DC/SLA Chapter Notes - May 2005

President’s Corner: And the Tote Board Says…

By Sheryl Rosenthal, rosenthals@sec.gov It’s annual report time for SLA Chapter Presidents; that time of year when we report back to Headquarters on all the incredible events, community service projects, and innovative ideas put into practice during the SLA year.

We hear much from Headquarters, other Chapters, and our own members about meeting the needs of membership by providing ample networking and learning opportunities.

With the planning efforts provided by Shirley Loo, President-Elect, assisted by our “can’t be beat” hospitality chair, Lorraine Bell, along with the many volunteers who make it all possible, I am proud to say that the DC Chapter is unsurpassed in meeting that goal.

May 2005 Volume 64 No. 8 http://www.sla.org/chapter/cdc

Inside this issue: President’s Corner

1

American Indian Museum Visit

3

Annual Banquet!

6

Joint Spring Workshop Report

7

New Health Info. Award

8

Negotiations Skills Workshop

9

DC/SLA Survey Coming

9

Royal Tea Break in Toronto

9

DC/SLA Board Minutes

10

This boost in voter turnout made for an extremely close election. It is one of the responsibilities of the President-Elect to inform candidates of the election results. I remember how gratifying it was last year when I made those calls and found, regardless of the election outcome, that every single person was more than willing to either accept the new position or continue and even increase their volunteer participation in DC Chapter business and events. My thanks to all who ran for office.

Book Club Event

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Making Connections

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The new Board of Directors for the 2005-2006 chapter year will be announced at the upcoming Annual Business Meeting and Banquet on May 24. I’ll be providing more details on Chapter doings in my “State of the Chapter” presentation, including a status report on our community outreach projects, scholarship awards, and “Get out the Vote” effort.

Read about the new products and services from:

So, drum roll please. Marilyn Bromley, DC/SLA’s metrics maven, reports that the DC Chapter held more than 72 events during 2004-2005, including workshops, lunchtime brown bag sessions, dine-around dinners, Chapter board meetings, library tours, book club meetings, and virtual seminars. Even more impressive, to my mind, is the fact that 381 members attended at least one meeting and 97 members attended three or more meetings and the year isn’t over yet!

Three hundred eighty-one seems to be a magic number for DC/SLA this year. I don’t know if there is any correlation but in the 2005 chapter election, the first electronic election in SLA history, 381 digital and 9 paper ballots were received. As reported by Ellie Briscoe, whose devotion, enthusiasm, and dedicated to detail made electronic balloting fast, easy, and reliable, the 2004 paper-based election elicited 201 valid ballots (23 additional ballots were disqualified for lack of a voter return address).

And if that isn’t enough to get you to sign up for the banquet, you won’t want to miss this year’s featured speaker, Anthony S. Pitch, author of many books including “The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814”. Mr. Pitch, a noted lecturer and recipient of numerous awards, will present a program on “Lincoln and 9/11: Symbolic Parallels”.

For more information on the banquet program, see page 6 or go directly to http://www.sla.org/chapter/cdc/events_files/may2405.html to register.

Volunteers for Community Outreach Needed 13

• • • • • • •

Capcon Dialog InfoCurrent Library Associates Trak Legal EOS International Factiva

Check us out on the Web http://www.sla.org/chapter/cdc/

DC/SLA gratefully acknowledges the generous support of LexisNexis for this event.

See you at the banquet!

Sheryl

Next Newsletter Deadline For June/July issue is May 24.

Email bferry@ngs.org

Special Libraries Association assumes no responsibility for the statements and opinions advanced by the contributors to SLA’s publications. Editorial views do not necessarily represent the official views of SLA. Acceptance of advertisement does not imply endorsement of the product by SLA. Subscriptions: Chapter Notes is free to DC/SLA members.

Subscriptions to non-members are available at $10 per year.

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Deadline for the April issue is May 24.

The issue is distributed approximately two weeks after the deadline. The preferred submission format is a Word document sent via email. You should receive an email acknowledgement of your submission.

Materials for Chapter Notes should be sent to the Editor: Barbara Ferry Libraries & Information Services National Geographic Society 1145 17th St. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 Phone: 202-857-7051 Email: bferry@ngs.org Event announcements should also be submitted electronically to the Listserv Moderator: Kelley Weber, Surface Transportation Board Phone: 202-565-1668 Email: weberk@stb.dot.gov

DC/SLA Web Master-- Cassandra Shieh, Catholic News Service 202-541-3254; Fax: 202-541-3255 cshieh@catholicnews.com cassandrashieh@hotmail.com Send address changes for Chapter Notes to: SLA Headquarters ATTN: Address/Name Changes 1700 18th Street NW Washington, DC 20009-2508

New Exhibition Submitted by Cynthia Kahn, ckahn@aamc.org

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Reference Center and Mary H. Littlemeyer Archives staff are pleased to announce the completion of an historical exhibition. The exhibit is located in the AAMC headquarters building in Washington, DC. It comprises panels on the mission and membership of the AAMC, a timeline history of the AAMC, and panels highlighting the history of medical education in the United States, 1620-2005. Visitors are welcome by appointment. For more information, contact: Cynthia Kahn, MILS MPH Manager, Reference Center and Archives Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) 2450 N Street, NW Washington, DC 20037 202-828-0433, FAX 202-862-6136 ckahn@aamc.org

American Indian Museum Special Event What: Reference PowWow: Providing Research Services in the National Museum of the American Indian When: May 18, Noon - 1:00 Where: National Museum of the American Indian Resource Center -- 3rd Floor Join us to hear librarian Lynne Altstatt of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, National Museum of the American Indian, and Marty DeMontano from the Resource Center at the Interactive Learning Center of the Museum talk about the unique resources of the collection. They will also share with background on the months of Hope to seeusyou soon. preparation to ready the collections as well as some of the rare gems they use in providing reference services in their special libraries.

You may bring a lunch (but it must be covered), or lunch may be purchased in the building cafĂŠ but you must ask that it be in a closed bag upon leaving.

Registration is required and open to the first 35 DC/SLA members.

Reply to Jerry Mansfield at jmansfield@crs.loc.gov to garner your seat.

The museum is located at 4th and Independence Ave., SW and reachable by the L’Enfant Plaza Metro.

Welcome, New Members!

Submitted by Alphonse Vinh, AVinh@npr.org Javii Austin, Elizabeth Beleny, Marcy Carrel, Linda Clark, Roxanne Corbin, Mohamed Diarra, Donna Doering, Aaron Foster, Diane Gibson, May Guo, Marina Kisunko, Laura Lucs, Fatmata McCormack, Mary Murray, Andrea Nash, Ozioma Ijeuoma Orji, Leigh Anne Palmer, Bridget Rocher, Sue Routhier, Donna Saxon, Carolyn Smith, Eva Tarnay , Salvador Velez, Patricia West, Ming Dong.

DC/SLA Annual Banquet May 24, 2005, 6:00 pm-9:30 pm The Capital Hilton Hotel DC/SLA gratefully acknowledges the generous support of LexisNexis for this event.

Eat, drink, network with friends old and new, and celebrate another successful year of diverse and interesting DC/SLA programs! We are ending the year on a historical note: Anthony S. Pitch will present a program on “Lincoln and 9/11: Symbolic Parallels”. Pitch is a noted Washington, DC historian who has written a number of books, including “The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814.” (History Book Club selection, winner of the Arline Custer Memorial Prize for Best Book from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, and recipient of the Maryland Historical Society's Annual Book Award.) He has been tapped for appearances on The History Channel, National Public Radio, C-Span, and is a sought-after lecturer.

Date:

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Time:

6:00 pm-9:30 pm Cash bar at 6:00 pm; Dinner at 7:00 pm

Place:

The Capital Hilton Hotel, South American Room 1001 16th Street, NW (between K and L Streets) Washington, DC 20036 202-393-1000

Metro:

Two blocks west of Farragut North Metro (Red Line) Two blocks north of McPherson Square (Orange and Blue Lines)

Menu:

Pan roasted breast of chicken over wild mushrooms and white truffle risotto, served with pan gravy and fresh herbs with chef’s choice of vegetables, and house salad Toasted Israeli couscous wrapped in a crepe over grilled market vegetables, seared tofu and roasted red pepper coulis with roasted fingerling potatoes and seasonal squash. (Both entrees include coffee, tea, and dessert)

Price:

$25 for Chapter members; $35 for non-members; $15 for students/retirees /unemployed Chapter members. No charge for anyone with more than 45 years of membership.

RSVP:

Please use PayPal via the DC/SLA website and notify Hospitality Chair Lorraine Bell at 202-289-8505 or lorraine.bell@factiva.com once PayPal payment has been made. DEADLINE: Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Joint Spring Workshop Report “Information Organization for the 21st Century: Taxonomies, Ontologies, and the Semantic Web” Submitted by Jennifer Agresta, jagresta@ngs.org Strategies, struggles, and successes in organizing data characterized the presentations at the 2005 Joint Spring Workshop, held in the Mumford Room at the Library of Congress Madison Building. The event, chaired by Anne Marie Houppert (DC/SLA), drew more than 130 attendees.

The day began with Taxonomy Strategies founder Joseph Busch, who designs indexing schemes for organizations.

He informed attendees that Dublin Core is now being widely used by non-librarians—namely, by companies that have come to realize that they need metadata to structure their information. Busch also addressed several taxonomy-related myths with regard to companies’ needs, including the idea of literary warrant. People don’t want to wait for their vocabulary, he said; in organizations, terminology is needed before “literature” establishes warrant.

Next up was Denise Bedford, whose duties at the World Bank Group include management of the Group’s Thesaurus and core metadata strategy. She outlined the idea of a “service-oriented architecture” (SOA), allowing for data driving what looks like new Web sites from one’s metadata repository; changes can be populated programmatically. She detailed the Bank’s “enterprise functional architecture,” i.e., what it is doing to address the challenges of capturing metadata from various databases. An essential goal, she asserted, is to maintain quality of metadata as we increase the scope of our coverage. A key mission should be the promotion of semantic interoperability among ontologies and an integration of classification schemes and thesauri.

Making the case for visualization tools was Ramana Rao, CTO and founder of Inxight. He demonstrated several applications for content visualization, including a “hyperbolic tree,” a way of viewing large hierarchies that can be extremely valuable for organizing one’s company taxonomy. Visualizations, he asserted, give us an overview yet also help us navigate a specific region, much the way maps do. We can use visualization, he maintained, to help with information-access problems.

Stuart Sutton, associate professor in the Information School at the University of Washington, Seattle, and the director of education digital library initiatives in the Information Institute at Syracuse University, discussed the thesaural structure of education-level vocabulary and the challenges involved in developing vocabularies that accommodate different languages. To move toward a semantic Web, he explained, “Websize” value spaces and their member terms must be persistently and uniquely identified, formally declared by means of a schema language, and made Web-available by being published. He also discussed the idea of “metadata registries,” where schemas and metadata instances could be pulled together.

After lunch, Dan Dabney, senior director for taxonomies and subject access research at Thomson/West, discussed the variety of coding schemes in common use. He used specific examples from the law to illustrate the differences between free-text and artificial languages, including how our ability to retrieve things depends on how someone has classified them. He also asserted that an indexing language should not contain headings that are not needed to describe entries in one’s collection.

The semantic Web is already upon us, stated Jim Hendler, professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the director of semantic Web and Agent technology at the Maryland Information and Network Dynamics Laboratory.

The question isn’t if, but “how much,” and the train is moving forward in the form of semantic Web technologies, he said; RDF, RDFS, and OWL are stable and their implementations are maturing, with data integration now identified as a multi-billion-dollar worldwide market.

The final speaker, Mike Daconta, metadata program manager for the Department of Homeland Security, was concerned with how we can make knowledge in taxonomies explicit so computers can understand them. He discussed the relationships among nodes, as well as the “is-a” relation, which is what most people think when they think of taxonomies. He also explained the logical implications of using formal taxonomies, including how transitive relations allow categorization roll-up.

Other members of the 2005 Joint Spring Workshop Committee include Laura Hjerpe, Treasurer (DCLA), Anna Bohlin (FLICC), Carla Evans (LLSDC), Dave Pachter (FLICC), Eileen Rourke (DCSLA), and Bill Tuceling (DCLA).

New Health Information Award The U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) will launch the first ever nationwide award program for libraries as exemplary community resources for health information. Whether public, academic, school, or specialized, libraries are often consumers’ first stop for accurate and up-to-date nutrition and health information. The award includes a $20,000 cash prize for the top winner, to be announced in May 2006.

To kick off the award program, NCLIS and the National Agricultural Library will co-host a special launch event, joined by representatives from the health field and from the nation’s 52 state library agencies. The event will feature exhibitors from 12 health and health promotion organizations.

When:

Monday, May 2, 2005. Exhibits open at 5:00 p.m. Reception: 6:30–8:30 p.m. Program: 7:15–7:45 p.m.

Who: Dr. Fitzsimmons and National Agricultural Library Director Peter Young will lead the presentation, along with NCLIS Commissioner Mary H. Perdue, Chair of the NCLIS Libraries and Health Communication Task Force. Commenting on the role of libraries in health information delivery will be Diantha D. Schull, President of the Americans for Libraries Council and Dr. Roger Merrill, Chief Medical Officer of Perdue Farms.

Where: National Agricultural Library Abraham Lincoln Building; 10301 Baltimore Avenue, Beltsville, Maryland 20705.

Press: Photo ID required for entrance to National Agricultural Library. To attend the event, set up interviews with participants, or reserve a seat on shuttle bus from Capitol South Metro call Giuliana Bullard at 703-5321477.

NCLIS: The U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) is a permanent, independent agency of the United States government that advises the President and Congress on national policy with respect to libraries and information science.

DC/SLA Music Committee Honored by Dr. Billington A DC/SLA activity was honored by Dr. James Billington, Librarian of Congress and J. Riley Lewis, Founder and Music Director of the Bach Consort of Washington on Friday, April 15th, preceeding a concert at the Coolidge Auditorium.

A committee of Sue O'Neill Johnson (Chair); Erin Clougherty, Anna McGowan, and Ruth Foss from the L.C. Music Division was asked by the Board to review and recommend action regarding the complete taped archives of Bach Consort concerts, covering hundreds of concerts over approximately twenty-seven years.

After almost two years a final arrangement was announced by Dr. Billington, that the Library of Congress will restore and make available all these recordings to the public on CD. The Bach Consort is the only group ever to record every Contata written by J.S. Bach.

Network with your colleagues as the D.C. Chapter joins the Retired Members Caucus and the Social Science Division at the SLA Annual Conference in Toronto for a Royal Tea Break at the Fairmont Royal York. Enjoy tea, scones, sandwiches, and other treats in the York Room at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 7th. Reservations are suggested as space will be limited.

RSVP to Charlotte Kohrs, KRET Convener by May 20th. ckohrs2930@aol.com

Thanks to Basch Subscriptions for providing $500 for the Royal Tea Break!

We Need Your Help Here’s an opportunity to shape the services that DC/SLA provides you. Soon the Employment Committee will be sending you an electronic survey via the DC/SLA listserv. Your participation in the survey is extremely important: we need to know how we can best support your career planning and job search efforts. The results from the survey will be used to do just that. So please, when you see the email survey in your inbox, take the time to fill it out and return it to DC/SLA.

DCSLA Board Meeting Highlights March 15, 2005 Sheryl Rosenthal, President - Resignations - Cassandra Harper is resigning from the mentoring committee and will continue duties to the end of the year.

- Kelly Weber is resigning from listserv moderator and Chapter Notes business manager, as she is moving to Topeka, KS this summer. She will continue her duties through May. Shirley Loo, 1st Vice President/President-Elect - Event: March virtual seminars: Virtual seminar had to be rescheduled due to server issues at SLA headquarters. Part 2 is Wednesday, March 23 on meeting client needs.

- Event: Tour of the Executive Office of the President April 29 - Event: Museum of the American Indian lunchtime function on May 18 - Event: Military Librarians - Heringen Collection Tour of German maps from Nazi era, then dutch treat dinner on April 4.

- Event: Resources to Fight Terrorism on March 4 had 43 attendees (13 DCSLA) Lorraine Bell, Hospitality Committee - Volunteer Reception: hosted all volunteers on April 28 at the Army/Navy Club, in the Washington Room.

Alphonse Vinh, Director - Membership: there is no new membership data available, due to technical problems at SLA Headquarters.

- Career Transition Day: Scheduled for April 14 at Sumner School.

- Mentoring Committee: New committee chair needed.

Eric Clougherty, Treasurer - In receipt of: $338 in royalties from sales of the DC Area Directory $1300 from Chapter Notes advertising sales $11,844 from SLA to help underwrite Chapter programming Anne Caputo, Past Past President - SLA Election Results: President Elect: Rebecca Vargha Chapter Cabinet Chair Elect: Anne Caputo Division Cabinet Chair Elect: Agnes Mattis Directors: Roberto Sarmiento, Cindy Romaine - Election winners will take office during the business meeting of the SLA annual meeting [Cont’d next page] DC/SLA Board Minute Highlights, Cont’d:

Ellie Briscoe, Chapter Elections - Response to SurveyMonkey has been good, although some digital ballots may be blocked by spam filters. Ellie is writing new procedures for the manual and “Chapter Notes.”

Judy Grosberg, Archives - We are out of space at Martin L. King library and have requested more as SLA requires archiving our history. Sheryl and Judy will determine how to obtain a grant to digitize some of this history.

Kris Sasala, Career Day - Has lined up speakers in biotechnology, software, healthcare Sheryl Rosenthal reports for Barbie Keiser, International Relations Committee - April 14 is International Special Librarians Day, “Bridging the Global Digital Divide” with Timothy Anderson of World Computer Exchange New Business: Anne Caputo on Grant Application: The NY Chapter is seeking assistance from D.C. and other larger chapters to purchase skills of a fundraiser to develop a grant application model to secure funds and to identify sources of funding. The board will review at the next meeting.

Crucial Conversations at May 19, DC/SLA Book Club Event How good are you at handling crucial conversations -- the kinds of discussions where the stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong? The next DC/SLA Book Club selection, New York Times Bestseller, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, examines ways to master dialog and achieve more effective business and workplace negotiations, and resolve conflicts. Stephen Covey calls this a "breakthrough book" that is accessible and full of humor and practicality.

The Book Club will meet to discuss Crucial Conversations on Thursday, May 19, 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm. The meeting place is the U.S. Department of State Annex at 301 4th St., SW, one block west from the Federal Center Southwest metro station (on the blue and orange line). A bonus feature -- Starbucks Coffee is now located in our annex complex!

Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, et. al., published by McGraw-Hill, 2002, is available in paperback via Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com. Your public library may also have a print or e-book copy.

To attend and get additional directions, please RSVP to Eileen Deegan at: deeganeg@state.gov or 202-453-8073. To learn more about the DC/SLA Book Club, please check out our webpage at http://www.sla.org/chapter/cdc/bookclub.html.

DC/SLA Chapter Notes | May 2005

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Making Connections Submitted By Mary Talley, mtalley@axelroth.com Making connections with outside perspectives is never as necessary to the success of our work life as when we are seeking employment - especially in today’s volatile job market. This was brought home during the recent, innovative DC/SLA Career Day: Cutting Your Own Edge, which focused on carving new paths into high-growth industries that are usually outside our natural habitat. This month’s article ties into this theme by spotlighting a single Web site that encourages involvement with new media and offers excellent employment resources: http://www.dcwebwomen.org.

Caryn Wesner-Early (Technical Information Specialist, U.S. Patent & Trademark Office) submitted the DC Web Women site to “Making Connections.” Here’s what she said: “Although it's not a library organization, our new president is a librarian, as are several of our officers. The main focus of the group is sharing expertise in computer-related issues. The name notwithstanding, it is not limited to Web issues; I've gotten good help on Excel and Publisher, and discussions also cover workplace issues....”

Although membership in the organization is limited to women only, the Web site’s practical and pertinent career and employment information is available and applicable to either gender. Here is what I found:

Articles on job-hunting and resume writing

Practical job search information, such as how to create an online resume

Job seekers’ column on job search etiquette and issues, and

Links to resources for career planning, technology training, and Web-related work.

Ms. Wesner-Early concluded with an endorsement of the members-only mail list: “There's also a Social list to cover the nonwork-related side of life.... I got my two cats from the Social list.”

Calling all Volunteers for May 7 Community Outreach Project Please volunteer for the School Work Day at Coolidge High School on Saturday, May 7 between 10 AM to 2 PM. The School Work Day is part of Hands On, DC. We need your talents on several Library projects. These include shelf reading. evaluating sections of the non-fiction collection; filing periodicals; preparing shelf list cards; entering data into the electronic database; processing books with spine labels, pockets and circulation cards; working on overdue lists; sorting gift books; shifting books and other library tasks. If you would rather wield a paintbrush, you can help paint the first floor of the school.

Coolidge High is located at 5th & Sheridan Sts. NW and is near the Takoma Park metro stop. There is plenty of on street parking and there is a parking lot in back of the school. If you are able to help out, please reply to Lynn Kauffman, the Coolidge Librarian, at kauffman@prodigy.net or 202-576-6143 or Kenlee Ray at KenleeR@aol.com or 202-483-2423.

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DC/SLA Chapter Notes | May 2005

DC/SLA Chapter Notes | May 2005

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