ALA Annual Conference 2011, New Orleans, LA
June 24-27 2011

I spent five days in New Orleans for conference, with one day for personal vacation. Here's what I did with my time. My mileage varied greatly from my planned schedule. Still, I learned a lot, met new people and broadened my horizons.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Preconference:
ALCTS Acquisitions Section Preconference: Patron-Driven Acquisitions in Academic Libraries: Maximizing Technology to Minimize Risk

I served on the planning committee for this preconference session. The session went well and met its intended goals based on feedback I received from participants.

Preconference:

ASCLA Preconference: Assembling a Consultant Toolkit: What you need to know to become a successful library consultant (self-paid).

Speakers:

Nancy Bolt, Nancy Bolt Consulting and Sara Laughlin, Director, Monroe County (Ind.) Public Library

Description: 

The session provided overview of library consulting for attendees. Bolt and Laughlin provided exploration activities to allow participant to discover personal consulting potential through self-assessment. Participants engaged in lecture and group work to explore different roles that consultants play, services consultants may deliver to clients, marketing consulting services, managing a consulting business and finding clients.

ALCTS 101 – Evening meet and greet for new / old ALCTS members. A speed dating format was followed to allow more knowledge about the organization to be obtained.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Exhibits attendance (morning):

I met the art director from LittlePickle Press children’s publisher and we talked over coffee about civic engagement.

Picked up information for scanning workstation for Nappanee Public Library, Kodak.

Met with vendors: Action! DVD, YBP – discussed changed role and future responsibilities.

ACRL  - ULS/CLS – Academic Librarian Lightning Round! Innovative New Roles  - Auditorium size crowd received short panel discussions about new job initiatives and partnerships to maintain or further the presence of an academic library within the community.

LITA Transliteracy IG: Working Toward Transliteracy – practical aspects of what we can do to help our patrons become transliterate citizens. Presenters used real world examples of the impact of multiple platforms, tools and media on our ever-widening need for literacy across those platforms.

Sunday, June 26

ALA-OLOS, ASCLA-LSSPS: Library Services to Incarcerated People and Ex-Offenders: Models of Outreach – Saw half of the presentation which dealt with public library service to a prison library in Minnesota and a school library system in NYC which works with both secure and unsecured facilities for student residents in the corrections system. In both cases, to goal is to provide resources, such as the Hennepin Co. Public Library Freedom Ticket, that will help reconnect the patrons of the prison library with library services in the community upon release. Likewise, the NYC program helps to serve its students and provide for training and the normalcy needed.

NMRT Resume Review 9-9:45

ACRL Health Sciences Interest Group: Consumer Health Information: Library Partnerships that Serve the Community - Session which focused on connecting patrons in communities with resources available at academic and public libraries and on the web. Session presenters all mentioned the MLA CHIS (Consumer Health Information Specialization) a certificate program that is easily obtained.

Lunch and Exhibits Hall

ALA Poster Session – 3:00-4:30 - Exploring Appreciative Inquiry: Support for culture shift in an academic library during top level leadership transition, or Using Appreciative Inquiry to Support a Culture Shift in Transition.

ABSTRACT:

Marcy Simons, MLS, Organizational Development Specialist, Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame and Mandy L. Havert, MLS, Gifts-in-Kind Librarian, Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame will explore the appreciative inquiry (AI) framework and its potential value for supporting staff and faculty during the transition after the year period following the hire of a new University Librarian. The authors will: 1.) define the AI framework; 2.) provide a context for the current cultural environment and discuss major recommendations made at all employee levels during a baseline strategic planning process that pointed to the need for major culture shift in the Libraries; 3.) apply the AI framework to explore how the needed changes identified can be supported during the period of leadership transition; 4.) invite feedback from colleagues at other organizations who have tried or are considering AI to support change initiatives. The authors plan to propose a program at a future conference to discuss progress and outcomes that resulted in the AI experience at the University of Notre Dame.

As a part of our discussions with poster session attendees, Marcy and I were approached about publishing in LL&M once we have moved through our fourth phase of the Appreciative Inquiry model. Several directors and interim directors were interested in and took copies of our handouts.

Monday, June 27

I had a seamless trip to the airport and a great trip home. Flights were ontime and traffic from Fort Wayne to Nappanee was quick and easy, despite nearly missing my exit from I-69 to US-30. I was welcomed home by my dear husband, our kitten and a savory dinner of fish tacos. Nothing could be better. 

On Saturday, June 25, the ALA Annual meeting in New Orleans, the Library Information Technology Association (LITA) Transliteracy Interest Group offered two sessions that defined and presented issues related to transliteracy. 

In the first session, transliteracy was described in detail. I missed this session due to a scheduling conflict. However, transliteracy is defined loosely as the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. 

I attended the second of the two sessions which spoke to matters related to transliteracy. The second session was a mixed public and academic library panel who focused on varying issues related to transliteracy. Speakers on the panel included: Amy Mather, Lily Ramin, Jamie Hollier and Matt Hamilton.

What I found most useful and informative was the emphasis on providing for literacy across platforms and formats in support of academic needs and recognizing that among demographics more and less effort may be needed to address matters related to change than the actual technology. One bright idea that emerged was the 30 Days of Creativity Project, http://30daysofcreativity.com/ and how the social learning construct could be borrowed and leveraged for expanding transliteracy among internal and external constituencies. The thirty days are at heart meant to help grow and extend creativity. Jamie Hollier argued that those 30 days could instead be applied to becoming transliterate.

Overall the panelists encourage thinking differently about how we approach learning, literacy and technology.  Above all, knowing that people have a need to know or to learn easily at the point of need means we must also include and acknowledge the change process as part of our skill set, particularly at the outset when we begin to help transition knowledge and skills into achievement for our patrons.

Here is a link that might be useful for learning more about the topic: http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/  This blog is supported by leaders in research related to transliteracy, including Bobbi Newman who helped start and now chairs the LITA Transliteracy IG.

I've spent much of my unplanned time today working on polishing both the presentation slide and the handout for a team poster presentation at the ALA Annual Meeting in New Orleans this weekend. Our topic is "Exploring Appreciative Inquiry: Support for culture shift in an academic library during top level leadership transition," or "Using Appreciative Inquiry to Support a Culture Shift in Transition." I've got such a great partner to present with--she's done a lot of the heavy lifting due to my exceptional spring. I'm catching up, but she's the expert in the field now when it comes down to it.

Our discussion of the poster will explore the appreciative inquiry (AI) framework and its potential value for supporting staff and faculty during the transition after the year period following the hire of a new University Librarian. The authors will:

1. define the AI framework;
2. provide a context for the current cultural environment and discuss major recommendations made at all employee levels during a baseline strategic planning process that pointed to the need for major culture shift in the Libraries;
3. apply the AI framework to explore how the needed changes identified can be supported during the period of leadership transition;
4. invite feedback from colleagues at other organizations who have tried or are considering AI to support change initiatives. The authors plan to propose a program at a future conference to discuss progress and outcomes that resulted in the AI experience at the Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame.

Today we're well on the way with our poster design, and the handout is in its near final draft stages. If you're at the convention center on Sunday between 3:00 and 4:30, stop by and see us. We'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

I was blessed to spend much of my afternoon planning for the upcoming ALA Annual Conference at New Orleans, focusing on the outputs for the poster session my colleague and I are presenting. It reflects the use of the Appreciative Inquiry model for analyzing the culture shift that is happening due to the change of top-level leadership here in our library. In the past months eight teams of faculty and staff have performed a benchmark to inform the writing of a strategic plan. The goal of our poster session is to explore the AI Framework and how it relates to the plan implementation over the coming year.

It's been a long year and no wonder the lag with my posts. So much change personally and professionally. Still, I remain positive that there is a plan and I am not actively seeking control. Everything happens in the right time.

I am now the Gifts-in-Kind Librarian at the Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame. This was a small portion of my prior duties and responsibilties. In the next three months I will be refocusing my efforts and visiting projects and activities that were backburnered due to competing priorities and insufficient resources, including my own human resources.

I met today with my staff member and we have begun planning on two major intitiatives:

1. Review, revision and restatement of the Gifts-in-Kind acceptance policy and procedures
2. Planning and implementation of an open source solution for tracking information about Gifts-in-Kind and their donors

Both initiatives are important for a teaching, research and learning institution such as ours. I hope to complete an environmental scan by mid-July and have the first pass at describing data we need in the software ready to go.

If you have any thoughts on these directions, I invite you to post here in the blogsite or privately to me.