Check out the new conference program for the Canadian Library Association. Two new tracks, one on technology and one on leadership. Join Rebecca and I, CLA President Stephen Abram, and lots of great speakers like: Gary Price of ResourceShelf.com, Barbara Fullerton, Aaron Schmidt, Darlene Fichter, Randy Reichardt of The Pod Bay Door blog, Steven Cohen of Library Stuff, Rich Wiggins of Wigblog – Things Internet & Otherwise, Michael Vandenburg, and more!

Leadership skills are critical for very profession, but especially for information professionals who very much need to be “at the table” or “in the game” in their organizations. In order to be indispensable to an organization or a community, information professionals have to have a deep understanding of their audience so that products and services can be developed that really matter to them and make a difference in their work or learning.

I found this week’s episode of West Wing discussing “the presidential voice” as a necessity for candidates running for president sparked the idea of an “at the table voice” for info pros. It reminded me of research that Rebecca did years ago for SLA which culminated in the development of an executive leadership program which she taught with knowledge management guru, Tom Davenport, and others.

Rebecca interviewed senior managers of organizations in the US to find out what it took for anyone to move to the “decision-making table”. She found they needed four things:* Know where they’re going — have a clear direction which they can articulate* Cross-functional experience, not just a career in one area* Financial understanding of ROI and investments, not just budgeting* Presence — the ability to be felt and heard when walking into a room

So, presence or an “at the table voice” voice is definitely one of the critical success factors for success in any organization. We’re working on ways to further develop the “at the table voice”.

Continue reading The "At the Table Voice"

Friday at Ontario Library Assocation Conference, Feb 4, Toronto Convention Centre: I had the great good luck of attending four insightful sessions with some top-notch speakers. In fact, I was very impressed overall with the quality of the presentations as well as the quality of the interaction between the speakers and the audience and amongst the delegates. What a dynamic group!

First off, Dr. Ian Kerr’s session Why Librarians Should Care About Digital Rights Management was the call to action to ensure a balance between the rights of the copyright owners and the rights of individuals to access works. “If all knowledge is behind a fence and it’s illegal to jump over the fence, creativity will be stifled.” The use of TPMs (Technological Protection Measures) have built virtual fences around works to the end of promoting authorized use. But TPMs have also resulted in use being controlled and restricted ability to access content — with the outcome being that the control has been much tighter than traditional copyright law allowed. Dr. Kerr maintained that there are three stakeholders in copyright: the creators — who do not benefit from TPMs; the content owners — who would insist that protection facilitates progress; and the public — who may see the demise of the public information commons (ie. public libraries) through this “second enclosure movement” (the first being the privatization of land in the UK). Surely scarcity — which is what copyright actually protects — can be achieved with a balance in packaging

Continue reading Juanita’s Friday Report on OLA Conference

What a fantastic beginning! Although it seemed so dreadful trudging in to a conference room at 8:00 a.m. on Thurs Feb 3 for a plenary, that dread soon dissipated. Within minutes, Craig Kielburger, founder of Free the Children had a room of sluggish librarians laughing, singing, pumping their arms and crying. Now 21, Craig and his brother founded this youth initiative when he was 12. Yes, 12. He’s been on Oprah 5 times and his latest book, Me to We, is a best seller. Yes, a 12 year-old kid in Thornhill, Ontario, read about kids forced into slavery in 3rd world countries, and decided to do something about it. He decided to stop it.

Free the Children is about youth helping youth. This influential international children’s organization that has involved over 1 million children and youth in its projects. Youth members of FTC have raised funds for the construction of more than 400 primary schools in the rural areas of developing nations, providing education every day to over 35,000 children. They have distributed more than 200,000 school and health kits in 38 countries and in excess of 8 million US dollars worth of medical supplies to needy families in 13 countries. FTC currently supports portable water projects, health clinics, alternative income cooperatives and primary schools in 21 developing nations.”

Too often our profession sees a problem and says “we can’t do anything about it — it’s beyond our control — there’s too many issues.’ No more! If a 12 year

Continue reading OLA Super Conference 2005, Toronto

Marriage was a metaphor used repeatedly at the recent two day Education Institute Leadership Summit “Building Capacity through Partnership and Collaboration” — itself a partnership of OLA, LAA, BCLA and SLA. Over 90 delegates representing a cross-section of the information industry from across the country laughed, argued, listened, discussed and learned along with Ken Roberts, OLA President and moderator for this event, as a great group of dynamic, thought-provoking speakers shared their passion for and experiences with different partnerships. They presented us with some fundamental principles for building partnerships and alliances, case studies and lessons learned. We were offered vision: “Look outside your immediate sphere. Build a bigger tent!” “Push the envelope — you can always pull back!” “Build sustainability to ensure long term success!” And we were challenged — sometimes uncomfortably so: “Librarians are on the peak and just about to fall off the cliff.” “If public libraries didn’t have a monopoly, we wouldn’t be able to compete.” “Content is critical to a civil society. We need more activist librarians.”

Opening keynote speaker, Glen Murray, the former mayor of Winnipeg, told us to imagine the possibilities. “We’ve all experienced some challenging times in the past 10 years. We’ve seen a disconnect in our value sets, pitting culture / arts / community against pipes / pavement / police.” He urged us to take the kernel of an opportunity out to our corporate leaders, government officials, unions and challenge them to become full citizens.

Deb deBruijn offered us the principles of

Continue reading Will You Marry Me? A Look @ Partnerships