Colleague Connections (Friday)

At the MLA Reception on Friday (I know, it’s already Monday) I was greeted by Rachel Gyore, Reference Librarian (Outreach Services), from the University of Arkansas. The “Colleague Connection” program pairs up a veteran MLA member with a new member to help mentor and guide them through the meeting. What I was most grateful for is that Rachel took the time to introduce me to people. I met several former MLA Presidents and many wonderful people. She helped whittle down the scope and size of the organization by just being friendly and assisting me with making those connections of who’s who. To new members I say, definitely sign up for any types of “mentor” programs. It makes a difference. To MLA I say, please continue to do this in the future, and how long does it take before I’m considered no longer new? 5 years perhaps? I’m going to at least need that amount time to even begin to grasp the vastness of medical librarianship! 

New Member Breakfast (Sunday)

Many of the veteran attendees have told me how lucky the new members are. They didn’t have nice “hold your hand” activities when they first started. Let me just say thanks to those coordinating all of these “new member” events. We really appreciate it! These meetings provided an opportunity to network with similar individuals as well as learn the lingo of the MLA. At the breakfast they presented several of the sections of the MLA, chapters, special interest groups (SIG), and items of interest to new members. Fellow blogger A’Llyn Ettien was at my table and it was nice to put a name to a face and talk about library school, job hunting, and conference experiences so far. The highlight of this event was former MLA President, Lecretia McClure (1990-1991) summarizing what really matters in this industry, “People Count.” Indeed. Connecting, socializing, making friends, listening, and sharing are what really matters. 

Weber Grill New Member Dinner (Sunday)

This wasn’t really a big event, but a nice informal gathering of about 6 new members and 2 veterans leading the way. I would like to thank Ely Whitaker, Reference Librarian/Online Search Services and Outreach Coordinator, from Rush University Medical Center, for coordinating this event. 4 of the new members live in the Chicago area so it was nice to get some local hints. Suggested places to visit were the Shedd Aquarium, Millennium Park, and for Thai food, “Star of Siam.” I’ll have to check that out, time permitting… While enjoying my awesome burger and fries we discussed our conference experiences, jobs, previous lives prior to medical librarianship, and Oprah. She always manages to come into conversations! I guess her studio is somewhere in this city. Once again, it is nice to have these “new member” events that extend a warm welcome and make you feel like you belong. The MLA conference is just more reassurance that I made the right career choice. The profession has a helpful network, you truly are helping people save lives (directly or indirectly), and you feel appreciated.

MLA 2008

This is my first time to Chicago as well as MLA. I am impressed with the organization of such a large scale conference. It is overwhelming, but there are many helpers along the way to help guide you. The accommodations at the Hyatt are awesome, of course I’m biased because I brought my iPod and the room happens to have an iPod Radio dock. Sweet! Chillin’ to some Radiohead as I write this. That’s all it takes to make me happy. Anyways, two full days into the conference and the experience has been amazing so far. Here are some highlights from the CE courses …

CE Courses

I took two courses, one Thursday (Cheap, Fast, and Decent Strategic Planning for Medical Libraries) and one Friday (Practical Project Management for the Solo Librarian). Both were from 8am to 5pm. Now, I have had 1 hour classes before where I just couldn’t wait to get out of there because they were so dull. This was not the case. A full 8 hour day twice in a row never got boring. Pat Wagner was the instructor for both of my classes. For those that haven’t met Pat, she is an amazing teacher. She has run a consulting/training business with her husband for 30+ years. I would recommend her classes, especially to those librarians with limited resources and support.

A lack of resources, including time and personnel, is a symptom of choices we are making. This quote from her handout is inspiring to me. Instead of worrying about my limited budget, miniscule collection, and 1980s copier (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating…1990s), I need to choose my attitude and decide that these obstacles are not barriers but opportunities. It doesn’t happen in a day, but I can get the budget and personnel that I want. I just need to develop relationships of trust over time and develop the library in to a center that is critical to the higher institution’s mission.

The library’s mission should complement and support the parent organization’s vision, which hopefully has something to do with positive patient outcomes or excellent patient care. After all, isn’t that what hospitals do, save lives? Once the leaders of the hospital recognize and see evidence or see the vision of the library’s mission to “save lives” and how it impacts its customers and community, you will have their full support and your wishes will be granted. Of course, these are my attempts to describe the overall concepts; Pat provides more details.

I feel energized and ready to embrace these ideas and implement them in the library. Great classes! I have one more CE course on Wednesday (Intro to Blogs and Wikis)… just because I’m an Official MLA Conference Blogger, doesn’t mean I’m an expert!

Apologies to those who do or do not understand the title reference… On Monday, May 19^th, at the MLA 2008 Conference, I will be attending the, “Connecting the Dots: Strategies for Building A Portable Career and Speed Mentoring” session from 2-3:30pm. There are two parts to the session. The first part consists of four round-table discussions including: Leadership; Professional Networking; Career Reinvention; and Professional Development. Each round-table is 20 minutes and you pick two of them. I selected networking and development.

For the second session, you may have heard of speed-dating, now introducing, “speed-mentoring.” Participants will have two to three 10 minute meetings with library administrators that will review your resume and provide guidance/discussion on professional development opportunities. For anyone that is new to the field of medical librarianship, like me, then consider signing up for this event. Today is the last day to sign up.

Having operated my own business I am no stranger to taking initiative or jumping head first into something. As exhilarating it can be to live by the “jump first, ask questions later” creed, it may not always bring the result you expect. I think this session will provide an opportunity to network and learn from those that have an understanding of the industry. Instead of jumping blindly into the profession you could get some precious advice and guidance from those that have the experience. Use this as an opportunity to carefully plan out your career path and development. A well thought out attack is better than coming out with guns blazing!

Okay, gotta do my early morning routine…clear out email, check voice mail, look at RSS feeds. What’s this? I received an email that someone has posted on my blog. Wow, exciting! Someone actually looked at it. The comment was congratulating me on becoming an Official MLA Conference Blogger. Uh, okay. That’s wonderful! Thank you, it’s just I thought I would hear it from someone or somewhere else. Well, I guess that’s how were doing things now-a-days, all web 2.0 like. Well, I’m feeling pretty excited, but now I’m wondering, “is this a joke?” I guess I’ll learn more about my blogging duties later. I’m sure the MLA officials will send some instructions or at least tell me what to do when I get there. So, moving on, I’m looking at my RSS feeds, and one of those I subscribe to is the MLA 08′ Blog. Well what do you know? There it is, I’m official. My name is listed on the blog. Cool, now it has become a more elaborate prank! Moving on to my once a week cleaning up my Junk-Mail folder. Having learned from previous experience, I always look through my SPAM folder, just in case something important is there. Sure enough, something important had been incorrectly flagged as SPAM through our wonderful, censored, BIG-BROTHER system. There inside my Junk Mail was my official congratulation on being selected as an Official MLA Conference Blogger. Yeah! So, it wasn’t a joke after all. I have MLA’s Web 2.0 101: Introduction to Second Generation Web Tools course to thank or blame for sparking my interest in blogging and web 2.0. I am new to blogging as well as librarianship, so this will be an interesting experience as a first-time attendee of the conference. Can you say, “NEWBIE?” I will be attending the breakfast for first-timers, so I look forward to meeting all of you that are just like me, deer in headlights. I am looking forward to the conference, to learning, meeting new people, Chicago’s good food, and just having fun absorbing the whole experience. Everyone have a safe trip there, and remember, always check you Junk Mail.