations Consultant

DEVELOPING LEADERS - SLA 2006 David E. McBee, Senior Reference Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

SO YOU’VE BEEN ELECTED! THE VALUE OF TAKING A LEADERSHIP ROLE IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION

Linda Hutchinson, Senior LexisNexis Librarian Relations Consultant; [Now Reference Librarian, IRS Counsel Library]

AALL FEDERAL LAW LIBRARIES CAUCUS @ http://www.aallnet.org/caucus/fllc/ SLA/DGI WEBSITE @ http://units.sla.org/division/dgi/index.html SLA/DGI BLOG @

http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/government_information/

FEDERAL INFO PRO BLOG @

http://www.federalinfopro.com

PROMOTING YOU AND YOUR LIBRARY @ http://www.lexisnexis.com/infopro/training/toolkits/default.asp#bookmarks

LEXISNEXIS LIBRARIAN CERTIFICATE OF MASTERY @ http://www.lexisnexis.com/infopro/profdev/certificate/default.asp

GOVERNMENT LIBRARIANS AND LEXISNEXIS: INNOVATION THROUGH LEADERSHIP

Marie Kaddell, Information Professional Consultant, LexisNexis

SMART GOAL SETTING Corrin Gee, Federal Account Manager, LexisNexis

REFLECTIONS OF A NEW FEDERAL GOVERNMENT LIBRARIAN

Judith M. Weiss, Library Manager, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

RANGANATHAN'S FIVE LAWS

Mariann Storck, Legal Information Specialist, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District Colorado

CREATIVE & INNOVATIVE THINKING TO ENHANCE YOUR CAREER IN 2007

Deidra Payne, Senior LexisNexis Librarian Relations Consultant

BECOMING A VALUE-ADDING INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL - SLA 2006

David E. McBee, Senior Reference Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

BEST PRACTICES FOR SMALLER LIBRARIES Robert Updegrove, Administrative Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

NEW USES FOR THE ONLINE PATRON ACCESS CATALOG

Kyla Whitt, Law Library Administrator, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

FEDERATED SEARCHING - A CIL 2006 PROGRAM

Greta D. Ober-Beauchesne, Librarian, Content Access, Joint World Bank - International Monetary Fund

CLICK UNIVERSITY’S COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE CERTIFICATES PROGRAM

John Lowrey, Director, Professional Development, SLA SEARCHING THE NEW DIGITAL FORMATS - CIL 2006

Greta D. Ober-Beauchesne, Librarian, Content Access, Joint World Bank - International Monetary Fund

GAO LIBRARIES PARTICIPATE IN AGENCY’S INFOFAIR Bill Tuceling, Research Librarian, General Accountability Office

LIBRARY OPEN HOUSES – TRADEMARK LAW MAKES A SPLASH DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE LIBRARIES CELEBRATE 175 YEARS OF SERVICE

Adriana Younskevicius, Special Assistant to the Director, U.S. Department of Justice Libraries

A SAMPLING OF WINDOW EXHIBITS FROM THE FSI LIBRARY Priscilla Lujan, FSI Head Librarian, George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center, U.S. Department of State

LIBRARY SERVICES FOR EXAMINERS

David McBee, Senior Reference Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

SPEAKER NOTES: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR LIBRARY USERS

Blane K. Dessy, Director, Library Staff, Justice Management Division, United States Department of Justice

DRIVING PRINCIPLES FOR MANAGING SPECIAL LIBRARIES TODAY

Richard Huffine, National Library Coordinator, U.S. Geological Survey

OPEN ACCESS AND THE US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: THE NRL RESEARCH LIBRARY PERSPECTIVE James King, Chief Librarian, Naval Research Laboratory

HARD “FACTS” ABOUT SOFT SKILLS Roberta I. Shaffer, Executive Director, FLICC/FEDLINK Library of Congress

FLIERS: FOCUS ON THE FUTURE: LUTRELLE F. PARKER LAW LIBRARY OPEN HOUSE – FLIER

Arti Shah, Division Chief, STIC, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

OCC CELEBRATE NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK - FLIER

David McBee, Senior Reference Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

INVISIBLE WEB SUPER SEARCHER RETURNS: ADVANCED TIPS FOR SEARCHING THE WEB - FLIER

Jennifer Klang, Reference Librarian, U.S. Department of the Interior

PARK RANGER SPEAKER SERIES – FLIERS African-Americans in the Civil War

The Story of African-Americans Who Knew the Lincolns

Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address (1863)

An American Family in World War II

George Franchois, Director, U.S. Department of the Interior in cooperation with the National Park Service

WELCOME TO THE FSI LIBRARY! Priscilla Lujan, FSI Head Librarian , George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center, U.S. Department of State

The assignment is not without its fair share of sacrifice. She will miss her family and friends. “You give up a lot, but you gain a lot, too,” she says. “You can only grow when you challenge yourself. Who knows where it will lead?” -- Andrea Muto (from article by Dan Odenwald)

I think the trick is to realize the value of small incremental steps to professional learning opportunities. I believe that professional growth has many faces and takes many paths. Like all those piano lessons, dance classes, batting practices, and grad school programs – one thing builds on the next. If you put a little effort in on a regular basis, your Chopsticks will turn into a nicely played Moonlight Sonata and you will hardly remember how you got there. -- Marie Kaddell

I review the professional literature. I also read articles from outside the field to learn more about planning and management. Our own association training through ALA, ASSIS&T and SLA and others is the best because we’re learning from other Librarians and Information Professionals. It allows us an opportunity to ask questions and learn more. These workshops and presentations are really the professional life preservers that keep our heads above water. -- David McBee

In discussing professional development, one would be remiss if they did not consult the wisdom of those who have toiled in libraries and information centers for years. However, another important perspective is that of new graduates who offer a window into what is a rapidly changing world in terms of career progression. -- Paul Henriques

My advice: know thyself – and thy budget, antagonists, friends, enemies, etc. Don’t overanalyze, but size things up realistically, have an idea of what you’re doing, and use all the resources at your disposal to get what you want. Allies help a lot. -- Bob Farina

ANDREA IN AFGHANISTAN – EXTREME PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

By Dan Odenwald, LexisNexis Research Consultant

Dan Odenwald, a LexisNexis Research Consultant and former journalist, recently interviewed Andrea Muto, librarian and LexisNexis Federal Account Manager, about her decision to begin a significant professional undertaking in Afghanistan.

What compels a veteran LexisNexis employee to leave behind the comfy confines of Washington, D.C., for Kabul, Afghanistan? A sense of adventure and an urgent need for librarians.

On Feb. 27, Andrea Muto will turn in her LexisNexis badge and set out for Afghanistan, where she will work on a project to help bring the rule of law to the developing nation. The initiative, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, is a project dedicated to creating a stable and consistent legal framework for the fledgling democracy.

For her part, Muto will draw on her experience as both an attorney and a librarian to determine how to organize new legislation, what format it should take and how it should be distributed and published. While the attorneys on the project work on the nuts and bolts of the legislation, Muto will focus on making that legislation accessible to the Afghan legal community.

Over the past 10 years, Muto has worked with countless librarians, first in Cleveland, Ohio, then Washington, D.C. During her LexisNexis tenure, she’s worked with librarians throughout the public and private sectors – from Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, to Ernst & Young, LLP, to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Afghanistan Rule of Law Project demonstrates that librarianship is “desperately needed now even in areas and countries where we thought opportunity didn’t exist,” Muto says. Indeed, she learned of the job on the AALL website.

It’s just one example of how sought after librarians are in today’s changing information landscape, she adds. Not only are they simply appreciated, they’re critical to the success of a project like this one. “It speaks a great deal to where the profession and librarians finds themselves today,” she says.

"It will be a firsthand experience like no other," Muto says of her

new job in Afghanistan.

As Senior Attorney for Legal Publishing, Muto will be headquartered in Kabul. Her group will draft laws along with the Ministry of Justice and Afghanistan’s equivalent to the Supreme Court, as well as other legal bodies.

She will spend two years on assignment in Afghanistan, where she will be employed by Checchi and Company Consulting, the prime contractor for the USAID project. Her primary responsibility at this point is the organization and dissemination of the laws her colleagues help draft, and that’s no easy task given the technological facts on the ground - namely the lack of electricity and Internet access in many parts of the country.

Even print distribution poses problems because of logistics. “It’s a real dilemma,” Muto says. “The method of distribution will change as the country changes.” It’s not a challenge she’s unfamiliar with, however. Two years ago, Muto spent two weeks working in Kosovo on a similar USAID-funded rule of law project for the National Center for State Courts.

In Kabul, Muto will be living in a secured compound with the other members of the team. With news reports indicating a resurgence of violence in recent months, Muto has wondered about her personal safety while living abroad. “It’s a question that you’d be a fool not to ask,” she says. “It’s obviously a concern.”

Yet, she’s spoken with many staffers on the project, and she’s identified one common theme from those conversations: use common sense. Although Kabul is generally safe, “it’s not a place that I could walk freely down the street alone,” she says. “I won’t seek out adventures as I have done in other travels.”

Although it’s impossible to predict what the future has in store for her, Muto is expecting the experience to change her. “Personally, I’ve always wanted to work and live overseas, although I didn’t expect it would be Afghanistan,” she says. “But I’ve never regretted travel. It can only broaden my view of the world and of people in general.”

The assignment is not without its fair share of sacrifice. She will miss her family and friends. “You give up a lot, but you gain a lot, too,” she says. “You can only grow when you challenge yourself. Who knows where it will lead?”

While on assignment, Muto will be blogging about her experiences at Andrea in Afghanistan. Marie Kaddell, Information Professional Consultant, LexisNexis, is acting as blogmaster for the site. Read a description of the Afghanistan Rule of Law Project here.

Originally Posted in the Federal Info Pro by on February 16, 2007

Andrea in Afghanistan @ http://www.andreainafghanistan.com

BITE-SIZED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT By Marie Kaddell, Information Professional Consultant, LexisNexis A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Confucius I’m busy. You’re busy. We’re all busy - really busy. How do we grab hold of opportunities for professional growth and learning without becoming overwhelmed? Sometimes the task can seem so daunting that we become paralyzed. It just seems like too much – too much to do, too much to choose from, too much to make a dent in. So, we put it off – just for a little while we say to ourselves. And then sometimes – admit it – we put it off a little more. We all know the truth - if we are not careful, we can find reasons to put it off indefinitely. That little voice in the back of our minds urging us past the excuses and enjoining us to just get on with it, is not to be ignored. It makes good sense and we should listen. As information professionals, we have chosen a career that requires that we be in a constant learning mode. We do a lot of that in our jobs. Ask any librarian and he or she will surely tell you – I learn something every day. However, we need more than what we learn in the workplace. We need to find ways to keep up with our field, and all things tangential, that will make us innovators, strategists, teachers, gurus, and imparters of knowledge and expertise to those we serve, as well as to each other, and to society as a whole. Most importantly, we need to do this while retaining our sanity. So, when we begin to feel that we will never catch up and keep up, we need to consider why we chose our career, and then accept that what we do as librarians is important enough to give us the determination to plug ourselves in as ways that work for us, to stay smart and get smarter and smarter in the complex environments within which we must function everyday. So how do we manage it in the constantly changing world of the information professional in this century? I think the trick is to realize the value of small incremental steps to professional learning opportunities. I believe that professional growth has many faces and takes many paths. Like all those piano lessons, dance classes, batting practices, and grad school programs – one thing builds on the next. If you put a little effort in on a regular basis, your Chopsticks will turn into a nicely played Moonlight Sonata and you will hardly remember how you got there. Who would have thought all those little efforts you took week after week would turn into something so compelling and satisfying. Professional development occurs in the same sort of way.

With that in mind, here’s a few tips on making those small incremental investments in yourself and your professional growth and development that will make the difference in who you are as a professional and what you can do for yourself, your organization, and those you serve. You don’t have to do them all. Just pick a few that appeal to you and add them to your repertoire. Keep your eyes open. Find ways to grab professional development opportunities when they present themselves. Participate, don’t procrastinate. Sign up for programs such as the LexisNexis Librarian Certificate of Mastery when they are offered. Look for tools that have been put together to make your life easier – online conference planners, marketing toolkits, and the like – and use them. Go local. Attend update sessions provided locally by information providers and vendors, go to lunchtime programs on hot topics, attend local conferences such as CIL even if you can only visit the exhibits for the afternoon. Go virtual. There are many good virtual resources worth your notice. Attend SLA’s Click U. Hop onboard the LexisNexis virtual seminars for librarians. Mix it up. Skip across different media for a change of pace and to enhance your learning experience. Listen to a recording of a session you weren’t able to attend, subscribe to a listserv, plug in to a podcast, visit professional association websites to scope out what’s new, have lunch with another librarian and talk shop. Expand your professional reading horizons. Read blogs. Find professional voices you like and become a regular reader. Remember that some blogs – like the Federal Info Pro – are more than just posts. They also strive to provide you valuable resources via sidebar links. Take advantage of the information they bring together for you. Branch out and read in areas that interest you beyond those focused only on library and information science. Subscribe via your feed reader or see if your favorite blogs provide email subscriptions of new posts. Put your ear to the ground. Listen to podcasts. It’s a simple and versatile way to accelerate your learning curve. You’ll be surprised by what you pick up from a few well-chosen podcasts and you can listen in on your own schedule and utilize dead-zone time – like when you are working around the house or commuting. Get active professionally. Even if it is just having a membership in SLA, AALL, or ALA – do it. You need to invest in yourself professionally in a tangible way. Think of how hard you worked to become a librarian. Think how much time, money, and energy you spent accomplishing that goal. Don’t

skimp on something like a membership to a professional group. It will keep you tuned in to your profession in a dynamic way. Specialize. Join specialized divisions and caucuses like AALL’s new Federal Law Librarians Caucus or SLA’s Division of Government Information. Be a leader. Get involved in the professional association of your choice. You don’t have to be a chapter president to make a difference. Volunteer for a project that really interests you. Get on a committee and make a small contribution. Attend sponsored events as you can. Hit the Water Cooler. Don’t be shy. Get out there and communicate with your peers. Librarians are smart people and you can’t help but learn a lot from exchanging ideas with them. Don’t underestimate the power of a good chat with another professional around the corner or across the country. Remember, you are not alone. Get involved in communities of practice such as those provided by SLA. Check out resources like ALA’s wiki. Get onboard. Sign up for a few newsletters, e-updates, and listservs that put you in the know and remember to at least peruse them upon occasion. Dive in. Take a class or sign up for a workshop to really get an in-depth picture of something that intrigues you. Or go hands on, and learn the ropes via the school of hard knocks – start a blog or a podcast. In the end, remember that you will never know it all and that’s okay. Pick even a couple of the items that are not part of your current professional development process from the list above and plug them into your routine. You will be surprised at what a difference it will make to your professional knowledge and growth. You just have to take that first step to begin your journey. Ready? Let’s go.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT – IT’S SINK OR SWIM Library Buzz @ http://dmcbee.weblts.com By David McBee, Senior Reference Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Library

Friday, Mar 2 2007

the Buzz @ Work David 12:07 pm

I don’t know about you, but I sort of fell into being a Librarian. There are a few of us out there who have life-long goals of working in Libraries. Mostly they are the book lovers among us. There are also a number of people who were inspired by a Librarian who opened the world of information and decided at an early age that she or he wanted to do that too.

Having taught a few classes I understand why folks want to be teachers since pay and benefits aren’t the top incentive. Every now and then you get to see the light bulb go off and a child or an adult student understands. That is truly priceless and makes the substandard pay of teachers tolerable (for themselves – we shouldn’t be content that they don’t deserve better.)

Okay, so back to my being a Librarian. (And forgive me that I always capitalize Librarian. It is an affectation much like always typing “theatre”.) In my younger days I had set other vocational goals and later saw them come to naught. By then I had been working in a federal library for several years and liked the environment and the pay. So I decided to get my degree and in May 2000 I was graduated from the University of Maryland, College of Information Services.

For many years prior to earning my degree I attended the Computers in Libraries Conference held in the DC area. I continued to attend this conference but looked for others that would feed my professional needs. One year I attended a Conference of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). That was also quite good – but a little beyond my ken.

Along the way I have taken courses through Fedlink and FLICC that have been very practical. I have been really impressed with many of the folks who serve at FLICC – they are a great bunch of professionals!

I have also taken advantage of workshops provided by Lexis/Nexis, Westlaw and some other companies who routinely provide training and development opportunities. It has been helpful to build good relationships with representatives from these companies as a way to keep abreast of what programs are being offered. Marie Kaddell of Lexis/Nexis is a great help to us Federal Librarians.

Lexis/Nexis runs a Librarian Certificate of Mastery program, plus they have an annual seminar for Federal Librarians. A couple of years ago Gary Price spoke, last year was Steve Cohen, and this year there’s a whole panel of folks.

To date I have attended two SLA Conferences – Nashville and Baltimore, and I look forward to making the trip to Denver. Though the conference is a bit unwieldy – so much packed into a few days – it has been a great experience.

In Nashville I learned about down-sizing, marketing, financial resources, and how to have fun. In Baltimore I was inspired by Ken Haycock and Mary Ellen Bates. I have met some wonderful folks both socially and professionally.

I review the professional literature. I also read articles from outside the field to learn more about planning and management. Our own association training through ALA, ASSIS&T and SLA and others is the best because we’re learning from other Librarians and Information Professionals. It allows us an opportunity to ask questions and learn more. These workshops and presentations are really the professional life preservers that keep our heads above water.

I wonder if Mary Ellen Bates, Gary Price, Greg Notess, Steve Cohen and the rest like this notion of themselves as the Life Guards of our profession!

SIX STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS By Paul Henriques, Contractor, U.S. Postal Service Headquarters Corporate Library In discussing professional development, one would be remiss if they did not consult the wisdom of those who have toiled in libraries and information centers for years. However, another important perspective is that of new graduates who offer a window into what is a rapidly changing world in terms of career progression. Learning and networking has changed vastly in the past ten years alone. Young professionals, especially recent graduates like myself, have more often than not toyed with new technologies and sought new ways to advance their careers and improve their working lives. In terms of libraries, the federal government offers information professionals a whole new world of possibilities. Federal positions level the playing field financially in comparison to other sectors of librarianship. The government pay structure ensures that those with graduate degrees, no matter what the field of study, are duly compensated. Another important benefit of working as a federal information professional is the experience one encounters. While some federal agencies have closed their libraries, those which have retained them offer droves of information that is seldom, if ever, found anywhere else in the world. Given this scenario, librarians have the chance to become subject experts in particular areas of civil service, public policy and legislation, to name a few topics. This experience proves valuable in the private sector for those who might move on to a second career after federal employment. On top of all this, Washington, D.C. offers a vast array of networking opportunities and associations that can help catapult information professionals, both young and old, into great careers. Mentoring, social events and continuing education classes are just some of the activities to be found in the region. The following are six easy ways to engage oneself in the federal information professional field:

1. Explore new ways of connecting with other professionals both inside and outside the federal information profession. In addition to attending conferences and seminars, search out social networking web sites where you can connect with others in your field. One example is Linkedin (www.linkedin.com), which offers professionals from all walks of life the chance to connect to one another via common acquaintances. Think of it as a MySpace for work, but as a forum where your resume can be showcased. Linkedin also offers the ability to write recommendations for individuals in your network and provides job listings that you can directly apply to off of their site.

2. Join a professional society or two. Organizations such as the Special Libraries

Association (SLA), FedLink, and the American Libraries Association (ALA) offer a number of educational programs and training, from managerial topics to specific library issues. I personally belong to SLA and the DC Chapter is quite active, organizing everything from online and in-person seminars on topics of interest, to frequent dining events at some of the areas best restaurants. This is a great way to get to know your colleagues on a more informal basis.

3. Stay current with news surrounding your agency. Attending organization wide

staff meetings and reviewing internal newsletters are good ways of putting a finger on the pulse of your respective agency. Oftentimes you can learn about what people in certain divisions are working on and stay ahead of requests for information. Being proactive about research will create a buzz for the library in your organization.

4. Given that some federal positions require a set number of training hours per

year, use this time wisely. Show initiative by seeking out new conferences and seminars that might not have been attended by your peers in the past. Expressing interest in programs tailored to specific issues in your agency reflects positively come evaluation time.

5. For those not yet employed by the government, be aware there are ways

other than through USA Jobs to find federal employment. Companies such as Library Associates (www.libraryassociates.com) and InfoCurrent (www.infocurrent.com) offer temporary, temporary to hire, and permanent contract positions in a wide range of agencies. It’s a good way to get your foot in the door and many positions eventually turn into federal jobs.

6. Call upon the resources of your alma mater. We have all paid a dear price for

our degrees, both in time and money. It is up to you to get the return you desire on that investment. There are some who are unaware that career centers at these institutions serve alumni as well, most of the time free of charge. Information about jobs, continuing education classes, lectures, conferences and professional societies are on hand at these centers. While one should not solely rely on their university for professional development, it’s a good supplemental tool as the counselors can oftentimes lend direction towards the goal you are seeking.

These suggestions merely scratch the surface of what is out there in terms of continued learning and career development for information professionals. Having an MLS degree is a great thing, but don’t consider it the be all and end all. Today, there is great emphasis on lifelong learning in the workforce. In order to be effective, we as federal information professionals must take it upon ourselves to stay on the cutting edge. After all, since continuing education has gained so much momentum in the recent past, it is only natural that we will be called upon to assist those in their quest for higher knowledge.

THE MENTOR … WHO, ME?! By Bob Farina, Director, Trademark Law Library Well, depending on how you look at yourself, yes that title could apply to you. Philosophically, I guess there’s some distinction between being a teacher and a mentor. Psychologically, there’s a big difference. Until that day when you wake up and take a look in the mirror and realize you’re not the up-and-coming wannabee that shares information with colleagues, but rather the well-respected, experienced professional that is nurturing the professional skills and abilities of the relative neophytes that surround you, you’re not just a teacher anymore, you’re a mentor. My God, I guess I’ve crossed the line; they’re all so … young! And so it goes. For good or ill, I for one have tried to share my knowledge and experience with all who will listen to me promulgate my wisdom to the masses - about government bureaucracy (everybody already knew about that!), the inclinations of the general voting public, and the innumerable, insufferable observations about everything that is wrong with the library profession. As it turns out, I am just opinionated and getting older, but for some, I have become a mentor. As alluded to above, that label sneaks up on you as younger people actually do listen to what you tell them and then attribute those ideas back to you. Be careful of what you say! One good thing I think I have always told any of those who work with or for me is what should be obvious, “do as I say, not necessarily as I do.” It’s the old “caveat emptor” rule that should have been inbred into all of us early on, if not in library school. Part of that rule is just common sense, but the other part of that is the substance and personality of the person saying it. As a result, that means different things to different people. Those who are willing to go through the painful experience of getting to know me will realize that I sometimes have a unique approach to situations, and depending on many factors, I will approach an “action plan” differently than may be expected. My advice: know thyself – and thy budget, antagonists, friends, enemies, etc. Don’t overanalyze, but size things up realistically, have an idea of what you’re doing, and use all the resources at your disposal to get what you want. Allies help a lot. If you hear that Bugs Bunny voice saying, “oh, how Machiavellian of you, you stinker” then, you’ve got it. Have a sense of humor, know what you’re about, and get the job done. This will work for the good-natured among those who read this, and also the evil bastards who will slash the throats of anyone who get between them and their goal. I wish I could say that in our noble profession that there are not so many of the e.b.’s that exist in so many other enterprises, but, get real Pookie, they’re everywhere; deal with it. Before doing whatever it is I do these days, I worked in a bank, managed fast-food restaurants, and was one of the last of Ma Bell’s employees when

all those upstarts were part of one big happy family. I’ve seen a lot in a couple of different industries; the only difference was the work environment – the people are all the same. So, what I’ve decided is that there need to be certain common rules to live by in any work environment: (1) Have a sense of humor and make sure everyone knows that you have one

even if they don’t. (2) Try to recognize everybody’s human rights. (3) Clocks be damned, as a manager, keep your eye on keeping the customer

happy – time is in the realm of God and Einstein, leave it there. Make sure the doors are open on time, but otherwise realize that not all human beings work the same way.

(4) Give ‘em what they want and throw a few sugar sprinkles on top, especially if your client is one of the big bosses or could potentially have a positive impact on any budget request you may have in the future!

(5) Be as positive as possible but don’t be a wuss. If you disagree with something, speak up; it’s still a democracy no matter what Homeland Security tells you.

(6) When necessary, go toe-to-toe with the enemy and muster all of your allies and resources in advance to win the war totally and unequivocally. (Yes, I know that runs against the grain for most librarians.)

(7) Promote (market) your skills and abilities throughout the organization and tell your most heavy users/clients to sing the praises of the library to everyone at every opportunity.

(8) Be sociable – don’t be just the proverbial bookworm. Get involved in company activities of a social nature, not just the bookish stuff.

(9) Learn more – you don’t ever know as much as you think you do and there’s always something new.

(10) Share everything you know or think you know with everyone who works with you or for you. No one can ever say you didn’t try to help even if they think what you had to share wasn’t helpful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Okay, that would be more than enough for Letterman, so I don’t think I should run on more than I already have. There's much that I haven’t said in the words above that might be intuitive or at least intimated, that would leave me with the ostentatious thought of being a mentor and an enigma. I like that. Let me think that for a while, I’m getting old. Ha, ha. And for the youngsters out there, be patient, listen and don’t assume that you know it all or that you don’t. Take the time to be sure of what you think you know. There may be a chip in your head that hasn’t been activated yet; maybe one of the old codgers can turn you on to it. Peace. Out. : )

“Active participation” means trying out new roles or honing new skills in a supportive environment. If your job does not give you enough opportunities for creativity or public speaking, your association will. The same goes for so many other roles—organizer, leader, recruiter, writer, fundraiser, webmaster, publicity director, technology innovator, etc. Along the way, you’ll move from networking to building relationships. -- Peggy Garvin

It is clear that strategic planning needs to become a priority if we are to continue to flourish in these times of downsizing. How can we use each other's expertise to supplement our own research services? How can we better acquire and share materials? How can we collaborate to develop and expand our training services to other federal law libraries? -- Adriana Younskevicius

Why couldn’t we join together to create a multi-agency network of Federal law libraries that can develop joint collection development policies, research services, disaster recovery plans, training programs, etc.? It would help us learn more from each other; it might actually save some money and effort, and it would make us look very proactive instead of waiting for the “Closed” sign to appear on our door. -- Blane Dessy

I call my recipe the “DOS Librarian-Community Tiramisu.” In Italian, ‘tiramisu’ means ‘pick-me-up,’ and we wanted our DOS event to do just that – enhance our professional knowledge and energize our community to get active. -- Eileen Deegan

In sum, interaction and communication with other law librarians are key to my professional development. -- Janice Litten Washington, D.C, offers so many opportunities for professional development that we, as federal librarians, have no excuse not to take advantage of them. I began attending Federal Law Librarians' meetings during my first year here and found it a great way to meet people and make important professional contacts. -- Mary Grady

INVEST IN YOURSELF: ASSOCIATE AND PARTICIPATE By Peggy Garvin, Chair, SLA Government Information Division [http://www.sla.org/dgi/] Rapid developments in communications and information technology are driving seismic change in the world, the government sector, and the library profession. Of these three parties, the government sector may be the most insulated from the tremors. That is as it should be: governments are meant to last hundreds of years and have the authority to keep themselves going even when the sands and tides shift a bit. Other entities need to innovate and adapt rapidly to survive, and they don’t all succeed at this. Continuity, stability, and caution are the keys to survival of a government. This long-term security allows governments to be innovation leaders in many areas (everything from development of the Internet to space exploration). But when it comes to innovation in your professional life, you will need to look up and over those agency walls. Gone are the days of being able to—or wanting to—spend your entire career at the same agency in the same job or at the same career plateau. Your next job may be outside of your agency or outside of the government altogether. Your next job may be within your agency (it may even be the same post you are filling now), but with a very different set of tasks and goals. Unless your organization has the interest, funding, and insight to groom you for your next job, you have to take the initiative to do it for yourself. I am going to focus on one aspect of professional development -- specifically, professional development through active participation in your professional association. When you read “active participation in your professional association,” what image comes to mind? Is it conferences in fun cities; opportunities to speak and write; pesky obligations to speak and write; opportunities to lead your peers; never-ending board meetings; happy hour camaraderie; dreadful reception small talk; burdensome time commitments; people to turn to in a reference stumper crisis; more email piling up in your inbox; free pens and Post-Its™ from vendors; or something else? Whatever you’re thinking, I encourage you to conjure up an image of “investment.” This investment may be pennies going into an account to steadily accrue interest, or it could be dollars going into a stock that could net a huge windfall. In a time of change, the time that change hits you personally is not the time to start preparing for it. Invest and prepare for the future today. There are numerous professional associations for librarians, and you probably belong to at least one of them. The level at which you invest—that is, participate—in your association corresponds to your return on that investment. By simple virtue of being a member, you probably get: another line to list on your résumé, discounts on conferences and training, career information and a jobs clearinghouse, a monthly magazine, access to various discussion lists, and other goodies. Being a member of a

professional association is an excellent way to start taking control of your own professional development. You certainly are investing: memberships cost money that not all employers reimburse, and keeping up with information from the association requires your time. Going up the investment ladder a step, you can take advantage of the conferences, training, and networking opportunities your association provides. Your agency may offer a wealth of training; this is certainly one of the perks of being a government employee. But, if you are taking control of your professional development, you will probably recognize that you have some unique training needs that cannot be met in-house. This is where your professional association can help. And networking? I hesitate to use the term because it means many different things to different people. Networking is more than handing out business cards at receptions. Ultimately, it means expanding your sphere of contacts, broadening your professional horizons, and beginning to establish relationships outside of your immediate circle. The Internet is breaking down old borders between people, institutions, and professions. You’ll want to meet some of these border-crossers because they will be coming into what you previously thought of as your secure library domain. There is much more to be said about networking than this brief article will allow. For those who consider themselves introverts, I recommend a new blog, Power Networking for Introverts [http://www.introvertscannetwork.com/] by Marcy Phelps, a member of the Special Libraries Association and the Association of Independent Information Professionals. By taking a few more steps up the ladder, you’ll reach the level of “active participation.” Instead of taking a class through your association, try teaching a class through your association. Don’t just attend a seminar; report on it for your association newsletter or blog. If you don’t like networking at receptions, try networking by helping to organize a program or by contributing to the discussion on a listserv. “Active participation” means trying out new roles or honing new skills in a supportive environment. If your job does not give you enough opportunities for creativity or public speaking, your association will. The same goes for so many other roles—organizer, leader, recruiter, writer, fundraiser, webmaster, publicity director, technology innovator, etc. Along the way, you’ll move from networking to building relationships. These relationships can provide you with tips about new opportunities, a sounding board for career decisions, answers to questions, job recommendations, and insight you can’t obtain on your own. That’s a positive return on your investment and a solid foundation for innovation in your professional life.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE POWER OF PEERS By Adriana Younskevicius, Special Assistant to the Director, U.S. Department of Justice Libraries

Professional development is not just about taking classes and attending conferences. While these are important aspects of it, professional development can--and, I believe, should--involve working with the federal law library community beyond our respective agencies.

To that end, in July 2006, I invited my fellow Federal Law Library colleagues to an informal meet and greet at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Annual Conference. I am pleased to say that approximately 40 librarians took me up on my invitation! As a result, an AALL Federal Law Librarians Caucus has been formed! You can see our listing at: http://www.aallnet.org/caucus/.

When you click on the Caucus link, you will see that the Caucus web page is an attempt to create a multi-agency network of federal law libraries and to develop joint collection development policies, research services, disaster recovery plans, training programs, etc. The idea is to help us learn more from each other and perhaps actually save some money and effort in the process. It is so important for us to look proactive in these days of declining resources rather than waiting until the "Closed" signs appear on our doors.

In addition to the Caucus web page, a listserv was formed to address issues, ideas, and projects for us to undertake as Federal Law Librarians. I believe that this listserv has the potential to be a great communication vehicle for librarians scattered around the country and I would encourage everyone to join! This is an opportunity to share ideas and exchange opinions with your colleagues in what are certainly challenging times. To sign up for the listserv you can either go to http://share.aallnet.org/read/ and subscribe via the web or you can send an email to the list manager at owner-fllc@aallnet.org. Once you are a member you can post to the listserv by sending an email to fllc@aallnet.org. Please know that you do not have to be a member of AALL to join the caucus or the listserv.

A number of interesting topics have already been introduced on the listserv. The concept of the embedded librarian generated a great deal

of discussion. The subject of federal law library closures is naturally a concern to us all and postings with updates have appeared on the listserv. Perhaps the most provocative thread dealt with developing collaborative relationships for the purposes of research services, collection development, and training. Other ideas that have been put forward are a bibliographic project such as a shared online catalog and a collaborative electronic reference service.

There is still a great deal that we could discuss, however. Marketing methods used by various libraries, training for staff transitioning from LexisNexis and Westlaw software to the .com versions, inter-agency ILL possibilities, resource sharing, and creating a federal law library directory are all issues worth exploring. Right now at the Department of Justice, we have several things that we are beginning to put our thoughts together about. We are spending time talking about the next couple of decades in our library and what the future may hold long term. We have also been addressing the issue of the future of our online catalog and how to make it even more robust and useful to our clients. Also, we are beginning to look at our need to prepare our younger staff for assuming leadership positions. The issues above are suitable for a consortium of federal law libraries to explore. It is clear that strategic planning needs to become a priority if we are to continue to flourish in these times of downsizing. How can we use each other's expertise to supplement our own research services? How can we better acquire and share materials? How can we collaborate to develop and expand our training services to other federal law libraries?

We can use vehicles such as the AALL Federal Law Librarians Caucus to start to find the answers to these issues, get to know our fellow federal law librarians better, and gain valuable professional development experiences!

FEDERAL LAW LIBRARIES AND THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERESTING COLLABORATIONS Blane Dessy, Director, Library Staff, Justice Management Division, U.S. Department of Justice Libraries, shares some thoughts on federal librarianship and the value of collaboration.

I think it’s time that we take a deep breath and take a hard look at some of the challenges facing us as Federal law librarians. Budgets are shrinking, staffs are being reduced (usually through attrition), electronic resources are on the desktop, and other types of Federal libraries are being downsized or eliminated. So far it seems that law libraries have escaped the latest trend in Federal library dissolution. But, I, for one, don’t want to wait for the other shoe to drop if there’s something that we can do to change the future.

I’ll admit that I have a bias for library networking and resource sharing, so I often frame solutions in those terms. I do think the time is right for Federal law librarians to become much more serious about developing collaborative relationships for the purposes of research services, collection development, and training. Each of these areas is suitable for a consortium of Federal law libraries to explore how we could better acquire and share materials, how we could use each other’s expertise to supplement our own research services, and how we could collaborate to develop and expand our training services to other Federal law libraries. Yes, I know that some of this happens now because I hear of it anecdotally, but it seems that what happens is ad hoc, word of mouth cooperation with no firm basis in strategic planning or network development.

Why couldn’t we join together to create a multi-agency network of Federal law libraries that can develop joint collection development policies, research services, disaster recovery plans, training programs, etc.? It would help us learn more from each other; it might actually save some money and effort, and it would make us look very proactive instead of waiting for the “Closed” sign to appear on our door.

The American Association of Law Libraries now has a Federal Law Libraries caucus and this forum could be a way of initiating these conversations. Who wants to help?

Originally Posted to the Federal Info Pro on December 28, 2006

A RECIPE FOR A STATE DEPARTMENT LIBRARIAN–COMMUNITY UPDATE By Eileen Deegan, Librarian / Program Analyst, U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs; deeganeg@state.gov On a chilly Monday last December, 25th, Washington-based librarians from the State Department’s diverse corps gathered at our Southwest DC offices for a noon-hour “Government Information Community Update.” Our featured speaker, Marie Kaddell, showcased unique new resources, including the LexisNexis Government Info Pro blog and SLA’s Government Information Division. In the spirit of Marie’s creative “Best Practices Collaborative Document,” I am presenting my event in “recipe form.” Like all good recipes, I hope this inspires you to host a similar program for your own government professional community. Feel free to adapt it to suit your tastes! I call my recipe the “DOS Librarian-Community Tiramisu.” In Italian, ‘tiramisu’ means ‘pick-me-up,’ and we wanted our DOS event to do just that – enhance our professional knowledge and energize our community to get active.

DOS Librarian-Community ‘Tiramisu’

Advance Preparation Get your supervisor’s permission to hold your update. Invite the guest speaker; choose a mutually convenient date and time; and

discuss the program’s topic, scope, and follow-up materials. Invite all members of your government information community via e-mail and

request that they RSVP. Decide which refreshments to serve -- I recommend baking a memorable

dessert and providing a basic beverage.

Special Equipment Confer with your IT department to arrange for an Internet-connected PC,

projector, and screen. Reserve a sufficiently large room. Ensure you have enough seats for your audience, and adequate tables for

your refreshments and handouts. Buy refreshment supplies and dessert ingredients.

Directions: Presenting Your Community-Update

At mid-morning:

Set up your audience’s chairs, and the tables and supplies.

Test your equipment to ensure that you can log on, access specific Internet sites and PowerPoint, and operate your projector.

Half-an-hour before:

Meet your speaker and jointly review your program’s outline. Lay out the dessert and beverage items you have prepared and brought.

[Our event featured Austrian Cream Cheese Bars, Chewy Butterscotch Brownies, and bottled water. Recipes for these popular desserts are available by request, e-mail: deeganeg@state.gov. Alternatively, you could actually serve tiramisu!].

At the appointed hour:

Greet your guests at the door, and invite them to enjoy refreshments and converse with friends and colleagues in the presentation room.

15 minutes later:

Start the presentation by welcoming your audience and introducing your speaker.

During the next half hour, as the speaker delivers her prepared remarks, “drive the pc.” Your assistance in operating the equipment allows her to focus on the audience.

For an effective presentation, use well-designed PowerPoint slides as the primary visual aid, augmented by selected, live webpages. For example, see Marie’s presentation slides at this link: Government Information Community Update.

The speaker wraps up her presentation by taking the audience’s questions. As the presentation concludes:

Thank the speaker. Invite the audience to enjoy the refreshments and additional conversation,

and to pick up the handouts. End the formal program by thanking your colleagues for attending.

After the event:

Send the attendees a follow-up e-mail, containing a link to the presentation slides, and other resources covered in the program. For example, Marie sent links to such resources as the Government Info Pro Blog (http://www.federalinfopro.com) and registration details for joining the SLA Government Information Division (http://units.sla.org/division/dgi/pages/joinus.html)

There you have it, a simple recipe for a professional-development ‘tiramisu’ – limited advance preparation; a resourceful, enthusiastic presenter; and a tasty dessert. Buono appetito!

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNICATION By Janice Litten, Librarian, United States Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California A commitment to providing quality services to my patrons and organization moves me to constantly question and seek ways to improve my professional skills/knowledge and is the reason why I value any opportunity for professional development. Being a solo librarian, I’ve always found attending the AALL Annual Meetings and local law librarian workshops invaluable in keeping pace with the technological changes in our dynamic profession. Also, conversations or lunches with other librarians and inquiring about how they handle management, acquisitions, or reference issues are always learning experiences. I wish I had more time for professional reading, but fortunately, other librarians are great at pointing out “don’t miss” articles. In sum, interaction and communication with other law librarians are key to my professional development.

MEETING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT REQUIREMENTS

By Mary Grady, Law Librarian, Environmental Protection Agency

Washington, D.C, offers so many opportunities for professional development that we, as federal librarians, have no excuse not to take advantage of them. I began attending Federal Law Librarians' meetings during my first year here and found it a great way to meet people and make important professional contacts. Serving as the president of the group and as an LLSDC officer has helped me get a better perspective on the local professional law library community. Sometimes our agencies impose professional development requirements on us which take us outside of our librarian comfort zone. My agency now requires me, as a contracting officer's representative (COR), to take 40 hours of training every two years to enhance my proficiency in the area of acquisition and contracts. Besides the standard certification class to remain a COR, I am allowed to take classes which help me better understand the products and services I acquire. I was aware that LexisNexis offered a Certificate of Mastery training program, but I hadn't taken advantage of it. Now, however, I appreciate the opportunity LexisNexis has provided to help me fulfill my acquisition training requirement.

Some of the benefits I have gained over the years as a member of all 3 groups [ALA, SLA, FEDLINK]: 1) Had lunch with author, Dale Brown in New Orleans (as a member of the old

Armed Forces Librarian Roundtable) 2) Appeared in a plaza segment of the Today Show (as a part of the Military

Librarians Division 50th anniversary festivities in 2003) 3) Learned about some of the federal rules on the use of wireless technology

(contacted the FEDLINK Content Management Working Group) 4) Learned to line dance, saw the Stanley Cup, and rode a Duck at different

conferences. -- Pat Alderman

Such is the dilemma of the librarian today. If a librarian does not take ownership of his/her education, they will fall behind and become a liability in their library rather than an asset. Our profession is changing at record speed. Is today’s librarian also changing to meet the new challenges they must face? There must be a personal investment made in your career to maintain it. -- Cornell Winston

The act of inserting oneself into a completely new situation with new people, new processes and new expectations (your own and others’) is highly underrated in the discussion of professional development. -- Betty McKibben

Instead of looking for co-workers or friends at social or educational events, seek out people you *don’t* know. And then introduce yourself! (Some of my favorite people in the world I’ve met by randomly sitting at a table filled with strangers!) Besides, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to talk with your co-workers when you get back home. -- Michael St. Onge

And last, but certainly not least, your friends and colleagues inside and outside of the association will want you to succeed for your sake. For me, these friends and colleagues were particularly helpful as sounding boards for those times when I needed a more balanced or independent perspective on a particular challenge or strategy that I might be contemplating. -- Linda Hutchinson

ROLL YOUR OWN—PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES YOU CAN CREATE FOR YOURSELF By Pat Alderman, Systems Librarian, National Defense University Library Member of the Federal and Armed Forces Librarian Round Table, ALA Director at large and Webmaster, Military Librarians Division, SLA Member of the FEDLINK Advisory Council (FAC) Do you ever feel left out because your federal library is not big or well funded? Do you feel that all of the opportunities are only available to the feds who live in New York, Boston, Washington, DC, Chicago, Los Angeles or San Francisco? Does your current job fail to offer you the opportunity for growth? The following organizations have opportunities tailored for federal library community: Whether you are a seasoned veteran or a brand new librarian, these organizations have a place for you. American Library Association (Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Round Table), Special Libraries Association (Government Information Division and the Military Librarians Division) Federal Library Network (FEDLINK) All three organizations offer you an opportunity to volunteer for committees or working groups. You can acquire technical skills by volunteering as a webmaster, wiki participant, conference blogger, discussion list owner. You can acquire leadership skills by running for an elected office or becoming a committee chair. Learn first hand about program management by volunteering to run a program or help plan a conference. Gain public speaking experience by presenting a paper at a local, regional or national meeting, introducing a speaker, participating on a panel. Some of the benefits I have gained over the years as a member of all 3 groups:

1) Had lunch with author, Dale Brown in New Orleans (as a member of the old Armed Forces Librarian Roundtable)

2) Appeared in a plaza segment of the Today Show (as a part of the Military Librarians Division 50th anniversary festivities in 2003)

3) Learned about some of the federal rules on the use of wireless technology (contacted the FEDLINK Content Management Working Group)

4) Learned to line dance, saw the Stanley Cup, and rode a Duck at different conferences.

Patricia Alderman Systems Librarian National Defense University Library Washington, DC 20319 The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of the National Defense University or the Department of Defense.

FEDERAL LIBRARIANS CONTINUING EDUCATION By Cornell Winston, Law Librarian, United States Attorney's Office, Central District of California; Executive Board Member, American Association of Law Libraries TAKING RESPONSIBILITY Many years ago, you could depend on your Social Security Benefits to provide for your needs after you retired. Many companies had generous retirement packages that would provide a pension, and health benefits upon retirement. If you worked for one of these companies you did not worry about this area of your life, but put your trust in Company X to take care of you. But times changed. Today, if a person does not plan for retirement in their early years, their retirement years will not be happy. Today’s American worker must invest in their 401(k) plan, Individual Retirement Account (IRA), or some other retirement vehicle to insure a proper stream of income in their golden years. What has developed in our retirement planning is quickly becoming the case in our professional lives as librarians. In years past we trusted our employer to take an active role in our continuing education and training. Attendance at conferences, participation in library associations was the rule rather than the exception. Your employer invested in your education. But times have changed. In many private law offices and governmental agencies, the employee must take an active role in his/her education if they want to remain current in their chosen profession. Such is the dilemma of the librarian today. If a librarian does not take ownership of his/her education, they will fall behind and become a liability in their library rather than an asset. Our profession is changing at record speed. Is today’s librarian also changing to meet the new challenges they must face? There must be a personal investment made in your career to maintain it. STAYING CURRENT These simple steps can help to make a federal librarian’s continuing education possible:

Determine what area of librarianship most interests you. Seek to master in that area. Then submit a program proposal to assist others in learning what you have mastered.

Make it your goal to learn one new facet quarterly in that area.

It may be from a book or journal article you read or a program you

attend. When information vendors have programs, try to attend. There may be a small sales pitch, but you don’t have to buy it. Remember learning is a classroom setting is not the only vehicle available to you. Podcast, streaming video of a presentation, written program materials are also available that are often free or at minimal cost. The Southern California Association of Law Libraries (SCALL) has purchased a complete set of audiotapes from the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Annual Meeting that is housed at the Los Angeles County Law Library for the last several years. Check to see what arrangements are possible to purchase a audio of a particular program that interests you. It’s a small price to pay in many situations.

Find ways to notify your supervisors about what you have

learned and how it has benefited the organization. Be your own press room! Many people still think it is very easy to locate and manage information. The phrase, “everything is online” is true if you only want the simplest of information. We know it may be available, but it may not be free, may not be current, might not be reliable, and it might not be in a format that you can utilize. Creating newsletters, blogs and intranet sites can accomplish this goal. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, learn to squeak

Maintain an active membership in your local and national

library associations. They are not just a group of people with like interests, but the best opportunities for networking and skill development. The journals and newsletters produced by local and national associations provide you an opportunity to stay connected to your profession.

Volunteer for a committee. Don’t be afraid of the extra work! We

are all very busy, but should never be to busy to make an investment in your career. The best source of professional development is from another librarian doing the job. What can you learn from them that can make your library a better resource?

Make it your goal to attend a professional conference at least

every other year. YES, THERE IS A COST TO THIS, especially if your employer does not pay. Times are changing. You paid for an undergraduate degree, and for your graduate degree, make that same investment in your postgraduate employment.

Your best investment in your future IS YOU! Invest early and often and see your dividends. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not those of the Department of Justice or the United States Attorney's Office Central District of California.

CHANGING JOBS: A MEANS TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT By Betty McKibben, LexisNexis Research Consultant The term “job-hopping” has historically negative connotations. Twenty years ago, when I went from my first full-time job, then to library school, then new job #1, new job #2 and new job #3, all within 5 years, some family and friends wondered what kind of commitment problem I had. My sister in-law still pats me understandingly when I change jobs (not quite as frequently now, mind you.) And, I will admit, at times I wondered if I had a job commitment problem, too. But as I look back on my 20 year career as a librarian, I know that with each job change, I grew immensely, both professionally and personally. My commitment was to myself and my internal concept of how I wanted my career to evolve, whether consciously or unconsciously. The act of inserting oneself into a completely new situation with new people, new processes and new expectations (your own and others’) is highly underrated in the discussion of professional development. Like the mute townspeople staring at the emperor who had no clothes, we often fail to admit, even to ourselves, let alone to our employers, that what we need professionally is a change of scenery. Few employers would wish that their (best) associates might stretch themselves most by exiting their current role completely and leaving the company. When we fill out the section of our annual performance appraisal that asks us to list our professional development goals and specific activities for the coming year, no one dares write: “Find a new job (outside this company) doing something I don’t know how to do yet.” But it is precisely that act, as painful as it is, especially during the first year, which forces you to grow, develop, and realign your true direction. I am not knocking the stalwarts of positions that grow with their changing position and role. I just know that, personally, I needed to keep moving through the concepts of what I perceived as me-the-librarian. My first job out of library school was buying materials for a county public library bond issue. For seven months, I just spent money. It was fun. But computers were up and coming at the time (1986) and something told me that as a librarian, I needed to get ahead of the curve. I had done some FoxBASE (Dbase clone program) programming in library school and convinced a non-profit that I could do analysis (reports) on the data collected for studies they published on various subjects. I remember my father saying “Get the job first, and then worry about learning how to do it.” I knew I could do it (learn) but my understanding was very rudimentary and I did not know how much I had to learn. Learn I did. I became the office pc whiz, the “go-to” person when printers or computers decided to mutiny. After three years of intimacy with glowing screens, I missed the books and working with human beings. I went back the library. Within a single public library system, I went from being a children’s librarian, to the reference desk, and finally to my (then) dream job: computer systems person and liaison to the county IT department. STRETCH and a half.

Next, unsolicited, the IT department of a large corporation made me a rather large (to me) offer and, thinking I needed money, once again I ventured into uncharted waters. My professional development centered on learning the world of for-profit for the first time in my career. It was enlightening. Main area of professional development: business-speak (words like mitigate and leverage) [Now here is my token URL for this article: http://www.fightthebull.com. Run your Microsoft Word or PowerPoint document through this free program to rate against The Bull Composite that includes the Bull Index and the Flesch Reading Ease indices. The Bull Index counts the frequency and severity of jargon and the Flesch focuses on sentence length and syllable count.] Most recently, I moved on to my current position because, once again the eternal opportunist (and sometimes optimist), I knew it was time to explore new people, places, ideas, and new parts of me I did not know existed. As a Research Consultant for LexisNexis, my job is to empower researchers to discover the right answers using LexisNexis solutions. I meet many interesting people delving into a myriad of topics. I am continuing to develop as a professional learning legal research, as well a multiplicity of products and customers with combinations of those. It continues to be a challenge. As I write this, I just realized that today is my one year anniversary! Happy Anniversary, Me! I want to say that I see the light at the end of the tunnel but the company is running faster than I am. So I guess you can tell my boss I won’t be moving on anytime soon. ___________________________________________________________________ P.S. Bullfighter rated this article 94% on the BULL Index. It just asked me to change the word “empower” two paragraphs ago. It did give me the option to add some bull terms but, out of respect to my fellow librarians, I restrained myself. * Betty McKibben is a Librarian and LexisNexis Federal Research Consultant

SUMMER TIME - AND THE LEARNING IS EASY:

Making The Most of This Summer's Educational Programming!

By Michael Saint-Onge, Sr. Librarian Relations Consultant LexisNexis Librarian Relations Group

The summer months are filled with the wonderful chances to learn: both SLA and the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) hold their annual meetings in the summer. Here are some ways to capitalize on the educational opportunities that these meetings afford:

• BREAK OUT OF YOUR SHELL The best advice anyone has ever given me regarding the annual meeting was about getting out of my comfort zone. We don’t like it, I know, and yet it’s a great opportunity to meet new people and learn new things. Instead of looking for co-workers or friends at social or educational events, seek out people you *don’t* know. And then introduce yourself! (Some of my favorite people in the world I’ve met by randomly sitting at a table filled with strangers!) Besides, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to talk with your co-workers when you get back home.

For some tips on shaking your shyness, check out: http://www.shakeyourshyness.com/businessshyness.htm)

• ACT LIKE A SPONGE These meetings allow you to broaden your perspective. While you should definitely attend those sessions that are directly related to your current job (especially if your employer is paying your way…), don’t limit it to just those programs. Mix it up. You private law librarians will find many academic programs of interest, and you academics would undoubtedly find some of the private or state, court, or county offerings of interest as well. See how the other folks do it. We do ourselves a great disservice when we don’t think outside our library-type when we’re looking for educational programs.

While you’re at it, don’t forget to seek out programs addressing broader issues that are relevant to your profession. You are more than your current job, and I’d like to think we’re all concerned about privacy, literacy, educating users, etc., even if none of these topics are directly related to what you do right now for a living.

Lastly, I always like to attend at least one session on something I know absolutely nothing about (and, unfortunately, that’s often easy for me to

locate just such a topic, especially as our profession gets more specialized!) It’s all about expanding your personal horizons.

• TAKE THE QUIZ AALL publishes the Personal Learning Inventory in the final Annual Meeting program. It’s a great checklist that can help you develop your own personal education plan. Check it out. See how many items you can check off by the end of the meeting, and then use that as your set point for next year’s meeting!

• STEP FORWARD There are lots of ways to expand your education at these annual meetings, and one of the best ways is to volunteer. (Several librarians I know have even leveraged their involvement in the annual meeting to get their firms to pay for their attendance. Nice job!) The best part about it? There are so many opportunities that it is possible to choose one that matches the amount of time you have to devote to it! From the local arrangements desk, to the Annual Meeting newspaper, to putting together a program proposal for next year -- there are lots of ways to get involved.

• WORK THE HALL Don’t forget the wonderful opportunity the exhibit hall provides: you get to see new things coming down the pike, ask questions, provide feedback – often to the very people who are responsible for the product. Yes, the give-aways are nice, but I like learning about the new products, so I always try to find the stations or booths that are not mobbed. It gives me a chance to ask questions and interact on a more personal basis. Be sure to pick up the literature, and feel free to contact your local representative when you get back if you want to know more about the product or want to try it out.

ADDITIONAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES: If a conference isn’t in the cards this year, or if you are looking for additional training there are still things you can do to educate yourself.

• WE’LL BRING IT TO YOU! The LexisNexis Librarian Relations Group holds sessions across the country for those individuals that didn’t have the chance to attend the conferences. Contact your local LRC to see when this is scheduled in your area. If there isn’t a live session scheduled, we would be more than happy to conduct one telephonically. Federal Librarians, please contact your Information Professional Consultant, Marie Kaddell.

Even if you did get a chance to attend the annual meetings, these sessions are helpful – it’s sometimes difficult to see a product in-depth

and ask questions when you’re surrounded by other librarians that just want their card stamped to move on to the next station!

• BRING IT HOME YOURSELF! AALL offers tapes and handout materials for sale on aallnet. (http://www.aallnet.org/products/products_educational.asp) This is also good for previous years as well. Many local AALL chapters purchase the tapes and share them among the members, or you might check with some of the academic institutions to see if they purchased the set. You can turn that commute to work on the train into a learning opportunity!

• LIFE-LONG LEARNING Whether you’re able to attend an annual meeting or not, as librarians we should strive for life-long learning. It’s only by changing and adapting to our environment that we’ll be able to survive as a profession, and educating ourselves is the best means of staying ahead of the curve. Here at LexisNexis, we’re committed to helping you do just that! Enjoy!

Originally published as the June 2006 LexisNexis Info Pro Monthly Column.

DEVELOPING LEADERS - SLA 2006

David E. McBee, Senior Reference Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, shares his notes from an SLA session on Developing Leaders presented by Ken Haycock, Professor & Director, School of Library and Information Science, San Jose University. You can read a more in-depth post on the Developing Leaders presentation and more of David's posts on SLA 2006 sessions on his blog - Library Buzz.

The developing leader has to want to develop. Many people don’t want to step up to the leadership role and the jobs are going to people outside the profession.

Leadership isn’t just about supervising staff. There’s more to it than that.

Management and leadership: are they different? How? Managers do things right, leaders do the right thing. Leaders motivate people and move things along toward the end goal. Over 200 definitions – pick one you like.

Four competencies:

• Managing attention • Managing meaning – leader is responsible for the organization’s culture. We

often review whether the event occurred rather than did we meet our objectives.

• Managing trust – are we fair? • Managing oneself – two most important people we manage are ourselves and

the person we report to. What reports does the boss want?

Leadership skills

• Agreement building – some people like to block change – don’t let them • Networking • Non-jurisdictional power • Institution-building – we promote what we permit. Don’t condone

inappropriate behaviors. Conflict avoidance isn’t a good thing. Politics – art & science of allocating resources

• Communication

The 5 “f’s”

• Focused • Flexible • Friendly • Fast (don’t dawdle) • Fun

Originally Posted to the Federal Info Pro on June 21, 2006

SO YOU’VE BEEN ELECTED!

The Value of Taking a Leadership Role in Your Professional Association

By Linda Hutchinson, Sr. LexisNexis Librarian Relations Consultant, [Now Reference Librarian, IRS Counsel Library]

When I was approached in 2004 by the SLA Maryland Chapter’s Nominations Committee about running for office, I hesitated.

I had already reaped benefits of being a participating member in various associations – a broadened network of professional colleagues and resources, learning opportunities through local and national programs, and some new friends who shared my addiction to chocolate. Plus, the SLA Maryland Chapter had a number of major events and projects coming up – among them, a 75th anniversary, a web site that needed a major redesign, and the 2006 SLA Annual Conference in Baltimore.

Why, then, should I take on a leadership role in this professional association?

Now that my tenure as President of the SLA Maryland Chapter is coming to an end, I’d like to share with you three ways in which assuming a leadership role in a professional organization can result in professional and personal enrichment.

• Develop your leadership potential in a supportive environment: o The SLA Maryland Chapter Board and membership provided a

safe and supportive environment in part because it is in the interest of the chapter to develop and encourage potential leaders and build a pipeline of future leaders. I sought out mentors on the Chapter Board and in the membership community to advise me.

o Likewise, it is to the benefit of the association that leaders are identified, nurtured and supported. Look for association resources and participate in association leadership development efforts, exemplified by SLA’s Leadership Center web site, Leadership Summits and Leadership Institutes. The SLA leadership resources proved to be invaluable, providing practical advice on running a chapter and developing leadership skills.

o And last, but certainly not least, your friends and colleagues inside and outside of the association will want you to succeed for your sake. For me, these friends and colleagues were particularly helpful as sounding boards for those times when I needed a more balanced or independent perspective on a particular challenge or strategy that I might be contemplating.

o Tip: I encourage you to take the free Franklin Covey assessment. Just taking the assessment raised my sensitivity to certain management and collaborative aspects of leadership and gave me quick insight into potential weaknesses and strengths.

• Improve your ability to get things done while working on a team:

o Collaborating with others is a hallmark of our work environment today. Frequently, teams do not remain static but change members and responsibilities as the organizational missions, strategies and goals change. Fostering teamwork when members at times must rely on conference calls, email and other virtual contact can sometimes be a challenge especially when time or budget runs short and decisions must be made. Seeing what worked and what didn’t as chapter president helped me to become more effective in other areas of my life, personally as well as professionally.

o In a volunteer environment, it is even more critical to express appreciation, delegate appropriately, be sensitive to time constraints, and give teams the support (and political cover, if needed) to get things done. Moreover, the talent, expertise and experience abundant in the membership of the SLA Maryland Chapter were frequently much greater than my own. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing projects come together and in many instances, simply had to learn how to get out of the way!

o Tip: Although I am still not entirely comfortable with Robert’s Rules of Order, I put into practice many of the suggestions my colleague Jenny Kanji spoke of in her column “Meetings, Bloody Meetings.” Learning to run an effective meeting is an indispensable project management and leadership skill.

• Deepen existing relationships and form new friendships:

o Over the last two years, as President-Elect and then President, I have worked closely with professionals I have long respected and I value the new friendships I have made.

So as you can see, I overcame my hesitation to take on a leadership role – and I am glad that I did! I hope my comments or leadership resources that accompany this article inspire you to consider accepting a leadership role in your organizations.

Leadership Resources

Bibliographies:

• Research Center for Leadership in Action Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service New York University Leadership Bibliography http://www.wagner.nyu.edu/leadership/links/leadership.html

• James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership University of Maryland Select Leadership Bibliography http://www.academy.umd.edu/Publications/leadership/leadership_bib.htm

• Council on Library/Media Technicians Leadership: A Bibliography (2001) http://colt.ucr.edu/bibleadership.html

Leadership Development web sites:

• Center for Creative Leadership http://www.ccl.org/leadership/index.aspx

• Franklin Covey Coaching: 4 Roles of Leadership http://www.franklincoveycoaching.com/4_roles_of_leadership.cfm http://www.franklincoveycoaching.com/free_assessment.cfm (free assessment)

• Outward Bound Professional Development Programs http://www.outwardbound.org/professional.vp.html

• SLA Professional Development http://www.sla.org/content/learn/index.cfm Leadership Center http://www.sla.org/content/resources/leadcenter/index.cfm

Originally published as the October 2006 LexisNexis Info Pro Monthly Column.

AALL FEDERAL LAW LIBRARIES CAUCUS Make sure to visit check out the AALL Federal Law Caucus

at http://www.aallnet.org/caucus/fllc/

SLA/DGI WEBSITE AND BLOG Another important specialized resource for federal librarians

is SLA’s Division of Government Information site at

http://units.sla.org/division/dgi/index.html.

SLA/DGI WEBSITE BLOG Also, visit the Government Information Division Blog at

http://sla-

divisions.typepad.com/government_information/.

FEDERAL INFO PRO BLOG Make sure to visit check out the LexisNexis Federal Info

Pro blog at http://www.federalinfopro.com. You can

subscribe via your RSS reader or even get email updates.

PROMOTING YOU AND YOUR LIBRARY LexisNexis has just developed a resource to help you market yourself

and your library year-round – Promoting You and Your Library at

http://www.lexisnexis.com/infopro/training/toolkits/default.asp#book

marks. It retains many of the aspects of the popular LexisNexis annual

Library Week Toolkits but provides even more resources than before.

LEXISNEXIS LIBRARIAN CERTIFICATE OF MASTERY LexisNexis Librarian Certificate of Mastery Program

Register Now!

Sign up for the advanced level training program designed especially for law librarian subscribers! Developed by librarians for librarians, the LexisNexis Librarian Certificate of Mastery Program will enhance your research skills and efficiency and increase your value to your organization.

And it's FREE to LexisNexis Subscribers!

Upon completion of the Program, you'll receive a special Certificate to proudly display your accomplishment, along with a special congratulatory gift.

What does the program entail? Area of Law Specialization Course Descriptions How do I sign up?

What Does the Program Entail?

You receive your Certificate of Mastery after completing three core modules that cover the advanced searching methods law librarians need to find the information they require most often:

• Primary Law Research on lexis.com • Analytical Resources on lexis.com

and either:

• News and Business Research on lexis.com

OR

• CourtLink for Litigation

Training for each individual module lasts approximately 60 minutes, after which you must successfully complete an online skills assessment to earn credit towards your Certificate.

You may complete the modules in any order, and you must complete all three of the modules in the program within one calendar year in order to earn your Certificate of Mastery.

Your LexisNexis Librarian Relations Consultant will conduct the training either in person or telephonically, in a one-on-one or group setting at a time convenient to you.

As an additional benefit to those librarians who are also JDs, these courses can be used to satisfy your CLE requirements.

Area of Law Specialization

You can earn a separate certificate for completing any of our individual Area of Law Specialty modules, which provide in-depth training on specific topical areas. These courses consist of just a single 60-minute training session with your Librarian Relations Consultant and require successful completion of an online skills assessment associated with the subject in order to receive a certificate.

Currently, there are seven different Area of Law Specialty modules available, with two additional ones scheduled for release later in 2006:

• Federal Legislative Research • LexisNexis® CourtLink® for Client Development • Federal Securities Research • Global Law, News and Business Information on the LexisNexis®

Services • Tax Resources on the LexisNexis Services • Patent Research • Labor & Employment Resources • Insurance • Bankruptcy

Course Descriptions

Core Modules for the Certificate of Mastery:

• Primary Law Research on lexis.com

Get the most out of your primary law research by taking full advantage of LexisNexis editorial enhancements like Case Summaries, Core Terms and Core Concepts to enrich

your research of caselaw, statutes and regulations. Draw on the full power of the Shepard’s® Citations Service as both a cite-checking tool and a research tool.

• Analytical Resources on lexis.com

Thoroughly investigate the types of sources that provide an overview of a legal topic and discover new methods of seeking insight and background information on an issue.

• News and Business Research on lexis.com

Deepen your skills using news and business sources in such assignments as: assessing the legal climate in a particular area; seeking potential new clients; examining a particular company, its product, financials, senior management, and competitive situation; conducting due diligence for a potential merger; and more.

• CourtLink for Litigation

Find new ways to develop strategic profiles of litigants' case histories, opposing counsel arguments in previous cases, and pleadings a judge has found compelling in the past to uncover information critical to a successful litigation outcome.

Area of Law Specialization Modules:

• Federal Legislative Research

The LexisNexis Total Research System offers dependable, comprehensive information about every step in the U.S. federal legislative process. Whether you are monitoring a bill's progress or developing a legislative history on a statute in question, the precision search techniques of lexis.com can help you spend less time looking for information and more time analyzing the information you need. Increase your familiarity with LexisNexis federal legislative resources including bill tracking, committee reports, hearing transcripts and testimony, the Congressional Record, the Statutes At Large, and the Congressional Information Service (CIS) Legislative Publications.

• LexisNexis® CourtLink® for Client Development

LexisNexis now offers a whole new way to identify and target your client development opportunities and build client connections to help you grow your firm’s business. In this module you will learn about client development and marketing best practices using CourtLink, Dossier, and Martindale-Hubbell. Such topics as protecting and growing your business with existing and prospective clients, determining client share with existing clients and identifying market trends will be covered during the training.

• Federal Securities Research

From current awareness updates to in-depth analytical treatises, from SEC releases and filings to public records, the LexisNexis Total Research System offers an authoritative and easy-to-use collection of materials in the area of federal securities law. Explore the resources available to locate pertinent information on M&A activity, company and financial background, securities industry news, rules and regulations, or sample clauses and agreements. Enhance your skills by learning about some of the segments unique to federal securities research.

• Global Law, News and Business Information on the LexisNexis® Services

Complex issues and events that transcend geopolitical boundaries have profound effects on your life and business. LexisNexis recognizes that the global village and marketplace of the 21st century is a reality and that now, more than ever, there is a vital need for access to a broad base of international information, such as International Patents, Treaties & Agreements, Country Reports & Analysis, and International Trade Documents. Discover how to achieve unparalleled access to an extensive collection of international legal, news and business information through LexisNexis at www.lexis.com and the Global Law and Business Practice Page.

• Tax Resources on the LexisNexis Services

LexisNexis provides a one-stop shop for a wealth of tax resources such as Tax Analysts, CCH®, BNA® and Matthew Bender®. Discover the power of the LexisNexis Tax Practice Area page, which puts these resources at your fingertips. Explore case law enhancements, tap into a database of articles from tax specialists entitled Listen to the Expertsâ„¢, and harness the power of Shepard's® in the tax arena. With easy-to-use templates and deep linking to related material, tax research has never been easier!

• Patent Research

Patent research questions run the gamut from simple to complex, legal to technology, federal to international. Explore how LexisNexis can help you find the answers you need and assist you in deciphering the jargon and terminology of this area of law. The Patent Law page on LexisNexis is thoroughly reviewed, and sources like Chisum on Patents, INPADOC, and Horwitz Patent Office Rules and Practice are demystified. The Patent Research Task page is highlighted showing how you can save steps and avoid searching for proper patent citations for various countries. By the end, you will be confident in your ability to handle patent research questions. In fact, you might actually be looking forward to the next one!

• Labor & Employment Resources

The goal of labor law is to equalize the bargaining power between employers and employees. Labor & Employment law breaks down into two basic practice areas. Labor law relates to union activities, dealing with unionized workplaces and employee representation. Typically, labor attorneys negotiate collective bargaining agreements,

deal with attempts to establish a unionized workplace, manage various union activities, and participate in labor arbitration proceedings. Employment law involves the rights of individual employees, as opposed to unions. Employment law attorneys deal with issues of termination, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Through this new Librarian Certificate of Mastery module, explore the extensive online collection of primary and secondary sources, public records, and news & business resources for unparalleled access to an extensive collection of Labor & Employment information through LexisNexis at www.lexis.com.

• Insurance Law

Insurance offers protection against economic loss, that is, loss or damage which can be measured in purely financial terms and compensated by money. An insurance policy is a legally binding contract between an insurance company and the person who buys the policy, commonly called the "policyholder”, who also is often the person insured. When a loss occurs which meets all of the requirements described by the terms of an insurance policy, the loss is said to be "covered" by that policy. The purpose is to place the injured party, as nearly as possible, in the same financial position as if the loss had not occurred.

There are three major groups of Insurance: Life, Health and Property & Casualty. Most insurance related litigation arises out of the Property & Casualty Insurance (P&C), which has the broadest variety of coverage available.

Through the Insurance Law Certificate of Mastery module, explore primary and secondary sources, public records, and news and business sources, and insurance related sources that are exclusive to LexisNexis on lexis.com.

• Bankruptcy

LexisNexis provides consumer and commercial bankruptcy practitioners with a complete offering of legal research, client development and practice management solutions. Increase your comfort level with resources essential to commercial and consumer bankruptcy attorneys, including the comprehensive array of primary sources, analytical materials, public records, specialized tools and exclusive sources available on lexis.com.

How Do I Sign-Up?

Sign-up for the Program at:

http://www.lexisnexis.com/mastery/

For most people and organizations, setting goals helps to guide their efforts and support their distribution of resources and energy. Establishing goals in one’s library, career and personal life should be the highest priority. -- Corrin Gee All in all, I am confident that I made the right decision, and that this position will offer me the opportunities for growth and learning that I had been seeking. -- Judith Weiss Ranganathan was a cool guy. I like to think that his laws are right up there with the US Constitution - written in such a way that they are timeless. And, I love the way his laws so aptly remind us that our libraries and our tasks are completely service based. As long as we provide good service and help our organizations grow, we’re doing well. -- Mariann Storck For innovation to happen, you must open your mind to new ideas. Our automatic response to a new idea is to judge it. Admit it. It’s true! The trick is to develop the skill of being open-minded about new ideas rather than immediately dismissing them. Create space for ideas to grow and multiply. -- Diedre Payne Try to have a service in which your patrons always first get to interact with a professional librarian. Don’t make them wait or jump through hoops to get what they need. A library needs to show that in this age of instant information, it can be quick and quicker than an end user doing his or her own research. -- Rob Updegrove

The reputation of a library depends on the quality of its resources and services. New technology applied to traditional systems can greatly change user perceptions. -- Kyla Whitt

As competitive intelligence has become an established and expected function in organizations around the world, information professionals are asked to provide vital support to intelligence generation or to establish and manage the intelligence functions in their organizations. -- John Lowrey Those who are drawn to the displays are not only educated but stop to consider how they contribute to the mission of the Department of State. Consequently, the Library receives requests from FSI staff who are inspired to collaborate with us on a display of their own. -- Priscilla Lujan

GOVERNMENT LIBRARIANS AND LEXISNEXIS: INNOVATION THROUGH LEADERSHIP The LexisNexis Customer Appreciation Luncheon for Government Librarians at AALL was held on Tuesday, July 11th. A number of librarians commented on what a relaxing and informative luncheon session it turned out to be for them in the middle of all the rush that makes up conference attendance. It was certainly a pleasure to be able to network with colleagues over lunch, enjoy a lovely view of city from our room high atop the St. Louis Renaissance Grand, and get a little inspiration from Sally Vogel, Vice President of Government Sales for LexisNexis. She spoke on the topic of Government Librarians and LexisNexis: Innovation through Leadership.

Sally Vogel, keynote speaker for the luncheon event, focused on the links between leadership, innovation, and mission. She briefly discussed the 30-year history of innovation at LexisNexis and how LexisNexis innovations help government libraries to:

• Protect What Matters Most with tools such as LexisNexis® Publisher, Web Services Kit, LexisNexis® CopyGuard™, and LexisNexis® MarketImpact™.

• Manage Resources and Maximize Budget with resources such as LexisNexis® Time Matters®, LexisNexis® Taxonomy, and LexisNexis® Applied Discovery®.

• Expand Expertise and Capacity with offerings such as LexisNexis® at lexis.com®, LexisNexis® CourtLink® , Shepard's® Brief Suite™ ,

Mealey’s, Matthew Bender®, Michie™, LexisNexis® Company Dossier, and LexisNexis® SmartLinx™.

She then examined several interesting examples of innovation in the government including:

Albuquerque Transit Department and their efforts to provide wireless access for the commuter.

Wireless-enabled Rapid Ride buses mean passengers can surf the web, email, chat online, and more. The effort has been so successful that Transit officials have a new plan to entice motorists off Albuquerque’s roadways and onto their $390 million commuter rail system - free high-speed Internet service on board the passenger cars.

PTO and the great success of The Scientific and Technical Information Center (STIC) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

STIC has been named by the Library of Congress as the Federal Information Center of the Year for 2006 and this is the second time in 5 years that STIC has earned this honor. STIC is recognized nationally as a leader in the delivery of patent research, increasing its search requests by 13 percent in fiscal 2005 to more than 31,000 for the year. The STIC staff created more than 600 templates that contain specific listings by technology of the most valuable resources in U.S. and foreign patents and non-patent literature.

CFTC protects the irreplaceable through use of LexisNexis Private Database.

LexisNexis created a state-of-the-art, web-enabled, web-accessible, fully searchable information system for the storage and retrieval of all of the CFTC's historic legislative documents. The CFTC is leading the way as one of the first agencies protecting irreplaceable documents by implementing electronic storage of legislative histories.

Following on this, Vogel noted that innovation and change requires leadership from within organizations. Titles and roles do not create leadership - everyone should look for opportunities to lead. Leadership attributes include courage, resolution, and steadiness. A capacity to win and hold trust and the ability to manage, decide, set priorities, as well as a dose of confidence are also important components of leadership. There are tasks attached to leadership too. Some of these include envisioning goals, affirming values, managing, explaining, and motivating. Successful leadership also means recognizing what people need - things like security, community, clear expectations, authority as well as responsibility, and respect.

Originally Posted to the Federal Info Pro by Marie Kaddell on July 14, 2006

SMART GOAL SETTING By Corrin Gee, Federal Account Manager, LexisNexis For most people and organizations, setting goals helps to guide their efforts and support their distribution of resources and energy. Establishing goals in one’s library, career and personal life should be the highest priority. There are many benefits to setting goals, but primarily goal setting ensures that you will get the job done that needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and that it will be done by the right people. Many of us could improve on both defining and attaining our goals. For example, I tend to make everything the “highest priority”, believing all matters are somehow linked to the higher goal of trying to be perfect. Taking this path, of course, results in chaos and lack of sleep. I am not the type who would go to a bookstore to buy a management book, but I knew I needed help. I began to pull some articles off of LexisNexis. I bet you did not know that there is an entire journal devoted to goal setting and productivity: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management. I found that the best guide to goal setting can be found in the simple and straightforward “SMART” criteria: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-sensitive. Specific When goals are specific, it is much easier to hold yourself or whomever you assigned to be accountable. Measurable You cannot determine if you achieved your goal unless there is some way to measure it. The measure may be quantitative or qualitative, but measurement should be against a standard of performance and a standard of expectation. Attainable Don’t be too hard on yourself or to those you assign a goal to. The goal needs to be attainable while still representing a challenge. Realistic and result-oriented It is possible that a goal could be set that is attainable, but not realistic in the particular working environment. A good example of this would be a goal set to increase Reference statistics by 30%. This goal is result oriented, but if you have a recent cut in staff or other priority shifts, such a goal would not be realistic. Time-sensitive Having a time frame will provide you structure and allow you to monitor your progress. You could even break your goal down into stages, making you, or your team, feel all the more successful as you have completed each stage. * Corrin Gee is a Librarian, Attorney, and LexisNexis Federal Account Manager

REFLECTIONS OF A NEW FEDERAL GOVERNMENT LIBRARIAN By Judith M. Weiss, Library Manager, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation After many years in a private law firm I decided to throw my hat in the ring for what sounded like a challenging and interesting position managing a Federal agency library. Low and behold, I was selected for the position and I am now about one month into the position of Library Manager for the Corporate Library at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. I must admit that I do have some prior Federal library experience, having held two positions at the Federal Reserve Board Law Library so many years ago that I could almost have been called ‘youthful’ at that point. Now, my rusty old brain must become re-acquainted with budget lingo and acronyms not used commonly in law firms, and my dim memory of filling out forms (and more forms) is starting to glow brighter. But I am thrilled to report that a lot has changed since my last Civil War era stint with the government and it’s great! My library has an impressive web page and a commensurate budget to keep it fed with interesting content. Lacking the techno skills of my predecessor, I plan to take some local courses to come up to speed on web page management and attend the Computers in Library Conference in April. The agency is supportive of professional development for library staff and efforts to market library services. One significant difference from the private sector (aside from a very extensive budget formulation process) is the use of the government purchasing card for almost all library purchases. My use of the law firm credit card was limited to emergency purchases, and normally only for small expenditures. If I could only find out what ‘budget line’ to recharge the purchases to, I would really be in business! All in all, I am confident that I made the right decision, and that this position will offer me the opportunities for growth and learning that I had been seeking.

RANGANATHAN'S FIVE LAWS Thanks to Mariann Storck, Legal Information Specialist, U.S. Attorneys Office, District Colorado, for sharing some thoughts on Ranganathan's Five Laws and how she carries them into the changing environment of the modern law library. Read on:

Here are my thoughts on a warm Indian summer afternoon with possible snow in the forecast for tomorrow.

On my wall, I have Ranganathan’s Five Laws. Remember those? A couple of years ago, a thirty-something librarian had no idea what I was talking about when I referred to them in our conversation (and, geez, I’m not that old! I was in LS school in the late eighties!).

Anyway, let me remind you of the laws:

• Books are for use • Every reader his or her book • Every book its reader • Save the time of the reader • The Library is a growing organism

Today, when I read the laws to remind myself of my mission, I substitute “information” for books or book and I find that the five laws are just as relevant today as the pre-electronic resources day. Number five, is especially true as we access or utilize yet another electronic resource whether fee-based or not.

Ranganathan was a cool guy. I like to think that his laws are right up there with the US Constitution - written in such a way that they are timeless. And, I love the way his laws so aptly remind us that our libraries and our tasks are completely service based. As long as we provide good service and help our organizations grow, we’re doing well. What do you think?

Originally Posted to the Federal Info Pro on November 09, 2006

CREATIVE & INNOVATIVE THINKING TO ENHANCE YOUR CAREER IN 2007

By Deidra Payne, Sr. LexisNexis Librarian Relations Consultant

The end of the year is upon us. We are all busily finishing up year-end projects as well as thinking toward future tasks we will need to manage in the workplace in the New Year. Without realizing it we get caught up or overwhelmed with our daily routines, both at home and at work. The thought of doing or implementing something new, creative, and innovative within our lives is easily put off until another day. I suggest we make a New Year’s Resolution to create and accomplish at least one new idea, plan or action in 2007 to help enhance and re-energize ourselves personally and professionally.

Before you can identify the creative activity you want to accomplish in the New Year, take time to first recognize the things you do well and the tasks you find most enjoyable. What are you most proud of accomplishing or having accomplished both professionally and personally? What keeps you charged or excited about your work and your personal commitments? Take one of the things you have accomplished and imagine ways you can improve upon that accomplishment. Define the things that excite you most about your job (i.e. teaching or creating newsletter, etc…) and consider more creative and innovative ways you can implement these tasks into your daily routine.

You may be thinking, “I don’t feel as if I am a very creative or innovative person!” Creativity is not a gift that only a few people have. It is a part of each of us. As children we are constantly asking, “But Why??!!” – Why must we do it this way? Why is it this way and not that way? What would happen if I did it this way? Beyond being curious, children are extremely open to new ideas and possibilities – even the most absurd and outrageous ideas are plausible in their minds. It is only as we become adults and find ourselves conforming to societal pressures that most of us stop questioning and dreaming of new and different scenarios for every event. As we age we also begin to evaluate the risk and amount of energy required to do something new, different and challenging before deciding if we will pursue it. It is not a lack of creativity that hinders us but our inability to see new choices or our fear of acting upon these new opportunities for innovative change.

For innovation to happen, you must open your mind to new ideas. Our automatic response to a new idea is to judge it. Admit it. It’s true! The trick is to develop the skill of being open-minded about new ideas rather than immediately dismissing them. Create space for ideas to grow and multiply. It might invite silly and absurd ideas, but that’s okay. Creativity only flourishes when you allow yourself to say it is “Okay” to make mistakes. How old are we when we finally truly know everything? Never! We are never done

learning. So why do we expect perfection from everyone else and worse why do we expect it from ourselves? If you are not making mistakes -- you are not taking risks, making any discoveries, or being innovative. You are probably stuck in a rut! Thomas Edison failed over 3,000 times in developing a working prototype of a light bulb before succeeding. Yet his approach to these mistakes was to say, “Well, we’re making progress – we know a thousand ways it can’t be done. We’re that much closer to getting there.”

Do you remember the color copier coming into wide use in the late 1980’s? Did you know that Xerox started first marketing them in 1971? They failed the first time, not because of cost or quality, but because it turns out there was nothing in the office in color! Everything in print was still in black and white due to typewriters. The company had to wait until workplace offices used computers with color fonts before proposing this idea again 15 years later!

When you begin looking for new ideas to help you re-energize your career in 2007, look at some random objects or pictures. Ask yourself this question, “When I look at this (object or picture), what ideas come to mind?” Force a connection between what you see and what you have defined as something you want to improve in your daily life or at work. You can discover new possibilities by asking yourself, “What if…?” For example, if you would like to find a creative way to remind your patrons to check out their books before leaving the library – you look outside your office window at the street below and think, “What if I installed a traffic signal light at each entrance?” or as I look at my iPod I think, “What if they could check out a book as easy as they download an iTunes® song from their desktop within their office?” With practice you can create innovative connections based on anything and your environment can spark millions of ideas! History is filled with stories of people connecting random things to invent new ideas. Gutenberg combined movable type with an olive oil press and created his revolutionary printing press.

To get closer to solutions and remove the mental obstacles that block your thinking, phrase problems as questions. Try phrasing problems starting with: "How to..." or "In what ways might..." It is amazing how this phrasing can transform a problem from a mind-numbing complaint into an active question that automatically gears up your innovative brain to think about solutions. Instead of, "We’re losing money," try "How to reduce costs?" or "In what ways might we generate additional revenue?"

There is huge value in coming up with lots and lots of ideas in a brainstorming session. When you begin a brainstorming exercise set a quota of at least 30-50 ideas as a starting point. You’ll notice that the first third of the ideas are the same old ideas, the second third are wacky, but within the last third are the truly innovative and valuable ideas. Bouncing ideas off other people can generate new concepts and solutions. But don‘t edit ideas

too soon. Remember, even the “silliest” of ideas can blossom into something genius.

Some tips or strategies you might employ to help you come up with some creative and innovative ideas.

1. Work on a problem before going to sleep. Then, while you are snoozing, your subconscious takes over. What did your dreams tell you?

2. Think like a child. How would a 5 year old respond to your problem? Let your creativity run wild and worry about the adult details later.

3. Think in opposites - imagine how to make your idea as boring as possible. It will put you in a fun mindset and destroy your creative roadblock.

4. Pretend that you are someone famous and try to solve the problem from that person’s perspective. For example, if Elizabeth Taylor had your job how would she advocate/convince the powers-that-be that she needed a larger budget?

5. Shake up your daily habits. Routine is the enemy of creativity. Challenge yourself to get out of your rut and dare to do things a little differently. For example, rearrange your office or have lunch in a different setting or with someone who inspires or challenges you.

6. Break the Rules! Drop assumptions and stir up reality a bit. How might breaking the rules impact your ideas?

7. Write it down!!! Ideas can come to you anywhere at anytime. Carry a notebook so you can always make a record of them.

8. Discover what works for you. When you feel creative take note of what you are doing. Are you listening to music? Are you alone or with people? Recreate those conditions when you need to get your creative juices flowing.

I have shared a variety of ways to enable you to think more creatively so that you can add more value to your career and revitalize your daily life. We are all aware that in today’s workplace market the concept of lifelong personal job security in exchange for dependable performance and loyalty is a thing of the past. You are now being required to more creatively, innovatively and strategically think of new and improved ways to validate your position. Simply, the burden is on you to add measurable value to your organization. Granted, you may find this to be a challenging task! But a New Year is upon us and anything is possible!

Have a Great Creative New Year!!!

Originally published as the December 2006 LexisNexis Info Pro Monthly Column.

BECOMING A VALUE-ADDING INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL - SLA 2006 David E. McBee, Senior Reference Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, shares his notes from an SLA 2006 session on Becoming a Value-Adding Information Professional presented by Mary Ellen Bates. You can read a more in-depth post on the Becoming a Value-Adding Information Professional presentation and more of David's posts on SLA 2006 sessions on his blog - Library Buzz.

What was covered:

• having a different mindset • using fee-based services • tips and strategies

What’s a value-added info pro? It is someone who provides answers, not just information. A data dump isn’t enough. We don’t let things look like search results – we clean it up.

This sometimes goes against our grain (and training) to “just present the facts, ma’am”

Different Mindset

Develop resources, skills and tools for additional high-end research:

Primary research

Data analysis - Be sure you know not only what your client wants, but why and in what context? Are you as user-friendly as a search engine? No added value = no perceived value.

Fee-based services - Use the special output features of the online services. Highlight the good stuff. Extract the good stuff from both web sites and published material.

Other tips:

• Brand everything • Seal it in PDF file • Use a distinctive cover: “Oh, it’s a report from the Research Center!” • Have a graphic designer produce a format and logo.

Originally Posted to the Federal Info Pro on June 21, 2006

BEST PRACTICES FOR SMALLER LIBRARIES By Robert Updegrove, Administrative Librarian, Comptroller of the Currency Don’t try to be the leader with technological innovations. You won’t have the resources to deal with things when major problems arise. See what has been working well for other libraries. Use companies and software that have been around awhile. Like first year models of cars, don’t buy version 1.0 of new software.

Robert’s Rules of Surviving in Administration

1. Every time you get a new head of administration, you’ll be asked why your

library exists, benchmark your services with other libraries, and give proposals on how you can reduce physical space and staff. Therefore,

2. If you have important services and resources, keep statistics that show why

they are valuable. You’ll have to use them again and again and may need to provide them on short notice.

3. If your agency’s top management appreciates you, your administrative management will as well. Don’t isolate yourself from your agency’s top management.

Statistical Measurements at the OCC Library (Some of these measures may seem dated but my management seems to find them meaningful.)

1a. Number of reference questions a month 1b. Percentage of reference questions answered within 24 hours of receipt of query 2. Number of proactive acts by staff 3a. Number of publications ordered for agency staff 3b. Percentage of orders worked on within 24 hours of receipt of request 4. Book circulation per month 5a. Percentage of periodical titles routed have contents sent electronically 5b. Number of staff names on periodical routing lists 6. Number of times library home page is accessed by agency staff 7. % of agency staff finding reference services excellent 8. % of agency staff finding publication ordering services excellent 9. % of agency staff finding book and periodical collection good or excellent Try to have a service in which your patrons always first get to interact with a professional librarian. Don’t make them wait or jump through hoops to get what they need. A library needs to show that in this age of instant information, it can be quick and quicker than an end user doing his or her own research.

NEW USES FOR THE ONLINE PATRON ACCESS CATALOG By Kyla Whitt, Law Library Administrator, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Technology continues to evolve at an astonishing pace. Web-based technologies specifically have made certain types of information far easier to obtain thereby, changing the reality for both libraries and library users. Aligning the library’s tools and goals with patron needs still remains, however, our essential mission.

Moreover, while still providing traditional services, we are now better able to move beyond old systems and to incorporate new improvements to existing resources. The OPAC created by the Law Library of the FRBNY is clearly an example of one of those traditional library databases that has evolved. Users need and are deserving of systems that add value to information, and our online patron access catalog is a value-added information asset that brings useful, quality data to end users. The primary importance of information provided by a library to a decision-maker is its relevance to the decisions being made. Library patrons require information that is accurate, timely and meaningful. Yet, what does a bibliographic record mean? What is its relevance to the end user? Although there is data that provides author, subject headings and title, none of this provides context. With the FRBNY Law Library OPAC, users not only retrieve a catalog record, but are also able to view and search the full-text of digital content attached to a record. Patrons searching for books retrieve the full table of contents, introduction and preface. In addition to the tables of contents, users are able to search, download and/or print the full text of government documents, white papers, statutes, regulations and legislative histories because the content is part of the catalog record. Library patrons have indicated that they are happy with this resource because it provides quality information in an electronic format that is easily and readily accessible at their desktops. Finally, the OPAC serves a dual function as both an online research tool and a repository, by ensuring the preservation and long-term access to our diverse and growing collection of digital resources. The reputation of a library depends on the quality of its resources and services. New technology applied to traditional systems can greatly change user perceptions. The FRBNY Law Library OPAC is not your traditional catalog.

FEDERATED SEARCHING - A CIL 2006 PROGRAM

Greta D. Ober-Beauchesne, Librarian, Content Access, Joint World Bank - International Monetary Fund, shares her notes on a CIL 2006 session - Federated Search Engines: Lessons Learned. Being in the beginning stages of forming a Library Network Federated Implementation Team, I took advantage of the timeliness to attend a session entitled: Federated Search Engines: Lessons Learned. The session consisted of a panel of four librarians all representing large Universities. Each Library had chosen and implemented a different federated search engine. Panel members shared their experiences before and after implementation. Pros and Cons of Federated Search Pros

• "good place to start!!” • Users can, but are not required, to select specific databases • Makes users feel successful in finding resources

Cons • Patrons tend to ignore, and not use the non-federated databases • May still need to individually search one of the federated

databases to perform a more complex search Observations noted:

70% of all searches are keyword Still a new concept - - - most have no clue what a "metasearch"

is Search interface usually a basic search box, with an advanced

search available (found that basically only librarians clicked on that option)

Goal was to make it simple, intuitive and easy to use; make it like Google (user recognition)

Important to group/categorize databases appropriately (confusing to see a long list of databases)

Most libraries still maintained an A-Z list of databases, but plan to phase it out

Ensure that databases selected allow for metasearching Create a "best bets" - - place top 3 databases at top Initially implemented for the "novice" searcher, but user studies

quickly found that more experienced searchers were also using the Federated Search

Users should be selective with the database they choose - "search all" not viable when "all" is 300+ databases.

Monitor Usage: Monitored statistics on both individual database usage and

federated searching Monitor “turnaways”; impact on simultaneous users (may need

to add additional seats) User studies should test both quantity and quality of results (one

University mentioned they connected users to nearly 1/2 million text items last year)

Marketing: Basically flyers/e-mail/short demos: needs to be an ongoing

effort (always new staff/users and need to reinforce existing users)

One University hired a professional marketing firm to promote this service

Tip: don't start the marketing or demos too early One Library branded their Federated Search (calling it Zoom! -

created a Zoom button) On Federated Searching:

• Libraries must make searching as easy as possible. If not patrons will go to Google whereas the library resources should be the first place our patrons think of.

• Google has set the standard (fast & easy). Though everyone tried to make the search and results screen as easy to use as possible, Federated Searching is not very fast.

Originally Posted to the Federal Info Pro on May 07, 2006

Click University’s Competitive Intelligence Certificates Program By John Lowrey, Director, Professional Development, SLA SLA and Click University have become increasingly aware of members’ interest in competitive intelligence and surveys have shown a corresponding interest in CI education and training. As competitive intelligence has become an established and expected function in organizations around the world, information professionals are asked to provide vital support to intelligence generation or to establish and manage the intelligence function in their organizations. This expanded role requires knowledge, abilities, skills, and experience that are specific to intelligence practices, and which often require targeted awareness and training in established competitive intelligence techniques and tools. Although available through various academic programs and through commercial services, formal competitive intelligence education and training have been well out of the reach of many information professionals, due to geography, scheduling, and costs. Moreover, some programs have lacked the balance of conceptual and practical approaches required for effective intelligence practice and application. The Competitive Intelligence Certificates Program has been designed to bring with reach the quality training information professionals need, with flexibility for them and for their organization. The Click University Competitive Intelligence Certificates Program was developed in partnership with Knowledge inForm. The program was developed with consideration for the requirements of LIS professionals, SLA members, effective and recognized intelligence practices, organizations practicing intelligence, and the professional development marketplace. The development of this program takes into consideration the feedback and observations, and lessons learned conducting intelligence training for LIS and business professionals, best practices in intelligence training, best practices from other professional development programs, and feedback and trends from Knowledge inForm’s intelligence consulting and training efforts. The program is based on a modular approach that offers participants both the guidance and the flexible approach they require in professional development. This program will take a blended learning approach by presenting course modules that offer a combination of knowledge-based training content, as well as performance-based training, as appropriate. Knowledge-based training is offered online via the Click University website. Performance-based is accomplished via instructor-led on-site workshops. These will be offered for topics that require live exercises and other instructional methods that benefit from live instruction and participation. These live training sessions are designed for maximum convenience: sessions will be conducted at the SLA Annual Conferences or coordinated as regional events and programs. The Click University Competitive Intelligence Certificates Program offers three types of certificates that will serve the professional development needs of LIS professionals:

1. Certificate in Competitive Intelligence for LIS Professionals (The “Core” or CIC Certificate)

2. Certificate in Competitive Intelligence Information Function (The IIF Certificate)

3. Dual Certificate: Competitive Intelligence and the Intelligence Information Function

The Certificate in Competitive Intelligence for LIS Professionals is aimed at LIS professionals who are interested in transitioning into the intelligence function. The curriculum is designed to develop the competencies for holistic intelligence practice, from serving as an intelligence team member to managing the intelligence function within an organization. The Certificate in Competitive Intelligence Information Function is designed for LIS professionals who wish to more effectively support research and information & knowledge services for intelligence effort or an intelligence function. The curriculum covers general CI knowledge, as well as the specific requirements for the LIS function within intelligence. The Dual Certificate: Competitive Intelligence and the Intelligence Information Function accommodates LIS professionals who wish to take the most comprehensive approach toward their intelligence professional development. This certificate combines courses for both certificate programs, eliminating duplications and redundancies. By the end of the first quarter, the first 3 courses will have been completed and to date the results are excellent. Attendance has been better than expected, with 36 people completing CIC01, 26 completing CIC02 and 24 currently taking CIC03. Five members have signed up and paid in advance to take the full Dual Certificate. The after course comments have been extremely positive and a sampling of those comments can be found on the Course Testimonials page on the Click U site. But the best testimonial to any professional development offering is that it changed someone’s life in a positive way and the Click University CI Program has already had such a success. Several weeks ago, Click U received the following message from a member: “I have taken two Competitive Intelligence courses (CIC01/CIC02) and have thoroughly enjoyed them. Cynthia Correia ability to convey and share knowledge has been wonderful. I have been out of the Information profession for 5 years due to work/life balance and decided to take the courses so that I may return to my profession. After taken CIC01 I decided to use the career sources that Cynthia suggested. I have recently accepted a position as a CI Research Analyst. It has been so great to begin to re-invent myself as an information professional and transfer skills and knowledge as a competitive information professional.” SLA and Click University will continue to strive to make this program and similar programs as responsive and successful as possible.

SEARCHING THE NEW DIGITAL FORMATS - CIL 2006

Greta D. Ober-Beauchesne, Librarian, Content Access, Joint World Bank - International Monetary Fund, shares her notes on a CIL 2006 session - Searching the New Digital Formats.

Immediately following the Federated Searching program at CIL 2006, Searching the New Digital Formats, was conducted by Chris Schwartz, publisher of Open Stacks Weblog. “Finding information rich podcasts in your topic area” was featured (the speaker also conducted a cybertour in the exhibit hall on this topic). After a brief introduction of defining what a podcast is and why it’s useful, numerous podcasting sites of interest to librarians were profiled.

Podcasting: How and Why

• Way that audio content is distributed • Extends RSS technology to audio • No iPod required (MP3 technology) • Automatic downloading of content • Time shifted content: listen to Whatever, Whenever, Wherever • Good variety of listening topics available • Ability to stay current of a number of topics

Where/How to Find Podcasts (look for the Podcast feed: [Podcast}, [RSS], [XML])

Directories/Search Engines:

• http://www.podcast.net/ - The Podcast Directory (can subscribe to RSS feed notifications)

• http://www.podcastalley.com/ - directory, features a top-10 list (search is limited, only title metadata)

• http://podcasts.yahoo.com/ - it’s Yahoo, so we all know what to expect…..good descriptive information: “what is a podcast”, “how to create/publish a podcast”; also a subscription service

• http://www.podscope.com/ - good directory, now includes video as well as audio

• http://www.podzinger.com/ - can search audio, video or both; also in Spanish!

• http://www.apple.com/itunes/ - can subscribe to various podcasts (itunes must be downloaded).

• http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php (National Public Radio podcast directory)

• http://www.loomia.com/ - podcast/videocast search engine; designed as a community to “discover, share, and manage” (sites are rated and can receive personalized recommendations)

On producing audio content….Why?

• Creates an overall web presence • A means of communication

Examples:

• Training and Tours • News and Announcements • Program of Events • As a service to the visually impaired

Originally Posted to the Federal Info Pro on May 08, 2006

GAO LIBRARIES PARTICIPATE IN AGENCY’S INFOFAIR By Bill Tuceling, Research Librarian, General Accountability Office For four hours on Sept. 14, 2006, the Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s technical and legal libraries participated in the fourth annual InfoFair sponsored by their parent Knowledge Services organization. Librarians from both facilities staffed exhibit tables in the main corridor of the GAO headquarters building and answered questions about the more than 200 government and commercial databases their agency’s analysts, attorneys and administers can access from individual computers. The librarians were joined by representatives from nine database vendors as well: Congressional Quarterly, Dialog, Leadership Directories, Legislative Information System, LexisNexis, National Journal, OCLC FirstSearch, ProQuest and SourceOECD. In addition to answering questions one-on-one in the hall, the vendors presented 25-minute live demonstrations of their services in the Technical Library’s conference room. Convention-style handouts and freebies were readily available for the 500+ attendees.

For further information, please contact DCLA Secretary Bill Tuceling at GAO’s Technical Library by calling him at 202-512-5025 or by emailing him at tucelingw@gao.gov.

LIBRARY OPEN HOUSES – TRADEMARK LAW MAKES A SPLASH

Open houses are a great way to showcase library resources – staff, collection, virtual resources, and services. Many federal libraries take advantage of National Library Week to build awareness of library services in their agencies. The use of an open house to bring patrons into the library is a simple way to educate users about what their library can do for them and provides a relaxed and inviting environment for getting the word out about new resources and services.

There are as many ways to put together an open house as there are libraries to host them. Trademark Law Library recently gave a heavily attended open house to shine the spotlight on their new space and advertise their capabilities. One of the things that this staff did well was to take advantage of all the traffic through the library open house to get out the word about library services. They did this not only through the event itself but also through takeaways such as targeted literature pieces regarding special library services, customized library bookmarks, and library business cards. Look at the customizable bookmarks provided in the LexisNexis National Library Week Toolkits. The staff at the Trademark Law Library used bookmarks from all of these toolkits, personalized them with their own library contact information, ran them out on hard stock, and had a suite of customized library bookmarks in a flash. They used these to compliment other library handouts and takeaways.

Trademark Law Library staff had a full house for their event. The place was definitely hopping. And what librarian doesn’t like to see a library full of smiling patrons? The librarians at the Trademark Law Library also understand that a little food never hurts attendance at an open house. The celebratory atmosphere - complete with whimsical decorations - created the perfect environment for passing on information about the library while sending the tacit message that the door of the library is always wide open to their patrons.

Originally Posted by Marie Kaddell to the Federal Info Pro on April 11, 2006

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE LIBRARIES CELEBRATE 175 YEARS OF SERVICE Adriana Younskevicius, Special Assistant to the Director, U.S. Department of Justice Libraries, shares news about a landmark anniversary for the Department of Justice Libraries.

This year the Department of Justice (DOJ) Libraries were proud to celebrate 175 years of service to DOJ. The DOJ Libraries' collection began with Attorney General John M. Berrien, who was granted $500 in the Appropriation Act of March 2, 1831, for the purchase of books for his office. By the 1920's the collection had grown to nearly 60,000 volumes and was considered one of the best collections of American statutory law in the country, the only rivals being the Library of Congress and Harvard University. In 1934, the Main Library moved to its current home on the fifth floor of the Department of Justice's Robert F. Kennedy Building and entered the technological age in 1955 when it obtained microphotographic reproductions of books on cards and two types of readers. Today, the DOJ Libraries have grown to over 300,000 volumes in multiple locations in Washington, D.C. They continue to maintain a rich, historical print collection while diligently working to provide access to the ever-expanding universe of electronic resources available via the Internet.

To honor this milestone, DOJ librarians from across the country met on October 5 and 6 in Washington, D.C. for a conference titled, "The 175th Anniversary of the Justice Libraries - A Celebration of Legal Research and Knowledge." Highlights included a presentation regarding current awareness tools and the latest Internet trends by Gary Price, Director of Online Information Resources at Ask.com; and a panel discussion on the future of Federal libraries which was moderated by the Director of the DOJ Libraries, Blane Dessy, and was composed of Judy Russell, the first female Superintendent of Documents at the U.S. Government Printing Office; Roberta Shaffer, the Executive Director of the Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC) and the Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK) at the Library of Congress; Neal Kaske, Director of Statistics and Surveys at the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science; and Jane Sanchez, the DOJ Libraries' Assistant Director for Reference and Research.

A very special part of the conference was the presentation of the John M. Berrien Department of Justice Library Advocacy Award. Lee J. Lofthus, Acting Assistant Attorney General for Administration, presented this award to Tom King, Executive Officer of DOJ's Antitrust Division, in recognition for his sustained support of the mission and goals of the Justice Libraries. In his acceptance speech, Mr. King showed his unwavering commitment to supporting libraries when he said, "Though books, journals, newspapers and research materials change over time in content and format, I believe one thing remains universal - the professional services of our librarians, our resource professionals, are critical to ensuring all of us receive the most current and comprehensive information available as we do our jobs."

Originally Posted to the Federal Info Pro on November 24, 2006

A SAMPLING OF WINDOW EXHIBITS FROM THE FSI LIBRARY By Priscilla Lujan, FSI Head Librarian , George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center, U.S. Department of State

All of the window exhibits, especially with our very large monitor (46” x 22”) displaying spectacular Power Point photos, draw many of the FSI students and staff to the Library. Those who are drawn to the displays are not only educated but stop to consider how they contribute to the mission of the Department of State. Consequently, the Library receives requests from FSI staff who are inspired to collaborate with us on a display of their own.

Peace on Earth Display Date: December 2006 Every December the FSI library exhibits a holiday display entitled “Peace on Earth”. On PowerPoint slides and hanging snowflakes, the phrase ‘Peace on Earth’ is shown translated into many of the languages taught at FSI. With help from FSI language instructors, we have now translated ‘Peace on Earth’ into 65 languages.

Director’s Shelf Display Date: January 2007 In January the Library featured in a window display its new book collection called the “Director’s Shelf”. The collection was started by incoming Director Ruth Whiteside, who requested a special collection of books written by Department of State authors. Our collection includes books by:

• Secretaries of State • Ambassadors • Foreign Service Officers • Director’s of the Foreign Service Institute

For the display, we created a PowerPoint presentation featuring photographs of our “Director’s Shelf” books, and displayed a number of the books on our display table.

Distance Learning Showcase Display Date: March 2006 In collaboration with DL course developers, the Library exhibited a showcase the variety of Distance Learning courses developed at FSI. A PowerPoint slide show was created using screen-shots of the different programs, and the over 35 different CD-ROM’s of the courses displayed on the table.

Distinguished American Diplomats Display Date: October 2006 In October 2006, the FSI Library featured the six diplomats in the ‘Distinguished American Diplomats’ series stamps in a window display. A PowerPoint presentation featured biographical sketches of each diplomat and achievements in their careers. The display table featured photos and books.

Honoring FSI Language & Culture Experts & Publication of their Dictionaries Display Date: January 2007 In January 2007 the FSI Library recognized three Language & Culture Experts from the School of Language Studies (SLS), for the publication of their Dictionaries. Karim and Maya Khodjibaev produced a Tajik/English Dictionary and Eva Szabo produced a Hungarian/English Dictionary. In the window display were instructions on how to write a dictionary, Realia from the two countries and the PowerPoint slide show featured photos from Tajikistan and Hungary. The Library staff invited the FSI Directors, Deans from SLS, Language Training Supervisors and other SLS guests to a special reception honoring our SLS colleagues. At that time, emphasis was given on purchasing more up-to-date Foreign Language Dictionaries for our collection.

“Emancipation of Tunisian Women” Display Date: March 2007 To commemorate the *50th Anniversary of Tunisian’s Women’s Right to Vote, the FSI Library collaborated with Mongia Dambowic (Tunisian & Arabic instructor) on a powerful window exhibit. The PowerPoint presentation emphasized the rights gained by Tunisian women since 1956, and how it has progressed and is reflected through out society over the last 50 years.

Norouz Holiday Display Date: March/April 2007 Norouz is a Persian & Central Asian holiday celebrated in over 12 countries in spring time. In an outreach effort with the School of Language Studies, the library has just finished a PowerPoint presentation in celebration of this holiday and it will go on display later this month.

Sports & Diplomacy Display Date: June 2006 The Library set up a large exhibit featuring “Sports in Diplomacy” to coincide with the 2006 World Cup. Slides for the PowerPoint offered a historical context for sports in diplomacy, highlighting Jesse Owens efforts in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” with China, the 2006 World Cup, Sports Diplomacy in Iraq, and the recent “Baseball Diplomacy” initiative featuring Secretary Rice.

LIBRARY SERVICES FOR EXAMINERS David McBee, Senior Reference Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency These slides are part of the OCC Library’s sessions to educate examiners on OCC library services and resources. These selected slides provide highlights of their resources, including the OCC Library’s: “HotDocs”, Library Bulletin, and the OCC Catalog.

SPEAKER NOTES

Professional Development for Library Users Blane K. Dessy, Director

Library Staf f , Just ice Management Div i s ion United States Department of Just ice

Profess ional Deve lopment of l ibrary users is intr ins i c to l ibrar ianship The goa l o f a l ib ra ry , as opposed to an arch ive , has a lways been to br ing toge the r

in fo rmat ion and in fo rmat ion seeker s . A l l o f a l ib ra ry ’ s funct ion s , inc lud ing acqu i s i t ion s , ca ta log ing , and re f e rence , a re

meant to crea te l inks between peop le and the wor ld o f in fo rmat ion . The conceptua l ba s i s for a good l ib ra ry , then , i s not the resource s tha t compr i se i t ,

but the sp i r i t o f fu r ther ing lea rn ing in each ind i v idua l . In other words , l ib ra r i e s are pr imar i l y in s t rument s fo r the advancement or deve lopment o f each pe r son .

Th i s idea i s re f l e c ted in the many act i v i t i e s tha t l ib ra r ians have t rad i t iona l l y engaged in such as B ib l i og raph i c In s t ruc t i on or L ib ra ry Re sear ch c la s se s , marke t ing and out reach e f fo r t s , mentor ing , l ib ra ry programs in a l l types o f l ib ra r ie s and , more recen t ly , in endeavors such as In fo rmat ion L i te ra cy , d ig i ta l tu to r ia l s , and v i r tua l re f e rence .

L ibrar i e s have deep root s in the ideas o f organ i z ing and shar ing in format ion , o f connec t ing peop le w i th in fo rmat ion , o f a t tempt ing to ensure that each per son i s a s we l l in fo rmed as pos s ib l e—in othe r words , l ib ra r ie s or in format ion se rv i ce s are on ly as good as the inc rea s ing l y in fo rmed or educa ted peop le tha t they se rve .

Profess ional Deve lopment of l ibrary users must be infused into each act iv i ty a l ibrary undertakes

L ib ra r i ans need to cons ide r each o f the i r ta sks as an oppor tun i ty to crea te more in fo rmed l ib ra ry use r s .

Whethe r the task i s acqu i s i t i on s , ca ta log ing , re f e rence , o r c rea t ing d ig i ta l con ten t , the l i b ra r ian mus t cons ide r how each task can be a l ib ra ry use r pro fe s s i ona l deve lopment oppor tun i t y .

What mate r i a l s a re acqu i red in what formats and how are they pre sented to the l ib ra ry use r s ? How do the var iou s co l l e c t i on s suppor t / in form each othe r and how are our co l l e c t ions bes t u t i l i z ed by the l ib ra ry use r s ?

As we deve lop our re f e rence and re search se rv i ce s , how do we ensure tha t our l ib ra ry use r s a re adept a t us ing them? How do we bes t manage these se rv i ce s so tha t l ib ra ry use r s become more “ in fo rmat ion l i t e ra te” about the sub jec t mat te r they ’ re pur su ing?

How do we in fu se the not ion o f l ib ra ry user pro f e s s iona l deve lopment in to eve ry ac t i v i t y tha t we under take? How do we sh i f t our th ink ing f rom the t rad i t iona l l ib ra ry tasks to a new under s tand ing o f our ro l e as pro f e s s iona l deve lopment prov ider s in the l i v e s o f our l ib ra ry use r s ?

Just ice Librar ies are attempt ing to infuse profess ional deve lopment into al l our act iv i t ies

A t ra in ing commi t tee p lans on-go ing c la s se s based upon use r in te re s t and o f f e r s them at schedu led t imes and upon reque s t .

The Ju s t i ce L ib ra r ie s t ra in ing prog rams are te l e v i sed on the Jus t i ce Te lev i s ion Network so that our prog rams reach nat ion wide aud ience s .

L ib rary S ta f f c rea t e and ma in ta in tu tor ia l s and pa th f inde r s on top i c s o f in te re s t to va r ious prac t i ce groups .

L ibrary S ta f f a t tend group meet ing s to dete rmine in format ion needs o f l ib ra ry use r s . Th i s i s a fo rm of the “embedded l ib ra r ian” concept tha t i s ve ry succe s s fu l .

One o f the Jus t i ce L ib ra r i e s i s c rea t ing an “ In fo rmat ion Commons” in i t s space so tha t Jus t i ce emp loyee s can use i t to co l l abora te , conduc t re sea r ch , and engage in c ros s d i s c ip l i na ry ac t i v i t i e s .

Ju s t i ce L ib rar i e s s ta f f par t i c ipa te in each new DOJ employee or i en ta t ion to ensure tha t new employees are aware o f l ib ra ry se rv i ce s . Fo l l ow up communica t ions are then sent to re in fo r ce the message .

DRIVING PRINCIPLES FOR MANAGING SPECIAL LIBRARIES TODAY Excepts from the Keynote Address to the Annual Meeting of the North Carolina Chapter of the Special Libraries Association, April 3, 2003 Richard Huffine, National Library Coordinator, U.S. Geological Survey rhuffine@usgs.gov 703-648-7182 I see librarianship as being a mastery of puzzles...every puzzle is different but using the same methods every time, you can pretty much work any puzzle. Plus, what is the ultimate goal of putting together a puzzle? To see how the whole picture completed... how the pieces fit together only matters in context with the whole. Special libraries often operate independently and struggle every day to show value for their contributions and justify their very existence. In these days of information proliferation, our senior managers and even our patrons are questioning the value of having a library. And yet, I am very proud of the ways librarians are being utilized in managing information for their organizations today. It is my job, as a national coordinator, to connect the dots... demonstrate value and, beyond that, connect the work of libraries to the mission of our parent prganization. I am lucky in that I have years of history to build upon. I can speak of the inroads librarians made in the 1970's and 80's for putting their holdings into a central catalog (OCLC). I can claim success for making those catalogs publicly available, first by Telnet and then later through the World Wide Web. But these successes don't seem to be enough today. The availability of paper collections aren't valuable just sitting on shelves today. The impressive statistics of reference and referrals, interlibrary loans, and cataloged resources don't add up to much for senior managers that are strapped for cash. To them, it is all information technology and the computer upgrades take priority over the library services. But I have to ask, "What good is a computer if the information they need isn't available to them?" What good is a Web site or Intranet portal if there is no information of value to be shared there? It is the bridging of information technology and the information itself that takes a librarian today. My job today is to define the strategic direction of libraries in their institutions. We are called upon today to keep doing the work of libraries: cataloging, retrieval, service and support... while branching out into Internet, Intranet, knowledge management, and strategic dissemination. Our programs have been active for years in all aspects of information management... but we haven't connected the efforts of "libraries" with those of "information managers." It is my firm belief that without making those connections, both efforts will fail. We have managers looking to close their libraries... and information managers shirking the responsibilities of metadata. We have what I call a "Web gap" in our physical collections and a dearth of connections between print and electronic resources. Here in the federal government, we also miss the intrinsic connections between government research and commercial publishing, leaving important connections unidentified. To address these challenges, I've selected a few "driving principles" to share with you tonight. I hope you'll see corollaries in your own institutions:

Principle #1: Take a role in managing your organization's Internet site. Now, I know a lot of libraries took the Internet as a call to establish a location on the Web for their library... but not everyone has actually taken control of their organization's Web site. In some organizations, a librarian is the individual responsible for uploading the homepage, answering the questions posted to the site, and working with content creators to arrange their materials logically. They have even created metadata inventories that intervene in searches to find the best resources and move them to the top. But, and this is where they've failed to date... they haven't integrated the library or the print materials with those efforts. To truly survive, the libraries' resources and capabilities need to integrate with the Web sites' in a way that makes sense for users. The library is often a last resort for patrons trying find information from a Web site... yet the librarians understand the idiosyncratic way that our organization and its Web site is organized. Why not move that interaction up in the process? The ultimate goal is a Web site arranged by subject, not by who created the information. The central tool for this effort would be a controlled vocabulary designed by librarians and executed as an interactive tool, linking concepts to materials. The real stretch will be to finally integrate print and electronic indexing. I would love to stop the duplicate efforts of cataloging print resources separately from Web resources and improve the search so that print documents are found as easily as Web documents. Principle #2: OWN the electronic resources that your organization creates. Either as a distributor of documents or as the archivist of materials with historical value, I believe libraries should be the repositories of electronic media, just as we have been for print materials. This is a significant shift from the way the Web works but it is a safeguard that organizations should be able to see true value in. The reality of shifting priorities leads to Web sites being taken down or changing significantly their priorities and scope. But the library can hold the repository that doesn't shift or change. The library can also provide those side-by-side comparisons that let researchers compare changes in documents over time. Being the home of digital collections for which your organization holds the copyright also gives the library a new role. Libraries can act as the agent for ensuring copyright is honored and track the use of an organization's copyrighted materials by others. I know this is a stretch but it places the library in an important position, as brokers of content, when there is no clear liaison to the public users in many cases. Principle #3: - Build tools that provide context to information. These tools should focus on the central business functions of your organization and tie the products to citations from other sources. There aren't enough connections happening today... I don't mean a list of links or a summary of relevant sources, I mean guides that piece things together with natural language, plain language that the end users can understand. Librarians have the ability to create these tools, citing all the sources appropriately and giving credit where it belongs. In many cases, the librarian can even draw from a copyrighted source in a way that doesn't infringe on the intellectual property, but actually leads people to acquiring those sources legitimately based on their inclusion in a contextual tool. Okay, so what is a contextual tool? Well, the National Library of Medicine has created "ToxTown" as an introduction to toxic chemicals and environmental health risks. This type of product development adds value to the role of the library and brings the materials out of books, huge PDF files, and even aggregates data from systems... all for the purpose of making sense of your organization for users that don't know the inner workings. Now, I think ToxTown, as it stands today, simply provides links in the context of a town or person's home... but as librarians, we can read the documents and draw out the pieces that mean something. Adding value; that is the call we need to hear today.

Principle #4: - Proactively identify resources that can inform your organization. This is one aspect that connects some of the most important dots... what do our managers need to know and can we find it before they even ask for it. This is where Intranet management comes into play. In some locations, librarians manage our corporate Intranet... and they've approached the task quite differently from that of the Internet. They have organized the Intranet by work functions: planning a trip, managing records, or doing research. A separate controlled vocabulary was developed for this application and it drives the way people navigate the site. The newest interface for this site will assist people in finding national information separately from local information and, once again, uses metadata to organize resources. But this is also where we can re-introduce some of the traditional roles of the librarian. Selected Dissemination of Information, or SDI, can be presented in new ways to make it useful and integral to research programs or even regulatory development. Well, I've laid out some pretty hefty principles, haven't I? All of these principles take resources: time out of our day as well as tools and content that costs real money. But they also show value in ways that your organization can capitalize on them... claim them as their own successes. Integrating libraries with information management won't be easy and it isn't cheap. But it will make other transitions easier for your institution: content management, electronic document management, digital preservation... all of these concepts are on the horizon for information technologies and they are all more possible when those technologies and libraries connect. Selected References and Readings Books Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society by Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers (Hardcover - Aug 16, 2005) ISBN: 038551624X, $27.95 Ambient Findability by Peter Morville (Paperback - Oct 1, 2005) ISBN: 0596007655, $29.95 Entrepreneurial Librarianship: The Key to Effective Information Services Management (Information Services Management Series) by Guy St. Clair (Hardcover - Jan 1996) ISBN: 1857390148, $47.95 Power and Influence: Enhancing Information Services Within the Organization (Information Services Management) by Guy St. Clair (Hardcover - Dec 1994), ISBN: 1857390989, $65.00 United States Government Internet Manual by Peggy Garvin (Papberback – Jan 2007) ISBN: 9781598880731, $59.00 Organizations Special Libraries Association, Government Information Division http://units.sla.org/division/dgi/ American Library Association

Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Round Table (FAFLRT) http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=faflrt

Government Documents Roundtable (GODoRT) http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=godort

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Government Libraries Section http://ifla.queenslibrary.org/VII/s4/index.htm

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OPEN ACCESS AND THE US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: THE NRL RESEARCH LIBRARY PERSPECTIVE

James King, Chief Librarian, Naval Research Laboratory I’d like to explore the 'comparative advantage' of the Federal government as it relates to the Open Access movement, including the imperatives for federal libraries and the impact on access to government information. NRL is the corporate research lab for NRL/ONR and its mission is to prevent surprise and ensure overwhelming dominance wherever our Naval forces operate. NRL invented radar, GPS and the first spy satellite. NRL is industrially-funded, meaning that our scientists seek and receive funding from other government funding agencies (primarily the Office of Naval Research) using the same process university researchers do. Research at NRL and other Federal research agencies does not typically result in products so the only valid, quantifiable measure of research is productivity found in publications. The Ruth H. Hooker Research Library, celebrating it’s 80th anniversary, has been delivering information to researchers’ desktops at NRL & ONR long before the web (1992). The NRL Research Library has changed the way scientists and engineers do research by providing such a wealth of information at the desktop through useful tools. For example, 15 years ago, we had 1,400 print journals – we now provide desktop access to double that with less than 2 dozen print titles. 99% of current journals are now provided online-only, 60% of the historical journal collection also online. Technical reports at NRL are a major portion of our collection. NRL has the second largest collection of digitized reports, second only to DTIC. Reports used to be the primary and official output of research, but that has shifted as science has evolved so capture efforts need to be expand to cover other types as part of a ‘research portfolio management’ effort. We’re in the midst of a major step in the evolution of scholarly communication, similar to the shift from manuscript to print (see YouTube video for a humorous view of this transition). Each step in the evolution:

• Introduced wider dissemination of ideas • Used a new material that was not as durable as its predecessor • Started with a convergence of a series of innovations • Caused creation of new industries and dramatic changes to existing industries

David Levy in his book ‘Scrolling Forward’ defines documents as talking things. With that definition in mind, we can see how the document has evolved – starting with an oral presentation from a great teacher of the past which was limited to a student-teacher relationship and confined to a physical location and time. We then see that minutes, notes, and proceedings were written down in the form of manuscripts which extended the teaching beyond the time frame and even life of the author but was prone to error and difficult to duplicate. Aggregation of these manuscripts into Egypt’s Alexandria library forced the creation of new processes including a classification system, bibliography, and alphabetizing. The invention of the printing press and the resultant print revolution has so transformed the landscape that Elisabeth Eisenstein’s book ‘The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe’ has a difficult time describing what the world was like. Over the past several hundred years, this revolution has created new concepts such as copyright, plagiarism, and editions At the end of World War II, the great scientific research tool that was created to win the war was now turning to peacetime objectives. Vannevar Bush’s article “As we may think” helped envision that future and proposed the MEMEX – a microfilm-based desk that contained the entire contents of the Library of Congress – all available at the fingertip. As science continued to grow and become more specialized, the publishing community responded by creating more and more outlets for these publications, resulting in a ‘serials crisis’. ‘Serials crisis’ is the state in which libraries are not able to provide access to the journals, conference proceedings, etc. needed by their research community thereby forcing them to do without and potentially repeat scientific finding or waste time disproving phenomenon already documented in the literature. Libraries started exploring different ways to bring scholarly communication back to its goal of exposing access to the world’s research results to the world’s research community since no single library could afford to provide access to all results. Inter-library loan, reciprocal agreements between universities and other cost saving and cost sharing measures had limited success until the digital age hit libraries in the 1990’s. It then became technologically possible to freely share massive amounts of content between libraries around the country and around the world with essentially no transaction cost (the cost of an e-mail). Libraries then started reviewing the process and lamenting that universities provided the authors, editors, and reviewers for no cost but were forced to purchase the massaged output from publishers at extremely high prices. This led to developments like SPARC

and the Open Access movement. This is a movement based out of universities that removes price and access barriers to information by capturing pre-prints prior to copyright. Part of motivation of ‘movement’ is wrestling control out of the hands of publishers and back into the hands of scholars. Two traditional approaches as defined in the literature: Gold journals and Institutional Repositories: GOLD: Author fees can range from $1,500 up to 5 figures per article – with many of these ‘publishers’ offering an option to purchase an institutional submission license for a fixed fee (like a subscription). Some are concerned that the fees are too low to be sustained when the grant money dries up and that it could lead to lower quality through vanity press. Since the free/fee toll gate is at the individual article level, it in not easy to find open access articles.

GREEN: An institutional focus, as currently defined and implemented in systems like dSpace, asks authors to deposit final draft of articles prior to publication into a local or domain-specific repository. One goal of this approach is to pull this critical information into a system that will preserve it and broaden access. These systems are often based upon Digital Library standards such as OAI, OAIS, DOI and OpenURL and have several open source and commercial options. Roughly 80% of journal publishers allow authors to do this. Government has the strategic opportunity and comparative advantage to create a new class or approach – which I propose to call the ‘Blue’ Open Access method. This new class of Open Access is focused on funding agencies. This class operates similarly to the GREEN model but rather than capturing preprints to avoid copyright concerns, Federal agencies will capture the final published products and store them in agency-specific repositories. Since this is based upon a status of the author, agencies will be able to go back historically to capture publications from the last 100 years if they have enough detail to identify the authoring agency. NIH has taken the first step by building a system (PubMed) to house and process the information and is currently accepting voluntary submissions (roughly 5% of potential submissions). Funding agencies can mandate publication lists resulting from funding and can require final paper submission for internal use without violating copyright law. According to the 2006 NSF Science and Engineering Indicators, the Federal Government spent $106.5B on R&D in FY05 – this is more than the top 20 public corporations (including automotive, pharmaceutical, and IT) combined. Rather than trying to respond to the scholarly communications crisis with globally-free publications, Blue Access would focus on ensuring that works that have been created by government funding are (1) captured and preserved, (2) made available to the government research community, and (3) where possible under copyright law make portions of this collection available to the general public.

There have been a number of legislative efforts including the Sabo bill and the Federal Research Public Access Act that have been attempts to provide broader access to publications resulting from federal funding. Though the percentage of federal funding compared to the entire pool of research funding is decreasing, federally-funded publications still represent a significant percentage of the annual publication output. First, we need to understand copyright in the context of Government. A Government work is defined as “A work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties.” (17 USC 105). Copyright is not available to for government works (17 U.S.C §101 & 17 U.S.C §105) so a journal article written only by Federal employees as part of their job would not be subject to copyright, even if they had signed paperwork ceding copyright to the publisher. Those works created by government contractors are governed by the terms of the CDRL (Contract Data Rights License) and those works that are collaborative are a bit murky (17 U.S.C §201) but all works involving federal agencies include a non-exclusive Government Purpose right. This right provides for limited reuse within government meaning that any of these works could be identified, indexed, digitized and distributed within the U.S. Federal Government without violating the law. You can read more about this in the extensive copyright FAQ developed by CENDI at:

http://cendi.dtic.mil/publications/04-8copyright.html Even though the various legislative efforts have not succeeded in opening access to products of federal research, the Federal Library community should act now to capture a complete and comprehensive bibliography of all scholarly works created by their agencies both presently and historically. Standards, including rights expression language, will be required to ultimately tie these collections together into a government-wide repository of federally-funded research. Creating these repositories of publications, even if only made available to the home agency, will provide tremendous benefit through ‘Research Portfolio Management’ – the ability to monitor and measure productivity of a research organization based upon metrics derived from the publication portfolio. The NRL Research Library’s Online Bibliography objectives are to:

• Capture and distribute the ‘intellectual output’ of NRL from beginning (1923-present)

• Capturing already published info – no author intervention required and content capture spans back in time (unlike current institutional repository efforts)

• Currently contains traditional NRL publications (journal articles, conference proceedings, patents, technical reports, and book chapters)

• Adding support for laboratory notebooks, oral presentations, invited presentations, etc.

• Changing the official ‘chop chain’ to capture publications through the required approval processes

• Will mandate submission in future in order to use with annual reviews and promotions

• Providing an easy web tool for annual reviews & promotions • Bragging rights by showing the Top 25 most cited publications of all time • Creates an expertise list by viewing pubs and citation counts by author • Creates a compendium of pubs for retiring scientists before leaving • Scanning lab notebooks and interviews of prominent scientists • Provides another slice of digital preservation by ensuring that the content exists in

multiple locations • By partnering with the Office of Naval Research and capturing all publications

resulting from their funding, the NRL Research Library could create the ‘Virtual journal of Naval Research’

To close, I’d like to introduce the Chinese word for ‘CRISIS’

The first symbol represents ‘Danger’ – libraries are facing a lot of them:

• Baby Boomer retirements • Budget cuts/downsizing • Lack of corporate knowledge retention

The second symbol is ‘Opportunity’ – we have several of them ahead of us, depending upon our perspective and response to the changing environment: • Government can capture post-print • Can optimize ourselves and take advantage of automation more • Aggregation across Government can be an effective tool

HARD “FACTS” ABOUT SOFT SKILLS Roberta I. Shaffer, Executive Director FLICC/FEDLINK Library of Congress March 19, 2007

TALKING POINTS Trends:

Moving away from Training (1960’s) to Testing (21st C) Focus on Asset-based Thinking (ABT) in all aspects of business (Now,

Discover your Strengths by Buckingham and Clifton & Change the Way You See Everything by Kramer and Wasiak)

“Green” Culture (Waste Nothing) “Come to work ready to work” employer mentality “Expert” Teams/Modular Organization Chart (Penzias) Project, not program focus (focus on Project Management) Leadership at all levels Competition is Everywhere (Drucker) Changing view of “Authoritarianism” (User Generated Content—UGC) Self-Assessment/Self-Reliance

BASIC SOFT SKILLS FRAMEWORK – The Senior Executive Service Model*

[Will select a few examples from each major heading] Building Coalitions:

• Influence and Negotiation • Advocacy, Public Relations, Marketing, and Outreach • Inter-personal skills • Oral, Written & Visual/Graphic Communication • Partnering • Organizational Process & Procedures • Political Savvy

Results Driven

• Accountability • Customer Service • Decisiveness • Entrepreneurial • Problem-Solving • Technology Credibility • Project Management • Knowledge Management

• Information Use (“federation of information”) • Transdisciplinarity (disciplinarity early 20th C—multi-disciplinarity (mid-20th

C)—Trans (21stC)/Think Toyota “University”)

Business Acumen

• Financial Management • Human Resources • Technical Management • Legal/Regulatory • Human Resource/Personnel • Appropriation/Budgeting Process • Information Literacy • Privacy & Security

Leading Change

• Creativity & Innovation • Continual Learning • External Awareness & Environmental Scanning (What are YOUR Intell

Sources?) • Flexibility • Resilience • Empirical Observation • Holistic Insight (Big Picture) • Service Motivation • Strategic Thinking • Vision

Leading People

• Conflict Management • Leveraging Diversity (particularly 4 Gens in the Workforce) • Integrity and Honesty • Team Building • Knowledge Sharing/Transparency • Followership • Goal Setting (self and others) • Open Mindedness • Ability to Admit Mistakes

* Adopted from SES Core Qualifications (OPM) for Information Professionals

Homework Assignment: Plot Out KASMs – Knowledge, Abilities, Skills, Motivators

GETTING THE

WORD OUT FOCUS ON THE FUTURE: Lutrelle F. Parker Law Library Open House – FLIER

Arti Shah, Division Chief, STIC, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

OCC CELEBRATE NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK - FLIER

David McBee, Senior Reference Librarian, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

INVISIBLE WEB SUPER SEARCHER RETURNS: ADVANCED TIPS FOR SEARCHING THE WEB - FLIER

Jennifer Klang, Reference Librarian, U.S. Department of the Interior

PARK RANGER SPEAKER SERIES – FLIERS African-Americans in the Civil War

The Story of African-Americans Who Knew the Lincolns

Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address (1863) An American Family in World War II

George Franchois, Director, U.S. Department of the Interior in cooperation with the National Park Service

WELCOME TO THE FSI LIBRARY! Priscilla Lujan, FSI Head Librarian , George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center, U.S. Department of State

Welcome to the FSI Library!

Please take a moment to bookmark the FSI Library webpage: http://fsi.state.gov/library/default.asp.

Visit us during Library hours, Monday - Thursday 7:30 am - 5:45 pm and Friday 7:30am - 5:00pm or send us an email fsilibrary@state.gov.

Our mission is to serve the research & information needs of FSI students and staff in training at the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center.

In order to meet these goals, the FSI Library: • Circulates over 30,000+ catalogued titles; see our Library Catalog • Subscribes to 300+ periodicals, in English and other foreign languages. • Circulates about 3,000 videos and DVD’s in our collection.

[Hint: to search for only DVD’s, type in “DVD” as the title] • Subscribes to six daily newspapers ; in print and online. • Provides daily foreign language headlines in print, and in collaboration with

Ralph Bunche Library, links to NewspaperDirect PressDisplay, a service which scans in daily newspapers from 67 different countries and 37 languages.

• Circulates interactive language CD-ROM’s and videos in 66 languages • Provides training on any of the library's online databases, including commercial

news aggregators who represent thousands of periodicals and newspapers from around the world.

• Collaborates with instructors to link course reserve readings • Monitors State Dept and news RSS feeds; maintains a Transformational

Diplomacy page with Remarks by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other officials.

• Consistently displays dynamic Window Exhibits and cultural displays. If you have great photos from your last Post or trip, let us know and we can try to incorporate them into one of our displays.

• Provides 14 multimedia computer stations with VCR and DVD players in the lower level of the Library.

Please let us know how we can assist you with any research.

See you soon!! The FSI Library Staff Telephone: (703) 302-7119