SLA Leadership Summit Tuesday, Nov 21 2006
Greetings all.
It has been a while — sorry if you were waiting to learn what is new in the life of this federal Librarian. My topic du jour is the SLA Leadership Summit which will be in Reno, Nevada in January, 2007.
I was intrigued by it because I plan to apply for a management position next Spring and I thought it might give me some help as a Team Leader. But, as I looked over the information on the conference - it began to look more like a way for SLA to develop leadership for the various committees within SLA. Now that is a different matter.
Networking is great - and there is a need to payback some of the benefits we get from the organization. But I have to balance that with my responsibilities to a couple other groups I belong to and have leadership roles in - and my job.
In any case - I asked members of the SLA GLBT Caucus for their insights:
I have attended the last two summits and I feel that it has been useful personally. I think it is also important to have a GLBT presence at these events.
I cannot attend this year, but would advise attending if you can.
J.
I have attended for 3 years. All of have been excellent. These are
designed for training future committee members for SLA; however, I
have found the sessions and speakers to be very helpful in my role as
director and as management staff.I highly recommend the summit.
- E.
I can say that I found several benefits:
- As an elected or appointed officer at the Association, Division, or other unit level, or for someone interested in being one, this is a great opportunity to understand the Association workings and meet the staff responsible for many aspects of keeping things going
- It provides an opportunity to meet many people also new to the whole thing and many with various levels of experience in Association activities as well as the profession without the overwhelming aspects of the annual conference - many who will become colleagues, friends and life-long contacts for your personal and professional growth
- The sessions and events are a nice mix of leadership training and social interaction, with admittedly varying success, but overall worth the time and expense
- An excellent platform upon which to build one’s skills, contact base, and toolkit of capabilities that can definitely be utilized in current and future workplace situations
- Each one of US being present does, indeed, keep the LGBTQ… community visible to the rest of the Association and enables us to have a positive influence on what we need of our profession. It is VERY important that some of us be there to ensure our topics of interest are at least heard and discussed by the Division and Annual Conference planners, as that is still a major hurdle that requires diligence on our part
- Enables attendees to become known over time and build a reputation for possible future leadership roles, including the Association level. I remember my first meetings when I had no intent on serving on the Association Board of Directors and over time doing just that.
I can’t say that every summit met all or even half the points I just outlined, but I did gain a lot from the meetings and they were a big difference from the crowds and multitude of sessions and events at annual conferences where it is very difficult to pull together such a group of people. I am not an elected or appointed anything this year, and have had many opportunities to serve in various capacities, so not sure I will be there. But, we’ll see… I hope this helps
- R.
So - I’ve asked my boss about it - thing is I’m not sure if I’ll get to do that and the SLA Conference in Denver. We’ll see.
Ken Haycock is a featured speaker and I got a lot out of his talk. See my post from June.
Cheers — and I hope you have much to be thankful for this year!!!
- David