Janice Lachance Remarks about the SLA-SCC Professional Development Program

SLA-Southern California Chapter
Professional Development Program

19 May 2009 Remarks

Thank you, Teresa, and good evening. It has been quite a day, hasn't it? I know I have learned a lot, and I hope you have, too.

It is always a pleasure to be with a group of librarians and information professionals. You work in an amazing array of jobs. But you have so much in common. You are smart. You are savvy. And you are incredibly well informed.

You are, in fact, so well informed that I can make one important assumption: All of you understand that the economy--to use a technical term--stinks right now. Whether we are employed or not, virtually all of us are all feeling the pinch, both at home and on the job.

And, hindsight being 20/20, many of us have composed retroactive Wish Lists . . . things we would have done differently had we known a recession was coming. Here is a personal example:

* I wish I could take the money I invested in my 401K Plan . . . and put it under the mattress, where at least it wouldn't be losing value!
* And . . . I wish that the mattress I put it under was the perfectly good innerspring one I had . . . before I decided I needed the super-temper-foam-air thing with the remote control . . . so I could take the money I spent on the fancy mattress and put it under that good old mattress, too.
* Oh, and add my investment in those 600-thread-count sheets and the super-down comforter, too. I'd rather have a security blanket, thank you very much!

And then there is the professional Wish List. If they could turn back time... read more