“The spirit of New Professionals” – NPSIG celebrates the 20th anniversary of BOBCATSSS!

BOBCATSSS 2012 is approaching! This time it will be a very special edition of the conference made by students for students: We are going to celebrate its 20th anniversary! With this in mind it doesn’t seem surprising that the event is already sold out as the organizers announced earlier this week. Thus, the lucky ones who got a ticket can be looking very forward to three exciting days in beautiful Amsterdam, a conference program packed with interesting sessions and workshops, some very nice social events and meeting lots of friends and new faces!

This said, we are more than happy to offer you another exciting NPSIG workshop this year! On Wednesday, 25 Jan, 11:30-13:00, you are invited to explore the spirit of New Professionals with us and to learn about the benefits of international involvement in libraranship! For more info have a look at our workshop abstract below…

We hope to see lots of you in Amsterdam! It will be great fun!

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“The spirit of New Professionals”
How to boost your early career through international involvement

KEYWORDS:
new professionals; early career development; social media; library associations; organizations 2.0

ABSTRACT:
Especially with the help of social media, New Professionals have been able to make their voice heard in the LIS profession in recent times and to effectively organize themselves from a local level to a global scale (Ruddock, 2011). The latest example of this fruitful mélange is the New Professionals Special Interest Group (NPSIG) of IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions). The group was awarded the IFLA Communicator of the Year Award 2011 for its innovative and effective outreach to New Professionals from around the world through the extensive use of social media. The integration of new tools of collaboration and networking not only helps NPSIG to profile itself, but also provides important stimuli to its home association  IFLA in an ever-changing environment of rapid technological development and innovation.

As a starting-point we would like to give a short overview on the practices of NPSIG and introduce the audience to the IFLA network. The participants will get an idea about the benefits of getting involved internationally as a student or recent graduate and how to make the best of the many possibilities such a huge association as IFLA has to offer.

Based on the use of social media as one particular characteristic of New Professionals, we would in the workshop part like to ask the audience to find and discuss further strengths of New Professionals. What is it that helps them to find their way into the LIS market but also supports libraries and other organizations to keep track of new developments and to stay fresh in mind? Let’s find out!

METHODS:
The participants will have the chance to try out some innovative techniques of brainstorming and group work which, at the same time, allows for plenty of networking and socializing!

RESULTS:
The workshop’s intention is to make the participants think about their role and position as New Professionals in the LIS field. It will provide them with practical ideas how to get involved in professional associations and to move things forward. The outcome of the workshop will serve as a basis for further discussion in NPSIG’s social media channels and upcoming workshops at other conferences.

REFERENCES:
Ruddock, B. (2011) The rise of the New Professional.

(further reading about former NPSIG BOBCATSSS workshops in 2011 and 2010)

New Librarians International/National Association Activity and Career Attitudes Survey

In 2007, individuals from five continents answered a survey about new librarians, leadership, library associations and professional futures. Results including a proposed plan of action were published under the title “International Perspectives of the New Librarian Experience,” (Feliciter, Issue #2, 2007). This year we are following up on that survey and kindly asking for help in finding out more about the perspectives of new librarians from different regions of the world.

Recently, library associations from a number of countries have developed various initiatives to introduce new librarians to their group’s existence, include them in their activities, develop their careers, and encourage them to stay in the profession. This brief, general survey intends to measure the success of these initiatives. Findings will be presented at library associations’ conferences and discussed in journal articles.

Please, take a few minutes to answer the survey. It will be available until March 15. Answers are confidential. Participants will remain anonymous.

link to the survey

Thanks for your participation!

Loida Garcia-Febo and Robin Kear

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Loida: Coordinator, Special Services, Queens Library, N.Y.
ALA IFRT Chair, ALA Membership Meetings Committee Chair, ALA Councilor-at-Large
IFLA FAIFE Secretary, IFLA NPSIG, REFORMA Immediate Past President 2009-2010

email: loidagarciafebo@gmail.com

Robin: Reference/Instruction Librarian, University of Pittsburgh, PA
ALA IRRT Connections Committee Chair, ALA Website Advisory Committee Round Table Rep, ALA LIRT Website Advisory Committee, ACRL Instruction Section Awards Committee Member

email: rlk25@pitt.edu

Shimenawa: “Get in the goddamn wagon”

Did you see this blogpost titled Get in the goddamn wagon at Shimenawa? It is calling new professionals to stand up, because the library directors, assistant library directors nor library associations (including IFLA i assume) are too stuck in their credit systems and strategies that they cannot achieve change. Inertia is lost. What do you think? If invading the associations and institutions is not a good way, then what is? In the comments Eric Hellman is proposing building new institutions. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, since an “institution” itself is a concept of the romantic past. We must build a romantic future LOL!

All in all i think there’s a massive, massive hype about need for “change”, but beyond that i find it hard to come across what this “change” should actually produce. Perhaps i’m reading all the wrong discussions, the ones where “change” is the goal itself. I appreciate that of course (like every postmodern subject does but that is quite hard to put on the an agenda and actually pursue, let alone reach. Several issues can be filtered from this post, one is that the library directors are staying in the positions for decades. If that is not what we librarians want, should we try put a cap on that? 5 years max? Can new professionals for example agree to publicly and vocally boycott any positions, where the boss has been in the position for more than that?

By the 10th or so comment the discussion has turned toward ALA and ARL funding accreditation policies or whatever.

In the comments WoodsieGirl links to LIS New Professional Network (LISNPN), a website for new pros from the UK. I haven’t seen this before and looks lively, do take a look! If  you have something like this your self, please let it be known.  We have a closed Facebook -group called Nuorkirjastolaiset in Finland.

(Get in the goddamn wagon via Veera Ristikartano)

My IFLA 2010 experience

Every IFLA Congress is different and a pretty unique experience for all people involved in this huge event. So was mine this year. Although not being a first timer, my third IFLA Congress included quite a few “firsts” such as my first satellite meeting, several meetings and duties I was committed or invited to as NPSIG Convenor, the IFLA Night Spot, Swedish food specialties, and many more. Unlike the others from our blogging team, I found no time at all to blog about all these things during the conference. Therefore here is my IFLA 2010 experience going through the whole conference week… watch out for the food.

Monday | The Global Librarian | Prologue

Without a doubt, my first highlight of this year’s IFLA journey was the NPSIG’s satellite meeting The Global Librarian, which was a big success. We were very happy to have around 70 people attending this one day event in Boras as participants and speakers – a lot of them being New Professionals and IFLA first timers.

The program was built around the internationalization of LIS careers and the profession in general. During the day we were dealing with topics such as library associations and new librarians, case studies from different countries, an innovative Library School model from the Netherlands, mobility and community building of New Professionals, mobile libraries, and how to become a global librarian.

sessions dealing with the internationalization of LIS careers

As part of the organizing team I was really busy that day, all the more we had to cope with a difficult situation, because the key person of our team arrived only in the late afternoon due to a family emergency. Therefore, we had to do most of the organizational part on the fly and improvise a little bit along the way. But this was fun actually and things worked out quite well anyway. More than once I was thinking back to organizing the BOBCATSSS symposium in 2008 which had posed quite similar challenges to the organizing team (the other similarity was the atmosphere during the sessions with so many New Professionals involved, which reminded me of being at BOBCATSSS – quite a good sign in my opinion). One thing I particularly liked was the moderation of the sessions, which gave me the possibility to actively join a couple of presentations and to get some input as well. This also included the first presentation via Skype I experienced at a conference – nice!… although Robin could not see anything of us, which must have been quite strange for her while, on the other hand, being largely displayed on our screens.

Robin Kear talking about how to become a global librarian via Skype

The daily agenda was surrounded by two great keynotes. Right in the morning, Erik Boekjestein and Jaap van de Geer took the audience on an exciting ride through the last couple of years they have been on the road with their Shanachietour and, recently, with This week in libraries. At the moment, you will hardly find better persons to ask for advice, when it comes to global librarianship. Erik and Jaap are traveling the world looking for best practices and are telling fascinating stories from local libraries in a global context. They even filmed some parts of their presentation. I am curious when this stuff will be available online… you can already watch an interview with Scott Nicholson about gaming in libraries recorded the same day at the LIS school in Boras.

Pernille Drost, closing keynote speaker

Pernille Drost, current President of the Danish Union of Librarians, held the Closing Keynote of our satellite meeting that was entitled “How library associations and library decision makers could work things out to retain, meet expectations and needs, and involve new members in their work.” In the context of an ongoing debate about the challenges of membership in many library associations around the world, she gave us valuable insights into her experiences in the case of Denmark and raised some very inspiring ideas and points to be considered by all parties involved:

• Technology and its pace are pushing the library organizations. If social media lets you meet your colleagues, why going to conferences, becoming a member of the library association anymore?

• Marketing is extremely important for library associations. Let people know about the benefits of joining them. Interesting comparison: Imagine food or beverage in a grocery store without any label about the ingredients… would you buy it anyway?

• Stakeholder analysis: Ask the people leaving the association and thereby create awareness (example from Denmark: phoner campaign).

• People are getting involved for a couple of years and then move on to another activity. This should be fine for us (maybe goals like “10-15 years” not achievable anymore).

• Danish Library Association: 1 President, 10 council members. One of them is a student – no voting rights, but very valuable input for the council.

• Generational gaps: Forming “youngster groups” could be difficult – tendency of patronizing these people and no impact on the Governing Board etc. This doesn’t solve the problem. We should rethink the hierarchical structures of library associations.

• Tendency: The young have the ideas, are innovative… but also the older generation has very valuable knowledge! They probably even have been library revoluzzers themselves in an earlier stage of their career, but maybe forgot about it meanwhile.

• Many initiatives in the Danish Library Association are addressing ALL the members. Of course, there are different attitudes amongst New Professionals and the older generations. But at the same time they just really often have similar opinions.

• A goal helps to get involved – join a section!

closing with networking drinks

After a day full of sessions and input, all the participants gathered in the lobby for some networking drinks. We were also joined by the attendees of a second satellite meeting in Boras, organized by the Sections Library Theory and Research as well as Education and Training. Finally, I think the whole satellite meeting was a perfect starter for the IFLA week, because it gave everybody lots of thoughts about the very idea of IFLA on the way (internationalization and networking) and many contacts and new faces to get back to later during the week.

It is exactly this kind of intensified exchange of experience and networking between participants in a smaller group of people that gives satellite meetings a slightly different but very agreeable flavor then the main IFLA Congress. Another strange thing for me in this context: While leaving Boras on Monday evening I was feeling like I would need some vacation… but the really big event had not even started yet.

Tuesday | IFLA 2010 | Day 1

On IFLA’s relevance for new library professionals

Poster about Stadsbiblioteket.nu

For me, attending the IFLA 2010 World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) -conference (typically called just “IFLA”) was in part an attempt to get a grasp of Internation Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) itself, the organisation. It’s quite a massive beast. For me it has been mostly a logo here and there, and some policies occasionally referred to.

Many of the other first timers said quite the same. I guess IFLA being such a generalist organization, it doesn’t easily seem relevant to a lot of the generic librarians all of us are. Oh well, i know i can help the situation myself and advocate IFLA to my colleagues and we all can do the same. Staying up-to-date on IFLA -news is necessary of course, and keeping an eye on the IFLA publications is a good way to get a deeper idea what the organisation does. IFLA Journal would be the most central of these, i find.

But first and foremost we must believe that IFLA is relevant to all new professionals, and be able to explain it to fresh colleagues of ours. IFLA works as a part of the framework of national or other more localized library associations, whose relevance is much more concrete. Still, justifying even them to new professionals might be quite a task if they do not see themselves as actors across their own working place in the library or wherever it is they work.

This justification of IFLA is – i feel – one of the key components of what New Professionals Special Interest Group (NPSIG) is all about; a sort of an entrance or a lobby to the wider IFLA -organization.

At IFLA 2010 i was happy to see the presence of NPSIG very well and The Global Librarian at Borås was a fine satellite-conference. Thanks to NPSIG and attending the conference in Göteborg i feel welcome to the IFLA community (to some remote bordierlands at least) and NPSIG also gave me a very, very important aspect for Göteborg conference; i’m no by no means a new professional anymore, but being able to attend the conference with some focus (any focus will do, basically) will help make it a meaningful experience.

Having these “new professionals -glasses” on and trying to look at things from that perspective, i talked with quite a few LIS-students, many of whom were conveniently indicated by the blue shirt IFLA-volunteers wore To all IFLA was almost unknown. Surely it’s more important that fresh folks get involved with their local library associations. I was happy to notice however, that many new professionals were interested in the IFLA Special Interest Group, and some places have had their local new professional -movements on the rise.

At the conference in Gothenburg many presenters and speakers communicated very clearly that fresh blood is both needed and wanted, both within IFLA itself and the libraryworld in general. This is of course an universal truism, but for some reason at this age librarians and library institutions emphasize it constantly. By looking at library history and reading documents of past discussion, we see that this same issue has been going on for a long time. However, the mechanisms of actually getting new people in the profession seem to be failing. Well at least that’s what people kept telling me throughout the week.

Working meeting at IFLA Headquarters – envisioning the future of IFLA’s online activities

Three weeks ago an exciting working meeting took place at IFLA Headquarters in The Hague. Maybe you already got an impression by taking a look at our photostream. But now it is high time to give you some further information about the discussions at IFLA HQ.

Scope

The intention of the meeting was to think about the future look and feel of IFLA’s online activities. Over the week, each day was dedicated to a specific topic such as:

• communication before, during and after the IFLA Congress
• the upcoming new World report series site and a new version of the Success Stories Database
• a platform to support New Professionals
• the Building Strong Library Associations Programme

At the same time, we went back to a kind of meta point of view on a regular basis to look for connections between each of the projects. To cover a broad spectrum of backgrounds and experiences during the discussions, IFLA had invited guests from all over the world (Egypt, Germany, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Africa, USA) who represented different types of libraries/institutions and areas of expertise as well as different age-groups. Of course, the group was also joined by IFLA Headquarters stuff. So here it is, the IFLA think tank crew…

very international IFLA think tank crew

Heavy brainstorming

Concerning our daily working routine, the magic word was “brainstorming”. Aaron Schmidt did a fantastic job by moderating the sessions and guiding us actively through the different steps of a rather complex model which is normally used for product design in the private sector – a very interesting experience! This gave us the possibility to approach the different topics from various directions asking for the audience of an IFLA project like the Success Stories Database, specific tasks the audience wants to accomplish, the priority and relation between these tasks, how IFLA can or cannot respond to these needs etc.

one of the brainstorming sessions

Without a doubt, one of the most interesting parts in this context was what we referred to as our ‘pie in the sky’: