Opening statement for SLA Board candidates

As you may or may not know, I am a member of the Special Libraries Association (SLA), and this year I am running for an SLA Board position for 2011-2013. The position is Division Cabinet Chair-Elect (which is quite a mouthful).

Even SLA members will look confused when I tell them the position I'm running for. Flippantly, I will tell them the position is "king of Divisions". More seriously, the Division Cabinet Chair-Elect primarily acts as a liaison between the various SLA Divisions and the SLA Board. The Division Cabinet Chair-Elect helps out Division leadership in whatever way he or she can, and is an active member of the Board.

I'm excited about the possibility of serving on the Board. It's yet another way that I can give back to SLA as an association, which has done so much for me, professionally and personally.

As part of this process, I wanted to share some of the statements I made at the SLA Annual Conference in New Orleans. I think this will give you a little more insight into my position and thoughts.

I'll be sharing more of this information over the next few weeks.

Opening statement and platform

I’ve been an SLA member since 2002, but have been active in public, academic and corporate libraries for almost 20 years, and am currently doing independent work, teaching, speaking and consulting. Most recently, I was at Sun Microsystems, a tech company, for over 9 years, doing research, training, competitive intelligence work, and working with social media, among other things. I am currently a member of the SLA Virtual Worlds Council, a founding member and Past Chair of the Competitive Intelligence Division, and was President of the Rocky Mountain Chapter when the conference was there in 2007 (and there weren’t any tornadoes, thankfully). I also blog, tweet, do a bi-weekly music podcast called Music Therapy and will receive a second Master’s degree in Counseling in August of this year.

Not to trivialize the scale of what’s happening in the Gulf oil spill, but I worry about a similar slow-motion crisis happening to SLA, and to many associations. To me, there are a few major crises facing us as Divisions, Chapters, and SLA as an association:

• Funding
• Membership
• Programming and value outside of the annual conference

These are all tied together tightly, and really come down to a question of value – the value that members, vendors and SLA get out of the association.

I think some of the best tools we can use to bring more value to SLA members are:

• Transparency/openness 
• Communication 
• Flexibility 

By transparency, I mean something that is a hallmark of what we do – making information available. We need to know plainly the difficulties we are facing and the resources that we have. We need to know the state of our membership and our units, and what your thoughts are. Otherwise we make decisions that don’t consider critical elements. We make the potentially wrong decision.

By communication, I mean talking with each other. I mean sharing information back and forth. Talking and listening. And I think we need to expand the conversation to include everyone – units, members, vendors, Board members.

By flexibility, I mean a willingness to consider new things, potentially big changes, new ways of thinking about ourselves, our programming, and our fundraising. Flexibility and change frankly mean being uncomfortable, but it also means doing something new, interesting, exciting and relevant. And I’m all for that.

In difficult times, it becomes critical that we have all the information we need, all the participation we can get, and all the options that are possible. Only by having all three can we get through the adjustments and changes we need to get through, and to ultimately thrive. And I think we can thrive.

(End of opening statement)

I'd love to have a conversation with you about this. What are your thoughts? What would you suggest for the betterment of SLA and its members?

Comments

[Scott Brown]

Thank you Tina! :) What you don't mention is how much you've done as well, both for the student chapter at University of Denver (DU) and for SLA. You bring so much energy and enthusiasm to our association!

One of the great benefits of SLA is networking, connecting with colleagues, and learning from and helping each other. It's just an amazing association. It's been a pleasure getting to know you!

And we'll have to have a hoppy beer together again sometime soon :)

[Tina Jayroe]

Here’s why I think Scott would be an excellent Division Cabinet Chair-Elect. These are my personal experiences with him:

-I met Scott after becoming the DU SLA student group secretary in 2007. Scott was helpful to me from the very start. He spoke to our group at one of our first meetings, made us feel important at the annual RMSLA meeting, and read and replied to each and every message I sent out regarding meetings for more than two years (with smiley faces and everything). Trust me, this is amazing; student group email messages are NOT very exciting.

-Scott has offered to put me in contact with the appropriate person at SLA national headquarters regarding my concerns and needs on numerous occasions—too many to mention here.

-I have emailed him in a panic for assistance getting into Second Life for an event. Of course, he replied asap.

-He has recently proofread a survey I composed for information research providing excellent feedback. This was done at a time in his life when he was exceptionally busy.

-He started following me on Twitter when I didn't even know how to use it and my tweets consisted of exciting messages like, "uh, how do i do this?" and "test, test." For those of you who tweet, you know it's a nice feeling to have at least a couple of people following you when you begin . . . and he still hasn’t blocked me yet :)

-But most importantly . . . he loves hoppy beer! My hero. Actually, it doesn’t take much more than a being a beer lover to be my hero, but that’s beside the point: There are many people out there who realize how hard Scott works for the SLA and the profession. No matter what I've needed, Scott has come through for me; offering to help before I can even ask.

Thank you Scott. And good luck.