Holiday Party Photos

Enjoy photos from the 2008 joint SLA Southern California / LACASIS Holiday party featuring writer and environmental historian Jenny Price.

President's Letter, December 2008

Thanks

At the end of December I complete my year as President of the Southern California Chapter and I want to thank so many of the individuals who have supported the chapter and its initiatives during 2008.

First, I must thank Teresa Bailey who is the 2009 president of the Chapter. Teresa worked tirelessly to bring together a very rich year of programming. From the joint holiday dinner with LACASIS, to a program on SLA membership benefits at the Culinary Institute, to a screening of "The Hollywood Librarian" at LAPL, Teresa had a wonderfully diverse array of programs for the Southern California Chapter members this year. It is wonderful that the Chapter will have Teresa at its helm because she clearly sees challenges ahead and understands that the best way to meet these challenges is by engaging our membership.

In addition to Teresa, my thanks go out to the rest of the Executive Board:

• Bill Lee, who, in addition to his astute management of the Chapter’s finances as the Treasurer, also oversees the Chapter’s discussion list, and has used his CSI talents to uncover problems unknown to even SLA HQ
• Ann Coppin, our Member-At-Large, who has stayed on top on membership issues contacting new Chapter members, and contributing to our recent membership survey
• Susan Hendrickson, our Secretary, who is meticulous in her coverage of Board meetings and discussions, especially when we discuss and vote on issues via e-mail, which is always challenging to capture for the record
• David Midyette, who oversaw Publications and launched the chapter’s blog, and was the liaison with the San Jose State University School of Library & information Science
• Alan Shcroeder, the Chapter’s Past president, who oversaw the Chapter Practices, and will soon be managing the 2009 nominations and elections
  

The 2008 Executive Board met six times in 2008, but also had many more discussions and votes via e-mail, including a flurry of activity in the last few weeks of December.

My thanks also go to the Advisory Board for their work in 2008:

• Archives – Joyce Hardy, for continuing to maintain the Chapter’s archives and mine them for material that the Executive Board requires
• Awards – Ann Shea, for handling the Chapter’s awards and supporting the Chapter’s nominees for SLA awards
• Calendar – Larry Zamora, for keeping our web calendar of events up-to-date
• Ethics Ambassador & Nominations / Elections – Sue Brewsaugh, for being our representative to SLA’s Ethics initiative, and for overseeing this year’s elections
• Job Board – Amy Wegener, for keeping our job listings current
• Mentoring Committee – Maria Brahme, for moving forward with our Mentoring program and linking mentees with professionals
• Newsletter / Blog – Eric Bryan, for managing the Chapter’s newest communication device, its blog
• Scholarship – Peter Johnson, for not only overseeing the Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship competition, but for also clarifying the competition’s rules, and for being the main point of contact for the Chapter’s Centennial Stipends
• Scholarship Fundraiser – Brad Rogers, for hosting a successful fundraiser at the San Antonio Winery
• Web Administration – Stacy Barker, for keeping our web site up-to-date
  

Special thanks goes out to everyone who hosted a Chapter program, area lunch, or happy hour. Additionally, I want to thank Kathleen Smith for her work with the Chapter survey, which we hope will guide programming and provide some insight into filling Chapter leadership positions, and Josh Walters, who helped with our uneasy transition into the blogosphere and provided much-needed web support.

Thanks to you all, and hope to see you at a Chapter program in 2009!

From the Archives ... April 1934

With SLA celebrating its centennial in 2009, the Southern California Chapter will periodically feature historical material from its 70+ years worth of archives.

The Southern California Chapter of the Special Libraries Association at Fox Studios, April 21, 1934. In the front row Miss Anna Frey, President is standing on the left of actor Charles Farrell.

Chapter Stipends to Attend the Centennial Conference

The Southern California Chapter is offering two stipends to help chapter members attend SLA’s June 2009 centennial conference in Washington, D.C.

The first stipend, not to exceed $1,300, will be awarded to a student enrolled in an ALA accredited Master’s degree program in Library and Information Science.

The second stipend, not to exceed $1,500, will be awarded to a professional librarian working in a special library.

Application deadline is January 31, 2009.

See the stipend announcement for more information.

The SLA Centennial Video Contest

The SLA Information Professional of the Future

John Cotton Dana ... 1909… Bretton Woods…

The founders of SLA had a vision for how to fill the networking and educational needs of special librarians. With the forming of SLA in 1909, these fabled past leaders created an amazing professional association. For 100 years SLA has grown and transformed itself, and the association that started as one idea, by one person, now serves a global market of over 11,000 information professionals, librarians, and their partners.

In 2009 SLA celebrates its 100th birthday and as we look toward a second century of service, we are asking the questions:

• What will the next 100 years of connecting people and information look like?

• Can you peer into the future and see SLA's leaders of tomorrow?

• Do you have an inspired vision of how SLA's members will change in 25, 50, or even 100 years?

Celebrate SLA's Centennial with your video representation of SLA's information professional of the future

Contest Theme

The SLA Information Professional of Tomorrow

Timeline

• Contest entry period November 1 - December 15, 2008
• Finalists announced at Leadership Summit, Savannah, Georgia, January 14 - 17, 2009
• Judging of finalists by SLA members January 14 - February 7, 2009
• Winners announced February 15, 2009
• Winners presented and all entries displayed at Annual Conference June 14 - 17, 2009

Prizes

There are two categories of entries: Student and Professional

The winning entry in each category will be awarded:

• $1,500 cash
• Up to $1,500 to attend the Centennial conference in Washington, DC, June 14-17, 2009
• Up to $1,000 for Chapter programming
• Up to $1,000 for Division programming

Complete Rules and Submission Information:

http://wiki.sla.org/display/CCWIKI/Centennial+Video+Contest

Promotional Video on YouTube:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=yXR-e2tiDQs

Gloria Zamora's Southern California Travelogue

SLA President-Elect Gloria Zamora spoke at the Southern California Chapter's Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship Fundraiser on October 4th and continued her visit to the L.A. area on Monday, October 6th, with a tour of libraries and information centers along the San Diego Freeway corridor. The following series of photos are from Gloria's visit:

At Aerospace Corporation with, L-R, David Cappoli, Joyce Hardy, and Pat Green - Photo by Eric Hamburg of Aerospace Corp.

Speaking to students at UCLA.



With the UCLA SLA Student Chapter officers, L-R, Hlly Fisher, Sheila MacDowell, and Charlie Walmann.



With Cameron Trowbridge at the Getty Conservation Institute Information Center.



At the Getty Research Institute with Susan Allen and Cameron Trowbridge.



Wrapping up the day at the Second City Bistro in El Segundo.

Chapter Election Results

Please join me in congratulating the newly-elected SLA Southern California Chapter Executive Board members:

• President-Elect (overseeing Programming) - Belinda Beardt
• Director at Large - Ann Coppin (re-elected)
• Treasurer - Bill Lee (re-elected)
• Publications - Charlotte Wixx-Daniel

Their official terms of office will begin on January 1, 2009 and they will join Teresa Bailey as President, Susan Hendrickson as Secretary, and myself as Past-President overseeing Chapter Practices on next year's Executive Board.

I would like to thank Sue Brewsaugh and her Nominations / Election Committee, Alison Becker, Joan Dubis, and Elizabeth Sheehan, for their work in identifying candidates and conducting the election earlier than usual so that there can be a smooth transition between the officers.

And please consider chairing or being a member of an Advisory Committee in 2009. To ensure a successful chapter and overall association, we rely on your participation and involvement.

David Cappoli

Chapter Membership Survey

For all SLA Southern California Chapter members:

Please note that the survey is now closed and results will be released to the membership once they have been analyzed.

Please complete a brief (honestly!) chapter survey that we hope will help guide the chapter's future programming and leadership recruitment. Your input is vital in helping the Chapter's Executive and Advisory Boards meet the needs of members such as yourself.

The deadline for completing the survey is December 16, 2008. Once the results of the survey have been collated, they will be announced on the chapter discussion list and posted on the chapter's web site.

Please note that this survey is meant for Southern California Chapter members, and should only be completed once.

Click here for the survey.

Century City Lunch

All SLA-SCC members are invited to an exquisite lunch experience at the Pink Taco. Bring a friend who's not a member!

Place: Pink Taco at the Century City Mall
Where: Outdoor Patio
Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Time: Noon
Hosts: Jay Springer, Fox Entertainment and Alan Schroeder, Stroock Stroock & Lavan LLP
Parking: Parking at the Century City Mall is free the first 2 hours

Please RSVP to Jay Springer at Jay.Springer@fox.com

Pink Taco
10250 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Phone: (424) 354-3412

CSI - SLA-SCC

Note: For all SLA Southern California members who subscribe to the chapter's discussion list, the following illustrates the tangled web of intrigue that regularly grips the maintenance of the list.

by your humble Discussion List Admin, Bill Lee

It was the week after the Memorial Day holidays, and I was checking up on things that were left open-ended over the holidays. One of those was a message David Cappoli had sent me from Maria Brahme, the Mentor person. He had gotten a bounce message, and I re-sent it on Friday before the holidays and didn't think too much about it. Now it was Tuesday, the holiday's over and I got the bounce.

So I logged in as Admin on the Discussion list server. It showed both David and I as legal subscribers, and the messages were successful, but not sent. So I looked at the ones that had been sent and saw Liz Sheehan's message about the Bowers Brunch had been sent to a different e-mail server. So I tested that and it worked.

So I e-mailed David, and e-mailed Jeff Leach, the SLA marketing person in charge of the discussion lists, and told him what I had found. A little later I got an email from Jeff saying their vendor had messed things up and he was going to e-mail others with news of the error (I had found).

I checked the website and it had the erroneous e-mail address, so I emailed Stacy the webmaster, to have it changed. Later David showed me messages from HQ sent to the upper-muckies saying there was a mess-up and everybody should change their e-mail addresses.

Little did I know what genie I had uncorked, just cause David's message had bounced. I hadn't thought how integral the advisory positions are to the smooth running of the chapter. I felt good after a day of e-mailing and it was good to be successful due to everybody's cooperation.

Themes of Change in Corporate Libraries: Considerations for Academic Librarians

On September 11the SLA-SCC and Boeing hosted a virtual seminar with research analyst Ross Housewright presenting, "Themes of Change in Corporate Libraries: Considerations for Academic Librarians". In his work at Ithaka, Ross explores ways to promote innovative uses of technology in scholarly communities -- he sees academic libraries as one place with growth potential. In the presentation, Ross discussed how corporate libraries have evolved to remain relevant in the internet age, and how academic librarians can learn from that experience. Ross said that corporate libraries now have a history of experiencing change and responding to a volatile environment where academic libraries have held tight to their traditional roles. Ross suggested that academic libraries could take advantage of some of the lessons learned by corporate librarians in weathering the challenges of implementing change efforts -- where there might be opportunities for academic libraries to make a greater contribution to the end users and the institutions they are supporting.

After about 35 minutes of presentation Ross facilitated a thoughtful discussion where several corporate and academic librarians chimed in. One theme raised in the discussion was how in academic libraries the staff is very resistant to change -- fifteen years ago this was also true for corporate libraries and now adapting to change has become the norm. Several suggestions were made about how to overcome this barrier by creating an environment where staff may be made more open to change by 1) presenting a data-driven impetus for change, to demonstrate the need for change and 2) helping staff understand that the change process will be sensitive to their individual needs, and that efforts will be undertaken to help them to adapt to change. Additionally, we also talked a bit at the end about the importance of focusing on things which the library can do by virtue of its local presence, that cannot be replaced by Google or other network-level players – these sorts of local roles represent an ongoing competitive advantage for the individual library.

Teresa Bailey
SLA-SCC President-elect

From the Archives ... June 1974

With SLA celebrating its centennial in 2009, the Southern California Chapter will periodically feature historical material from its 70+ years worth of archives.

SLA, Southern California Chapter, San Fernando Valley Luncheon Meeting, June 26, 1974 -- Lockheed DIALOG On-line Retrieval System Demonstration. Operating the CRT terminal and printer is Susanne Reed, Chief Literature Searcher, and explaining the operation is Stan Elman, Chief Librarian, both of Lockheed-California C., Burbank. Looking on in background, in dark suit, is Dr. Horace Jacobs, Mgr., Technical Information Center, Lockheed-California Co., and in foreground, with back to camera, is Herb Sclar, UPDATA Publications, Inc., Santa Monica -- Southern California representative for Lockheed's DIALOG system. And on the far right, in the print dress, is Shirley Tanaka.

President's Letter, September 2008

Inspiration from Change

Over the next few weeks I will meet all of the new students who are entering UCLA’s MLIS, PhD, and Moving Image Archival Studies (MIAS) Programs. I will be introduced to these students in lab orientations and technology workshops which I organize, and these students will have come from a variety of backgrounds with diverse life experiences – some will have arrived fresh from their undergraduate studies, and others will have chosen to pursue graduate study because they seek a career change. What binds all of these students together is their desire to move forward, and to change their lives. I am always inspired by these students as they eagerly look towards the future regardless of the economic or the political climate. They come to our program embracing, however nervously, the choices they have made. Their enthusiasm makes this sometimes jaded, middle-aged librarian look at his own future with fresh eyes.

Every fall, as the new students arrive, I am reminded of a dear friend who passed away in the summer of 2007, and who also was an inspiration to me. Jamie MacInnis and I worked together at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner’s Editorial Library for a number of years under Ann Sausedo whose own death in 2007 was a time of reflection for me. Jamie came to the Her-Ex from a harried family life and had attempted many times to complete her studies at Santa Monica College (SMC). In 1989 when I left the Her-Ex to enter UCLA Graduate School of Library & Information Science, Jamie’s high level of work made her an indispensable asset to the library, but the newspaper was to fold within two months. Jamie remained behind with a small staff as they prepared the library’s files for donation to the L.A. Public Library. Once her work was finished at the Her-Ex, Jamie focused on completing her Associate’s Degree at Santa Monica College. As her studies at SMC ended, she entered Cal State Fullerton, where she graduated with a B.A. in Linguistics in 1994. I sat proudly in Titan Stadium with my very pregnant wife as Jamie received her degree. And a few years later, Jamie graduated with her Masters degree in Library Science from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Jamie went on to be a librarian with the University of Missouri, Rolla, and, in what would be her final professional position, she was the Library Director at the Art Institute of California’s San Francisco campus. When I received my MLS degree, Jamie had a high school diploma. Yet she embraced the change that was thrust upon her and went from an A.A. degree, to a B.A., to an MSLS degree, and, finally, to a library director position.

I am always inspired when I remember Jamie’s professional path, and as I see new students come to the LIS program at UCLA. Jamie taught me about perseverance, and the students continually teach me to look towards the future with eager eyes.

Here’s to the people who inspire you!

Sincerely,

David Cappoli
dcappoli@ucla.edu

Note: Jamie passed away in the summer of 2007 along with another colleague from our Herald-Examiner days, Library Director Ann Sausedo. Jamie lives on though as the Art Institute of California's San Francisco campus library is now named the Jamie A. MacInnis Memorial Library.

Cast Your Vote in the Chapter Elections

On behalf of the Nominations Committee, I invite you to cast your ballot for the Southern California Chapter Executive Board.

Please visit

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=WMX_2fUj3wyw1NJDzw1semrQ_3d_3d

and cast your ballot for next year's officers.

The polls will be open until Tuesday, September 30.

The election results will be announced at the Chapter's Sternheim Scholarship Fundraiser on October 4th and on the Chapter website and blog.

If you have any problems with your ballot, please contact me or Sue Brewsaugh (sue.brewsaugh@boeing.com).

Alison Becker
Member, Nominations Committee
abecker@support.ucla.edu

Fall 2008 Chapter Events

For more information on these upcoming chapter events, go to: http://www.sla-scc.org

Sep. 11 - Virtual Seminar - "Themes of Change in Corporate Libraries: Considerations for Academic Librarians". Research Analyst Ross Housewright discusses how corporate libraries have evolved to remain relevant in the internet age, and how academic librarians can learn from that experience.

Oct. 4 - An Afternoon at the San Antonio Winery with Special Guest, SLA President-Elect Gloria Zamora. Proceeds to benefit the chapter's Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship.

Oct. 15 - The Power of Vision - Blue Pen Companies and Red Pen Companies: A presentation by Bill Bellows, of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, on new ways of thinking, learning, and working together. Also a tour of the Leadership & Learning Center, which houses a historical collection of engines and models, including a Space Shuttle Main Engine.

Nov. 12 - Tour the world-famous Jet Propulsion Lab, followed by lunch and a short program on storytelling in special libraries. Tour includes Space Flight Ops and Spacecraft Assembly facilities.

Doris Helfer featured in Information Outlook

SLA Southern California member Doris Helfer is featured in the August 2008 edition of Information Outlook. In "Academia to Think Tank ... and Back Again," Doris recounts her professional career working with Joe Ann Clifton, Joe Becker, both past presidents of SLA, and Vivian Arterbery. Doris also talks of her work with SLA and her involvement with mentoring, which led to her receiving the 2004 Rose L. Vormelker Award.

SLA Centennial Stamps

SLA Centennial Stamps are a great way to show your enthusiasm and support for the association's 100 year anniversary. Stamps are sold per sheet and contain 20 U.S. first class postage stamps with the SLA 2009 conference logo.

President's Letter, June 2008

Seattle, the Emerald City, welcomed more than 5,000 attendees to the SLA Annual Conference, June 15-18, 2008. More than 440 of those attendees came from California and I believe that nearly all of them came to the West Coast Chapters’ Reception at the conference based on the circuitous path that led to the reception’s refreshments. My thanks go out to the Pacific Northwest Chapter for hosting this year’s reception.

The conference for me was a mix of programs, meetings, and visits to the INFO-EXPO (the exhibit halls), where nearly 300 companies and organizations were represented to display their products and discuss their newest initiatives and resources. For me, the exhibits are a good way of thanking the many vendors who provide our students at UCLA with often complimentary access to their resources. The exhibit hall also included an area where SLA chapters and divisions could proudly showcase their own activities and programs, and SLA Southern California was well-represented by an exhibit compiled by Chapter President-elect, Teresa Bailey.
Prior to the official start of the conference, I attended SLA’s Leadership Development Institute with Teresa Bailey where we heard from the association’s leaders about how to best utilize SLA resources to empower our members such as the “23 Things” project to provide an easy training program for members to become familiar with interactive web tools. I strongly suggest signing up for “23 Things” which you can learn at your own pace.

SLA President Stephen Abram launched the conference by honoring the association’s awards recipients and strongly promoting SLA’s new Innovation Laboratory, a new member benefit that allows all of us to learn about Web 2.0 technologies in a risk-free environment. Following Stephen’s talk the opening keynote presentation featured Google’s Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Dr. Vint Cerf interviewed by broadcast journalist Charlie Rose. Rose had Dr. Cerf recount the early beginnings of the Internet since he was pretty much there at its origins, and Dr. Cerf discussed his view of access to the Internet being as ubiquitous as the power grid is for most of us. He also expressed the opinion that the growth of social networking has placed the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, because we are so interconnected with one another and with each other’s network of professional colleagues.

Some of the sessions that I attended while at conference included:

• Leadership: Building on Your Natural Abilities and Strengths, which focused on a new approach to influencing others , from understanding those you want to influence, to creating linkages between them and you, to delivering value through your influence.
• Gaming and Libraries, which looked at “productive play” and how individuals are very much engaged to learn tasks if the process is enjoyable and if they are able to have a sense of accomplishment at the end of their learning exercise.
• A very enjoyable session, moderated by Southern California’s own Cameron Trowbridge, was entitled What’s Cooking? Food Traditions, Culinary History, and the Role of Special Librarians, and included a panelist who discussed Seattle’s Pike Place Market and its place in the city’s history, past and present.
• To Teach So They Can Learn provided a fascinating overview of the key concepts about adult learning and development. Ilda Carreiro King understood how many of us in the information profession often find ourselves in the role of trainer or educator, and she compared they ways in which children and adults learn and how we may have misconceptions about adult learning characteristics.

The closing keynote was given by author and entrepreneur Seth Godin who implored the audience to use marketing and storytelling to change how information professionals are viewed by their employers and in general. He argued that we need to “(E)ither keep pushing against the wind or change what you’re doing and have the wind at your back.” It was a very inspirational talk.

If you were able to attend the annual conference I hope that you came away with some worthwhile knowledge. If you were not able to join us, keep checking the SLA web site for presentations.

Hope to see you at an upcoming chapter program!

Sincerely,

David Cappoli
dcappoli@ucla.edu

SLA's Wall Street Journal Ads

SLA and Dow Jones & Company recently placed four ads in the Wall Street Journal promoting the value of info pros. The ad targets C-level executives and explains that info pros are essential to the success of their organizations.

Personal Statement from the 2008 Sternheim Scholarship Winner

Personal statement by Brett VanBenschoten in support of his application for the 2008 Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship.

Editor's note: Brett was presented with the Scholarship at SLA Southern California's Spring Membership meeting and Awards Dinner (see entry from May 2008)

I want to be a librarian because I want to make a difference. I have always chosen jobs that would allow me to do so and believe that this field will give me the best opportunity to continue that effort. Libraries ensure access to information, without which learning is impossible. They are of vital importance in this increasingly digital world in which people must sift through an overload of information and try to understand what is and is not valuable to them. A career as a librarian would allow me to teach individuals to do just that. Achieving my Master's in Library and Information Science is vital to doing so.

In the past year, while working as the Library Associate at California Hospital Medical Center, I have discovered that this work can make an even more immediate difference than I realized. When I field an urgent patient care request for a woman with necrotizing fasciitis, I'm doing more than just provide information; I am helping to save someone's life. This level of involvement has made the importance of learning all I can about my field and earning my degree much more germane. My "discovery" of special libraries truly changed the way I look at this field and in the process showed me just how exciting and vibrant it can be.

Previously my experience was limited to the academic library. I worked as the Reference Assistant at the Occidental College Library, having been promoted from a student assistant and including a summer internship with the Mellon Foundation Grant Librarian Recruitment Program. Within these positions I first gained experience with reference, collection development, providing web-based services, and developing new service tools. These experiences also showed me how to put my technical skills to use in a library, introducing me to Systems Librarianship. Computers now comprise a major aspect of the library profession, and my knowledge of information technology, graphic and database design, and social informatics can easily be applied to information access, library marketing, and information services development.

Since starting my position here I have been exposed to budgets, administration, database and systems maintenance, marketing campaigns, and the joy of working as a solo "librarian" in the hospital. While I believe I have successfully taken on the challenge of this job, I am not so blind as to realize that there is much I still have to learn. The support of the Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship would be invaluable in ensuring that I have all of the knowledge and skills I need to provide complete, informed, and accurate information to the medical, nursing, and other staff of the hospital.

As a librarian, I can make a difference in the lives of others, and also a difference in my own. I will always be exposed to new ideas and opportunities for learning. Libraries are bastions of knowledge and sites of educational democracy, where anyone can learn the tools of personal growth. Working as a librarian allows me to continue my own growth while helping others to bring about their own. I can think of no better career to continue what has already become my life's work.

SLA Southern California Wins IT Programming Award

SLA Southern California has been awarded the Information Technology Division's Outstanding Technology Programming Award for "Living Linked - A Social Networking Conference" held at the Amateur Athletic Foundation on April 13, 2007. The award was presented at the SLA Annual Conference in Seattle at the IT Division's business meeting on June 16, 2008.

Thanks to all who made this program a success, especially Sue Brewsaugh, Christian Gray, Mike Reid, and Josh Walters.

Candidates for Board of Directors

The list of candidates for SLA's Board of Directors and their prepared speeches to let you know who they are and what they hope to accomplish if elected to the Board are now available. Elections will take place in Fall 2008.

From the Archives ... April 1948

With SLA celebrating its centennial in 2009, the Southern California Chapter will periodically feature historical material from its 70+ years worth of archives.

From April 1948, to show that SLA was truly an international organization 60 years ago, we feature Anne Margrethe Lovaas of Norway, the first recipient of SLA's Fellowship Award. Miss Lovaas visited Los Angeles and was hosted in L.A. by Frances Christenson of the University of Southern California's Library of World Affairs. In addition to visiting various area special libraries, Miss Lovaas worked for a brief period at Paramount Picture's Research Department.

SLA West Coast Chapters Reception in Seattle

The SLA West Coast Chapters Reception at the annual conference was held on Sunday, June 15, 2008 from 7:30 – 10:30PM in the Cascade View Room located on the 51^st Floor of 2 Union Square. The views were breathtaking, and the food – divine! Locally grown and brewed food and drink and even the truffle oil was locally foraged!

Thanks to the Pacific Northwest Chapter for hosting this wonderful reception

The reception's many sponsors are listed on the chapter's Wiki page.

Sandra Tung - In Memoriam

The library community lost a great contributor and professional this Spring. Sandra Tung, a former Santa Monica and Altadena resident, died peacefully on April 23, 2008. Sandra retired from Boeing last year where she was the Business Information Manager for Business Development since 1998. Previously she worked at Rockwell, Savage Information Services and NASA Applications Center. She set a very high standard when it came to being active in professional organizations.

Sandra was a long time member of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Society of Information Science and Technology (LACASIS). During the 1980's, she played a major role in making LACASIS a stronger, more vibrant organization. Sandra, a talented leader with a “can do attitude”, was a natural mentor. She understood the value of working with new members to insure the next generation of leaders would be strong. She was active in LACASIS for over 15 years and served as Treasurer, 1992-1995; Marketing/Database Coordinator, 1995-97; Program Committee member 1995-96; and Awards Committee Member 1997-99. In 1994 she was recognized for her service and won the Outstanding Member Award.

One of Sandra’s legacies is the continuing success of LACASIS as a professional organization. She will always be remembered as a LACASIS “super star”.

Sandra was also very active in the Southern California Online Users Group (SCOUG) Steering Committee, where she somehow found time to serve as the Chair, Program Chair, Annual Retreat Coordinator and Annual Workshop Chair. She was also a member of the Special Libraries Association (SLA).
Sandra was a multi-talented, warm woman who will be missed by many. She is survived by her children Doug, Diana and Irene, three grandchildren and a loving extended family.

Donations may be made in her name to San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity 770 N. Fair Oaks, Pasadena, CA 91103, www.sgvhabitat.org

Chapter Award Winners

At the annual membership dinner held on May 13, 2008, at the L.A. Police Academy, former Chapter President, and current Nominations Chair and Ethics Ambassador, Sue Brewsaugh was presented with the Billie Connor Award which honors a Chapter member who has gone beyond the normal in support of the Chapter over a lengthy period of time. And Brett VanBenschoten was presented with the chapter's Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship.

L to R: David Cappoli, Chapter President, Sue Brewsaugh, Brett VanBenschoten, and Peter Johnson, Chair of the Sternheim Scholarship Committee.

Sue and Brett.

David and Sue.

Sue with her Boeing colleagues.

President’s Letter, April 2008

SLA Membership Benefits

Are you aware of the benefits that your SLA membership provides? Did you know that SLA not only encourages its members to develop professionally, but that it is giving us the tools to move forward in our careers?

Besides Information Outlook showing up in your mailbox monthly, and having the ability to connect with your colleagues via the SLA membership directory, you may not realize that your SLA member ID brings you many more resources and opportunities to help us grow professionally. SLA President Stephen Abram’s theme for the year is “Innovate in 2008” and his vision is coupled with new initiatives being offered by SLA to its membership. Stephen’s vision includes a virtual space for members to evaluate licensed and free software along with tutorials on these applications. In these ideas which he articulated during his keynote address at our chapter professional development program “Charting the Future of Libraries” held at USC in October 2007, Stephen sees an “SLA Innovation Laboratory” where members can continually develop their technological, management, and leadership skills. Most of the resources in the innovation lab will be launched at the annual conference in Seattle this June, but until then there are many benefits which are waiting for you, including:

• Click University, SLA’s online learning community, offers a number of virtual seminars, live and recorded, which are meant to broaden our skill sets, and, in some cases, even provide us with certificate programs in specific areas such as competitive intelligence. Most of Click U’s programming is fee-based, but you should take advantage of the members’ monthly free course that is listed on the main Click U page. The current offering of “Presentation Skills” will be followed by “Managing a Virtual Office.”
  
  
• SLA’s Online Libraries, available via Click U, are collections of material focused on leadership and management and knowledge management. These “ebraries” can help you to “become a more effective leader to examining best practices from the world's most successful CEOs these databases are applicable throughout an employee's career path.”
  
  
• Factiva News Connections is an alert service that brings you subscription-only news on a variety of subjects, including Web 2.0, copyright, search tools, and vendors and their products. Here is one way of keeping tabs on our quickly changing environment.
  
  
• The SLA Podcast Center delivers selected content from Information Outlook, which you can download and listen to at any time.
  
  
• SLA’s Consultation Service is a free, members-only benefit that can help your organization develop its information requirements.
  
  
• The Information Portals provides a gateway to over 40 different topics, including benchmarking, international library resources, and digital libraries.

Information about the benefits noted in this letter, and the many others that your membership provides, are available from the SLA Members Benefits page.

With one of its core values “innovation and continuous learning,” SLA continues to bring you and I, its members, the tools and resources to help us succeed. Now it’s time that we take advantage of them and look forward to more that will be coming in the future.

Hope to see you in Seattle!

Sincerely,

David Cappoli
dcappoli@ucla.edu

SLA Leadership Summit – An Overview from Louisville

With more than 250 in attendance, more than 80 for the first time, this year’s SLA Leadership Summit was held in Louisville, Kentucky, January 23-25. At each year’s summit, leaders of SLA, its chapters, divisions, sections, caucuses and committees, come together to finalize plans for the annual conference and to begin the planning for the following year’s conference. And for anyone who wishes to become more involved with the association, I strongly recommend attending this meeting. This year’s summit was especially energized by with discussions of the future of the association and the profession, and preparations for the 2009 Centennial celebration and conference in Washington, D.C.

Keynote by Andy Hines

While board and planning meetings took up much of the first day of the meeting, the summit was formally launched with the keynote address, “Anticipating the Future,” by Andy Hines, Futurist for Social Technologies. Hines presented on the topic of foresight, and how an organization, such as SLA, could “do foresight” and actively plan accordingly for its future and rethink “typical responses to change.” He broke down the benefits of foresight into multiple activities and their related benefits, including framing, scanning, forecasting, visioning, planning, and acting. Hines also discussed changes in values throughout the world and their related impact, and he looked at social trends, and the re-structuring of work and everyday life. He also talked briefly about how lifelong, online, continuous learning seems to be a part of our lives, which dovetails into SLA’s mission of supporting such learning for information professionals.

Stephen Abrams, SLA President

SLA President Stephen Abram, presented on “Reality 2.0: Attracting, Retaining and Engaging the Association 2.0 Member” and what SLA was doing to engage its membership and prepare its members for the future. He spoke of the many risks that are present, from economic to technological, and how SLA would hope to realign itself in light of these risks. He emphasized that SLA traditional values would be moved forward in the more interactive world that is here, and that will continue to thrive. He enthusiastically showed how SLA, with its innovation Lab, “technology sandbox,” and other initiatives, could be the premier information association, and expounded that SLA’s leaders needed to communicate to our colleagues the value that the association offers and will continue to offer.

The Realignment of SLA

Representatives from Fleishman-Hillard, the marketing and communications firm, presented on the association’s realignment project, which hopes to position SLA for the future while staying true to its core values. The representatives saw the upcoming association Centennial as an ideal opportunity to establish a shared vision for the future of SLA, so that the association not only continues to survive, but to thrive. It is hoped that the work that Fleishman-Hillard is continuing to undertake will be formally launched during the Centennial year.
A related session, entitled “Remembering the Future: Creating a Shared Vision,” divided the members into tables where we discussed and developed our professional timelines looking forward for three year and tied them to where we saw our organization in three years as well as SLA. This visioning exercise was enjoyable in that it made us focus on the not too distant future while getting feedback from fellow members on our goals and expectations. We sought to explore how our professional environment would potentially change in the near future, and how we might adapt to organizational changes within our environments.

SLA’s Kentucky chapter did wonderful work in hosting this year’s Leadership Summit. While most of the day was spent in meetings and presentations, the chapter hosted an enjoyable reception at the Louisville Slugger baseball bat museum, and worked to make sure that all in attendance enjoyed themselves, in spite of the sub-freezing temperatures outside. If you are interested in developing your leadership potential, which, by the way can only benefit you and your career, I recommend that you attend a future Leadership Meeting.

2008 Summit home

2008 Summit handouts

David Cappoli

Trying something new (to us)

When the Southern California Chapter first met to discuss how to proceed with redesigning the SLA-SCC web site in 2006, a lot of the conversation centered around how, or even if, to use blogging.

We discussed creating the entire site using MovableType and centering everything on the easy-to-use content publishing interface; even going so far as to explore, even if only nominally, whether a wiki would make more sense.

Ultimately, the executive board settled on a simple, traditional web site redesign, maintaining our brochure-like structure. With that decision made, however, we didn't give up on how we might incorporate blogging into the mix. This is the first attempt at seeing how a blog -- using the ever-so-friendly Google Blogger interface -- might work for us.

Each month, SLA-SCC will feature new content from the world of special libraries. We may also have a monthly sponsor for our posts -- please be patient with us as we work on incorporating these sponsor logos into the posts. Their generosity (the sponsors, that is) will help make our ongoing events successful, and featuring their lovely logos next to our posts is a new way that we hope to say Thanks.

Enough about how the blog works -- I'm familiar with blogs -- what's in it for me?

We're glad you asked. In the past, our PDF newsletters have provided you with calendar information, event recaps and other tid-bits from the SLA-SCC world on a 4 to 6-times per year basis. However, today, information moves much quicker than that. Also, because we have such a talented membership, some of the content we'd love to put into the newsletter simply doesn't make it, or, because of the schedule, seems like "old news" by the time we are able to deliver it to you via e-mail.

Our blog should help us be more timely, encourage more engagement from our extraordinary -- if geographically challenged -- membership, give us a great avenue through which to thank our sponsors, and help us keep you informed in a more comprehensive manner.

Here, we'll write about what's coming up, post brief event recaps, share pictures and link to our online galleries at www.sla-scc.org, and perhaps even get over the hump of that laborious newsletter publication schedule that our various Publication Chairs have so admirably contended with, lo these many years.

Also, thanks to a host of new widgets recently launched through this interface we can conduct surveys (see right), provide you up-to-date info on Library news from Google News (also at the right), and because you can post comments, we may even get to hear from all you folks in the Southland more often! (Not to mention potential Flickr photo streams, Picasa Web galleries, YouTube goodness and other hot topics we all care so much about.)

There are lots of blogs on the internet and we know we're woefully late to the party, but that doesn't make our arrival any less momentous... not in our eyes at least. So, click on that Comments (0) link (below) and let us know what you think. Drop us a line even! And, if you are interested in becoming a contributor to this blog, let us know. We have room for a few and would love to ramp up and make our presence felt in the biblioblogosphere.

Cheers!
The SLA-SCC Board

President’s Letter, February 2008

As this is my first letter as President of SLA Southern California, I must look back at 18 months of being President-elect, overseeing the chapter’s programs, and the many individuals who helped our chapter assemble a diverse and vibrant schedule of events.

First, I must thank Sue Brewsaugh, who oversees the chapter’s elections for this year and who enabled the chapter to partake in a variety of virtual programming via Click University’s replays. From seminars on data mining to taxonomy technologies, Sue shared these replays at no cost to the chapter and provided the opportunity for all of us to enhance our skills and knowledge.

A number of area lunches and tours were held throughout our chapter’s broad geographic region, and my gratitude goes to the following individuals for staging these events, often in the middle of their very busy workdays:

• Debbie Hartzman for the lunch in Agoura
• Patty Turner for the lunch & tour of Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) in Redlands
• Stacey McKeever for the lunch in Century City
• Belinda Beardt for the lunch in Burbank
• Kathleen Smith for the lunch & tour of the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena
• Marcia Schmitz for the lunch & tour of the University of California’s Southern Regional Library Facility in Westwood
• Cameron Trowbridge for the lunch and tours of the Getty Research Library & Getty Conservation Institute Information Center in Brentwood, that we held jointly with SLA San Diego thanks to Linda Counts
• Darrell Shiplett for the lunch and tour of Edwards Air Force Base & Libraries
• Kazue McGregor and Belinda Beardt for the downtown lunch and tour of the Disney Concert Hall Music Library
• Emi Yoshida-Bevacqua for the lunch and tour of Yahoo! Music in Santa Monica
• Ann Shea for the lunch & tour of the California African American Museum in Exposition Park
• Doris Helfer and Belinda Beardt for the lunch & tour of the Oviatt Library at Cal State University, Northridge

During this time period we were also lucky to host key members of SLA’s leadership, including 2006-07 SLA President, Rebecca Vargha (thanks to the efforts of Alan Schroeder), SLA CEO, Janice Lachance, and SLA President in 2008, Stephen Abram.

Chapter programs were led by speakers who gave us a new understanding of topics relevant to many segments of our profession. These programs also had many individuals in the background making sure event logistics were well-handled.
For all of their work, I would like to thank …

• Vicky McCargar, who presented on the topic of digital preservation in “Night of the Living Dead … Data.” Assistance with this program was generously provided by Justin Scott
• Kim Dority for presenting “Building a Resilient LIS Career,” and members of the UCLA Student Chapter who helped organize and stage the event
• Lori Flinn for presenting “Designing Unforgettable Training”
• Ron Rodrigues for presenting the Dialog Quantum 2 Seminar on “Negotiation Skills for Information Professionals”
• Christian Gray, Mike Reid, and Josh Walters for presenting on a panel for “Living Linked – A Social Networking Conference,” and for the program keynote, Janice Lachance. Assistance with this program was generously provided by Sue Brewsaugh, as well as, Wayne Wilson, and his staff, who helped the chapter stage the event at the lovely Amateur Athletic Foundation
• Sara Tompson, Stephen Abram, Amy Wegener, and Claude Zachary for presenting on a panel for “Charting the Future of Libraries,” a professional development program at USC. Stephen also keynoted the evening portion of the program. This program succeeded because of the efforts of the USC library community, especially Sara Tompson and Shahla Bahavar. A special note of thanks goes to the USC Dean of Libraries, Catherine Quinlan, who generously supported the program’s afternoon refreshments

Finally, I would like to thank my colleagues with the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (LACASIS), especially Aura Lippincott, Christina Salazar, Bo-Gay Tong Salvador, and Shahla Bahavar, for their help in organizing our holiday dinners and other joint programming including “Charting the Future of Libraries.”

SLA and the Southern California Chapter will continue to bring you high quality, skills-enhancing programming and more resources to help you develop professionally. And as members, you need to become more involved in making this happen. So contact me any time to see how you can become more involved with SLA Southern California.

Sincerely,

David Cappoli
dcappoli@ucla.edu