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December 2000 Volume 60, No. 4 Contents z z z z z z z z z z z z z z
Electronic Collections: Understanding Their Value to Users President’s Corner Holiday Message In Search Of: DC/SLA Board Nominees Reflections on Internetspeak Data Presentation -- A Guide to Good Graphics and Tables Global 2000 Conference Unites 22 Fellows with DC/SLA Mentors and Sponsors Information Services in Developing Countries: How Can We Assist? Join Us at the NVIS Holiday Potluck Mini-Minutes of the October DC/SLA Board Meeting You Want Me to do WHAT? Welcome New DC/SLA Members! Members' News DC/SLA Coming Attraction
-DC/SLA PresentsElectronic Collections: Understanding Their Value to Users This seminar offers an overview of current developments in electronic collections and the challenges they present to publishers, aggregators and librarians. Featured speakers Judy Luther, President of Informed Strategies, and Denise Davis of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), will explore how to assess usage and the value of electronic collections to users. They will also discuss the conclusions of the White Paper on Electronic Journal Usage Statistics written for the Council on Library and Information Resources. The program’s additional speakers will be announced at a later date. WHEN: Tuesday, January 16 3:00 p.m -- 6:00 p.m. WHERE: The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. The Editors Building 1729 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. Between 17th and 18th Streets on H; Closest Metro Station: Farragut West PRICE: $35.00 for SLA/DCLA/LLSDC/ASIS members $17.50 Students and Retirees $52.50 Non-members Light refreshments will be provided. Following the program, attendees and speakers are invited to go out to dinner informally in the neighborhood. REGISTRATION FORM: Name: ________________________________________
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Organization: _________________________________________ Phone:_____________________ Email:__________________ Please send your completed registration form and check to: Barbara Folensbee-Moore Library Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP 1800 M Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 202-467-7131 bfolensbee-moore@morganlewis.com Please send your completed registration and check to Barbara Follensbee-Moore by January 10 Return to contents
President’s Corner Strategic Planning, Part 2 By Dave Shumaker, DC/SLA President "In the long run, we are all ________." How would you finish that sentence? The economist J.M. Keynes said, "In the long run, we are all dead." Good thing he wasn’t in charge of Chapter strategic planning! But, as a Washington-area special librarian, how would you end that sentence? Here are some possibilities: A)… valued contributors to healthy and growing organizations. B) … members of an expanding professional society that offers new members challenges and development opportunities. Or C) … members of a dying species, i.e., dinosaurs. I'll choose A and B, not C. I'm sure you will too. So what can we do to make A and B happen? That's exactly the question our Strategic Planning Committee has addressed. Let's look at their answers: Draw in younger members. We are members of a graying profession in a graying society. At the same time, people seem to be retiring earlier. The result? A squeeze -- the real possibility that there won't be enough librarians to meet the demand, and to nurture the profession. We're fortunate to have two strong graduate information science schools nearby, and to live in an area that is a magnet for young college grads searching for meaningful, rewarding careers. We need to interest those information science students in special library careers, as we do with Career Day, our scholarship programs, and other activities. We need to persuade those new grads that a career in information services -- starting with a graduate degree in information science -- can take them almost anywhere they want to go. Update the Washington Area Library Directory. Here's a task that calls for out-of-the-box thinking. The directory’s most recent edition was published in 1996. At that time, we were barely beginning to collect e-mail addresses and website URLs. Electronic publication wasn't really an option. Now, all that has changed. Have the goals for a directory changed? What kinds of information do we need to collect in this era of digital resources? Can we collect and edit information, and publish the directory itself, all in digital form? If answering these questions excites you, give me a call. The job could be yours! Develop the mentoring program. Here's another goal that calls for a fresh approach. Mentoring sounds like a great idea. It helps less experienced professionals gain skill and confidence, and develop into more experienced
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professionals, so they can turn around and help the next generation. It sounds like a natural extension of recruiting new members into the profession. But the mentoring literature I've read stresses the importance of interpersonal rapport in the mentor/mentee relationship. How can we as a Chapter institutionalize that "chemistry" in a mentoring program? Publicize consulting opportunities. This is a great service that also contributes to our recruitment goal. Did you know the Chapter has a consultation service that will provide a brief initial consultation to organizations considering establishing an information center or service? The service doesn't compete with private consultants. In fact, it may often lead organizations to engage the latter for follow-on work, and it leads to increased demand for our professional skills and services. How can we target communications about this valuable service to the right audiences? Focus fundraising to support Chapter needs. The members of this Chapter have shown time and time again how they can rise to the occasion. In 1998, we put on perhaps the best Winter Meeting reception the Association has ever had. In 19992000, we led the whole Association in extending Global 2000 to developing countries. Now, how can we take the kind of energy and skill that achieved those goals, and apply them to our own professional growth? The Strategic Planning Committee has put us on the right road, but it's not a short trip. I hope you'll help us on the journey. Return to contents In observance of DC/SLA's 60th anniversary, Chapter Notes will be republishing interesting items from the newsletter's past issues. This month, the editors are pleased to present a holiday message the DC/SLA President sent to Chapter members in January 1947. FROM THE PRESIDENT AND FROM EVERY MEMBER TO EVERY OTHER MEMBER BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR
New Year’s Resolutions of an SLA Member I here resolve, where all may see A model member, I shall be. I’ll face the treas. quite unafraid Because my dues will be prepaid. I’ll make my reservations early And, if I must, I’ll cancel surely When new librarians come my way I’ll steer them into SLA And if from place to place I slip I’ll promptly tell Chm. Membership! If all these noble deeds I do, The officers and chairmen too Will think that they must be in Heaven Through all the year one nine four seven! Return to contents
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In Search Of: DC/SLA Board Nominees Are you interested in serving on the DC/SLA Board of Directors? Do you know someone whom you think would be a good Chapter officer? Or would you like to make a contribution to the Chapter by serving on the nominations committee? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, please contact nominations committee chair, Daille Pettit, at 202289-3192 or dpettit@ahma.com. Return to contents
Reflections on Internetspeak (Includes a Limited-Edition, Digital Products Webliography!) By Suzanne Pilsk I am no William Safire. Nor am I a wordsmith. I haven’t quite finished Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. And I have never played a lexicographer on TV. Nevertheless, I am once again stepping out on a limb, putting my foot in my mouth, and telling you what I think. What is it with these newfangled, informationage terms? I must say I do find them funny. And most are fun to say. This thought recently occurred to me when I had to put together a bibliography. Because it contained Internet web sites, this wasn’t just any bibliography. I was creating a "webliography"! (Say it out loud: web-leeah-gra-fee. Isn’t that fun?) Netdictionary.com (grin) defines a webliography as "a listing of source World Wide Web sites." I found webliography in the Netdictionary after failing to find the term in Webopedia! Did Elmer Fudd name this? Sorry,
Digital Products Webliography -- Metadata and Cataloging Issues I. Electronic Resources Cataloging: "Cataloging Electronic Resources: OCLC-MARC Coding Guidelines," Revised May 15, 2000. By Jay Weitz, Consulting Database Specialist, Collections and Technical Services Division. http://www.oclc.org/oclc/cataloging/type.htm "Cataloging Internet Resources: A Manual and Practical Guide," Second Edition. Nancy B. Olson, Editor. http://www.purl.org/oclc/cataloginginternet "CONSER Cataloging Manual: Module 31: Remote Access Computer File Serials." By Melissa Beck, University of California, Los Angeles, with the assistance of Bill Anderson, Les Hawkins and Regina Reynolds, Library of Congress. http://lcweb.loc.gov/acq/conser/module31.html "Guidelines for the Use of Field 856," Revised August 1999. Network Development and MARC Standards Office, Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/marc/856guide.html "Journal of Internet Cataloging: The International Quarterly of Digital Organization, Classification and Access." Published by the Haworth Press, Inc. http://www.haworthpressinc.com/jic/ II. Dublin Core Resources: "Dublin Core Elements, Qualifiers and Schemes for CORC Resource Records." http://www.oclc.org/oclc/corc/documentation/dublincore.htm "Dublin Core/MARC/GILS Crosswalk," November 1999. Network Development and MARC Standards Office, Library of Congress. http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/dccross.html Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. http://purl.org/dc/ OCLC CORC Metadata Project. http://www.oclc.org/oclc/corc/
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that just cracks me up. My (giggle) webliography covers sites that deal with metadata, Dublin Core and sites of interest to Internet catalogers. By the time this article goes to press and you get around to reading this issue of Chapter Notes, some of the sites below may have "404ed." But, hey, I’m learning to live with "link rot." (Tee hee. Do these terms crack you up too?) Here is my list of sites for you to consider as we all begin digging deeper into the new World Wide Web materials we are organizing and cataloging. Sites in section one provide information about cataloging electronic materials. Sections two and three deal with Dublin Core-related sites. Saving the best for last, section four features general sites that explain some of the basics behind metadata and different metadata schemes. So, come join me out on this limb and create your own webliography for your patrons! Additional questions? Contact Suzanne Pilsk at 202-357-3161 or pilsks@sil.si.edu
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"Grammar of Dublin Core," August 2000 (Draft). By Thomas Baker. http://www.gmd.de/People/Thomas.Baker/DC-Grammar.html "Making a MARC with Dublin Core." Jon Knight on the Ariadne Web Site, sponsored by Joint Information Systems Committee. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue8/marc/ III. Dublin Core Generators: Nordic Metadata Project. http://www.lib.helsinki.fi/meta/ Nordic Metadata Template. http://www.lub.lu.se/cgi-bin/nmdc.pl OCLC's CORC project. http://www.oclc.org/oclc/corc/index.htm University of Bath. http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcdot/ IV. Other Metadata Information and Topics of Interest: "CC:DA Taskforce on Metadata and the Cataloguing Rules Final Report." From Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), Cataloging and Classification Section (A division of the American Library Association). http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/tftei2.html "Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access Task Force on the Harmonization of ISBD(ER) and AACR2." http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/tf-harm1.html#report Crosswalk: FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata to USMARC. http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu/publicdocuments/metadata/fgdc2marc.html And Crosswalk: USMARC to FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata. http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu/publicdocuments/metadata/marc2fgdc.html IFLA Digital Libraries: Metadata Resources. http://www.ifla.org/II/metadata.htm
"Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information." Tony Gill, Anne Gilliland-Swetland and Murtha Baca. J. Paul Getty Trust. To find out more about the http://www.getty.edu/gri/standard/intrometadata/ OCLC CORC Project, come to these January "ISBD(ER): International Standard Bibliographic Description for OCLC CORC Users’ Electronic Resources. "IFLA publication. (Revised from the ISBD Group Meetings in (CF):International Standard Bibliographic Description for Computer Washington, DC: Files.) http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/pubs/isbd.htm Special Interest Group Meetings, Sunday "Issues and Approaches to Preservation Metadata." From the Joint RLG January 14th. Times and and NPO Preservation Conference: Guidelines for Digital Imaging. Locations TBA. Michael Day, Metadata Officer UKOLN: The UK Office for Library and Information Networking. http://www.rlg.org/preserv/joint/day.html All Users' Group Meeting
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– A working meeting on the OCLC CORC project, Monday, January 15th. 7:30 a.m.- 9:00 a.m., Location TBA See the OCLC website for registration information: http://www.oclc.org
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"Meta Matters." National Library of Australia. http://www.nla.gov.au/meta/ "Metadata." The UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN). http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/ "Metadata and Resource Description." W3C. http://www.w3.org/Metadata/ "Metadata for the Masses." http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue5/metadatamasses/ "Metadata: Mapping between Metadata Formats." Michael Day. UKOLN: The UK Office for Library and Information Networking, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, United Kingdom. http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/interoperability/ "Mostly Metadata: A Bit Smarter Technology." Renato Iannella. http://archive.dstc.edu.au/RDU/reports/VALA1998/ "RLG Working Group on Preservation Issues of Metadata Final Report," May 1998. http://www.rlg.org/preserv/presmeta.html
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Business Information Finders Presents: Data Presentation -- A Guide to Good Graphics and Tables Quality data presentations ensure user understanding by taking advantage of how users already process information, reducing the number of thought processes required to understand the data, and breaking down fundamental obstacles to understanding. This workshop will cover when to use graphics and tables, using your data to determine the type of graphic or table, the elements of good graphics and tables, and achieving clarity in presentations. Based on the principles set forth by Tufte and Cleveland, this is a practical workshop to show participants how to improve their presentations of quantitative data. Since 1976, Ms. Zawitz has been a staff member of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. She is the creator and content manager of the BJS website (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/). She has been responsible for a wide variety of publications and presentations including the award-winning "Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice;" "Drugs, Crime and the Justice System: A National Report;" and "Highlights of 20 Years of Surveying Crime Victims." Recently, she co-wrote "Displaying Violent Crime Trends Using Estimates from the National Crime Victimization Survey," which includes new designs for displaying error in sample data, and "Homicide Trends in the United States," a website with more than 50 charts and tables. She advises the BJS staff on data presentation, and has given lectures and training sessions on the subject. Audience: This event is open to everyone and is free of charge. Please R.S.V.P. by January 19. Date and Time: Tuesday January 23, 2001; 7:00 p.m. Place: Arlington County Central Library; 2nd Floor Meeting Room; 1015 North Quincy Street; Arlington, VA. Directions: Visit the library’s website at www.co.arlington.va.us/lib/. Click on "About the Library," "Hours and Locations," "Central Library" and scroll to "Directions." To learn about Business Information Finders, join BIF-L. Send an email to listproc@listproc.georgetown.edu, put nothing in the subject line, and in the message space type "subscribe BIF-L [your name]". Jennifer Boettcher is the BIF contact -- (202) 687-7495.
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Global 2000 Conference Unites 22 Fellows with DC/SLA Mentors and Sponsors for an "Amazing Experience" by Sue O'Neill Johnson Twenty-two special librarians from developing countries attended the October Global 2000 Conference in Brighton, England as Global 2000 Fellows. This event culminated three years of work by DC/SLA to raise money and select the best candidates from more than 400 applicants. It was an amazing experience for us to finally meet the Fellows -- and we were not disappointed. As the Conference started, we received news that Mr. Muhammad Chahary from Pakistan was flying on the Saudi Airlines plane that had been hijacked. He arrived slightly late, but was cheerful and good-natured about the experience. That set a tone of good will and camaraderie that remained throughout the Conference. The Fellows were a high-energy, highly committed and resourceful group. They are leaders in their countries' quest to improve special librarianship. Many, having had little travel experience, were thrilled and grateful to DC/SLA for the opportunity to attend Global 2000. The Fellows enjoyed interacting with each other and the SLA members in attendance. Each Fellow was assigned a mentor -- some of them top people in SLA. The Mentors did an excellent job linking Fellows with vendors, and providing them with ideas and resources that would offer them hope and backup support. Other SLA members joined the Fellows and Mentors in discussions of issues impacting the Fellows in their regions, such as technology training and the ability to influence managers and government leaders in order to attract resources. Twelve of the Fellows gave or submitted papers, and most actively participated in discussions. The Mentors will continue to work with the Fellows on an individual basis. For their part, the Fellows are already rapidly communicating with each other via the e-mail list they created. As a result of the meetings, five regional groups, consisting of Fellows, Mentors and other SLA members interested in developing countries, are writing a proposal for each region -- East Asia, South Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia, and Latin America. In addition, they are creating a regional structure with leaders to implement the proposals. Each group will propose a plan that deals with an issue it has raised. The plan will have a one- to two-year timeframe -- at least for stage one of the plan. These plans will be widely distributed to SLA members for input of ideas, participation and resources. Prior to Global 2000, at its October meeting, the DC/SLA Board of Directors appointed Liz Farley the new Chair of the Chapter’s International Relations Committee. Liz is a member of the core group that has worked on the Global 2000 Fellows project for more than two years. As Chair, Liz will work with Doug Newcomb at SLA headquarters and a committee of volunteers from DC/SLA to create a listserv for all the Conference applicants. They will also devise a process to provide information so that SLA members can respond to needs expressed on the prospective listserv. Return to contents
Information Services in Developing Countries: How Can We Assist? The Society for International Development (SID) Information Working Group is holding a brown-bag lunch on Wednesday, December 13, from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. As a follow-up to the SLA Global 2000 Conference, we will discuss the status of developing country libraries, and where we fit in. The speakers will be Sylvia Piggott, Deputy Director of the Joint Bank-Fund Library; Benita Weber Vassallo, Director of the IADB Library; and Martha Pattillo-Siv, World Bank Sector Information Officer for Education. No reservations are required. All are welcome. The meeting will be held at the Development Information Center (DIC), 1331 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 1425,
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Washington, DC. DIRECTIONS: The closest Metro stop is Metro Center. Take the 13th & G Street exit, turn left when you get to the street, and walk to the corner of 13th and F Streets, NW. Cross F Street, and turn right to cross 13th Street. Enter the Shops at National Place. Keep to the left, and walk to the North Office Tower access area on your left. Turn left into the elevator lobby. Walk straight to the elevators, and take the elevator to the 14th floor. On the 14th floor, walk away from the windows, turn right, and at the corner, turn right again. Suite 1425 will be on the left, about halfway down the corridor. For further information, contact Chris Matthews at ChrisMatt@igc.org or 202-269-3890. Return to contents
Join Us at the NVIS Holiday Potluck Please join us Tuesday, December 12, at 11:45 a.m. for a potluck luncheon meeting of the Northern Virginia Information Specialists Group (NVIS). This informal meeting, held at the Tyson’s Pimmit Regional Library, will concentrate on networking and information sharing. Anyone is welcome to attend and no reservation is needed. Bring any potluck dish of your choice, and come meet your fellow Virginia librarians. NVIS meets the second Tuesday of the month at 11:45 a.m., at the Tyson’s Pimmit Regional Library. The library’s address is 7564 Leesburg Pike in Falls Church, Virginia. To obtain directions or add your address to the NVIS distribution list, please contact Mandy Baldridge at mbaldridge@corestaff.com. Return to contents
Mini-Minutes of the October DC/SLA Board Meeting Highlights of the October 10 meeting conducted by DC/SLA President Dave Shumaker and held at the Urban Institute, include the following items: The well-attended September program at the U.S. Navy Memorial raised more than $300 to aid flood-damaged libraries in Mozambique. DC/SLA Treasurer Catherine Kitchell led a discussion about accepting credit cards for meeting registrations and other Chapter payments. There are significant costs and procedural questions involved, so Catherine will obtain more information. The Board approved the nomination of Liz Farley to replace Sue Johnson as Chair of the International Projects Committee. The timing of Chapter meetings and the distribution of Chapter Notes was discussed. It was recommended that future meetings be announced in Chapter Notes a month in advance. For the full minutes, please see the Chapter website at http://www.sla.org/chapter/cdc/ Return to contents
You Want Me to do WHAT? Mary Ellen Bates tells WHAT’s it all about at DC/SLA Program
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By Deirdre Clarkin Are you sitting down comfortably, sipping a cup of tea, preparing to read what appears to be an interesting summary of DC/SLA’s November professional development program? Perhaps you are snuggled down on your Metro seat, idly leafing through your Chapter Notes? If so, be prepared to get uncomfortable fast. If you were one of the sixty-odd, lucky attendees at Mary Ellen Bates’ November 15 session at the World Resources Institute, you may still be on the edge of your seat. Mary Ellen’s compelling vision of how our profession needs to retool provided food for thought for many days to come. Although some of Bates' presentation may have pushed us past our comfort zone, it also provided detailed and innovative strategies for turning discomfort into action. Bates' talk focused on four big ideas. The first is that the Web has had a huge impact on our work environments. As a consequence, we need to adapt with specific survival tactics and we must redefine ourselves. These two actions, comprising the second and third parts of Bates' presentation, serve as a practical plan for action. In the fourth and final part of her presentation, she established some "bottom line" assumptions that we must adopt and use as guideposts for further action and exploration. Her presentation’s PowerPoint slides may be viewed at Bates' homepage (http://www.batesinfo.com/speeches.html). Impact of the Web The Web has been instrumental in transforming information into a commodity. No longer enshrined in the "cathedral," information is now available through a variety of bazaar-like access points, giving clients a multitude of options. Many, many, many of these options do not include us. The other bazaar stalls, i.e., our competition, come in the guise of search engines, Ask-Jeeves-like Web pages, online databases, and the ubiquitous intern down the hall. Our future depends on our ability to become one of the most attractive and unique stalls at the bazaar. How we position ourselves into this informational sweet spot is the crux of Bates’ vision. Before moving on to the action plan, Bates asked us to determine if we are operating from our "librarianish" sense of reality or from our client’s reality. The difference in these two points of view may prove shocking. For example, our clients think they are pretty good Web searchers. They may be pleased with Yahoo-like results that took four hours to produce. Alternatively, they may be satisfied with asking a colleague in the next cubicle for information. Part of our new job is to re-educate our clients. Bates suggests that we adopt a time-honored sales trick and introduce a healthy dose of "FUD" (fear, uncertainty and doubt) into our clients’ information expectations. Ask clients if they are really going to be satisfied with the results of their searches. Dare them to compare what they found with what we can do. Teach them to value their own professional time. All of these actions are win-win moves for librarians. Survival Tactics Charles Darwin discovered that the species most likely to survive are those capable of flexible responses to changed environments. He also realized that species that had been isolated were vulnerable to competitors and predators simply because they had no experience in dealing with new expectations and demands. These Darwinian lessons hold parallel truths for the library species. The first rule of survival is that we must NOT be defined by what we DO, nor by our physical collections or budget lines. Rather, we must be defined by what we KNOW -- our skills, knowledge base, and unique and valuable ability to bring order to chaos. The second rule of library survival is that what we DO must be flexible and nimble -- dictated by what our organizations need. Last, we must never become isolated in our library stacks. We must infiltrate into the thick of things in our organizations. Moving beyond the Darwinian parallels, Bates introduced many specific survival tactics. Some of these include developing addicted clients who will emit "howls of pain" at the mere thought of us going away. We must school ourselves to think like an entrepreneur. Work hard to view the library from the clients' point of view. Now, from this new vantage point, start backwards and look for information gaps in the organization. Are there needs that have not even been thought of? It is at these critical junctures that the library and its staff need to take up position. Bates cited a State of the Information Professional study by Outsell Inc. that established that only 23%-30% of the organizations surveyed were using their special libraries. The fact that two-thirds of our customer base is going
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elsewhere should be setting off warning bells in library minds. Pursuing these lost customers as well as stroking our existing ones must be on the top of our must-do list. How often are our clients calling? What are they usually asking for? Why haven’t they called in a while? Bates asserts that it is far better for us to track this kind of information, than the number of interlibrary loans performed each month. Operating as an entrepreneur also means developing new library products on a regular basis. Consequently, old library products representing the old library model should be given a decent burial. Finally, Bates implores us to stop delivering information. That is what search engines do. Remember that the whole point of this retooling work is to set ourselves apart from the other information stalls at the bazaar. Our unique gifts will allow us to deliver answers, not raw information. Re-defining Ourselves Modeling ourselves on the nimble little mammals that Darwin examined, librarians should adapt to survive in response to changed environments. Always staying true to our core skills and knowledge base (what we KNOW, remember?), we will sometimes play the role of the Information Dealer (first set of answers, on the house!); the Information Co-Conspirators (inviting worthy vendors inside the fire wall -— instead of being the enemy of the vendor); or the Information Highway Patrol ("You relied on THAT? You spent how many hours on Yahoo??"). We can be as multi-functional as the needs of our organizations are varied. As needed, we will also be called upon to play the role of Information Counselor, demonstrating and guiding clients where to dig for themselves. Is there any role we can not play? Definitely, and Bates lays it out for us. Trapping ourselves in the role of the data manager or information repository is an evolutionary dead-end. The first role can be played by a machine. The second could be an off-site storage retrieval firm such as Iron Mountain. Bottom line? Bates affirms that much of what she is talking about does, and should, push us beyond our present comfort level. The key word is "present," however, as we will become used to the new way of seeing things. She advises us not to "bet the farm," but to try one new idea at a time. For example, instead of simply providing information to the next client who calls, inquire whether he or she would prefer the information digested and summarized. The first time we try this will be the hardest. In time, we will most likely be pleasantly surprised at client response and our own growing skill-set. Last but not least, our new entrepreneurial mind-set will lead us to examine everything about the library as if for the first time, and from the clients’ and organizations’ points of view. Bates ended her presentation with the command, "Now go out there and blow them away!" Initially, it was her audience who was "blown away" by the clarity, purpose and far-sightedness of her vision. Clearly though, we should now adopt it for our own and get going. Return to contents
DC/SLA Contributes Support for Mozambique Village Library by Sue O'Neill Johnson DC/SLA members attending the Chapter’s Fall Membership Kickoff donated $323.50 toward support of the Ckokwe Village Library, a part of Mozambique’s national library system. At the September event, the Mozambique Ambassador to the U.S. spoke about the devastating effect the recent floods have had on his country’s educational institutions. The Chokwe library is located 200 kilometers north of Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, and is the sole library serving several hundred of the area’s educated populace. The money will be used to help rebuild the library’s Portugese-language reference collection. In addition to the books it will purchase, the money represents hope and support from fellow professionals of our Washington Chapter. Return to contents
Welcome New DC/SLA Members! Joined in September:
Joined in October:
Mary E. Bowen
Julie W. Arrighetti
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Nelda E. Bravo Vivian B. Hutchison Ellen J. Kreis Judith May Linda B. Paez Jo Ann Remshard Ann F. Ross Carol S. Spector Lynzy A. Wright
Jean M. Bowers Darren L. Butz Maryelizabeth Gano Travis M. Johnson Jessica L. McCann Judy A. McCarthy Susan Dunn Morua Andrew J. Pedrick Jennifer J. Whitfield
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Members’ News Catherine A. Kitchell, Senior Reference Librarian at the Bureau of National Affairs, with the rest of the BNA Library staff , has just published the 2001 edition of BNA's Directory of State and Federal Courts, Judges, and Clerks. The 643-page directory includes listings for 2,139 state courts, 220 federal courts, 14,087 judges and 5,120 clerks in the federal court system, the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. This major reference work also includes street addresses, phone/fax numbers, Internet sites as well as court jurisdiction maps, a list of nominations for federal judgeships and state court structure charts. Other BNA librarians contributing to the book were SLA members Susan Jones and Laura Gordon-Murnane, and American Association of Law Libraries members Karen Silber, Rhonda Oziel and Le Pham. Use this column to tell the Chapter about your news! E-mail the editors at cneditors@yahoo.com. Return to contents
DC/SLA Coming Attraction: Neighborhood Dinners – February 20, 21, 22 Join your fellow Chapter members for a convivial evening of dining and conversation at the restaurant of your choice, on the date most convenient for you – February 20, 21 or 22. Each dutch treat Neighborhood Dinner will be hosted by a different volunteer member, and will take place at one of several diverse restaurants throughout the Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland area. While each dinner will be unique, each will provide a good opportunity to network, meet new members, trade war stories, and, of course, eat very tasty food. Be sure to reserve a place for yourself at one of these many tables. Please mark your calendars, and watch for further details on the DC/SLA discussion list and in the January Chapter Notes. Return to contents
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