Volunteer Opportunity at Center School

Marcie Stone asked me to post the following volunteer opportunity, a database project which would be very good for a student or someone wanting to expand their network. I'm sending this to both the PNW chapter list and the UW SLA student list as well.

Please let Marcie know (mcstone@rcn.com) if you are interested, as well as contacting Margaret.

Volunteer opportunity!

The Center School, a Seattle public high school at Seattle Center that focuses on the arts and community engagement, augments its programs through partnerships with many community organizations such as the Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Seattle International Film Festival. A volunteer parent needs a database that will assist her in tracking information about the community organizations and the activities involved in each interaction. This application would increase the value of the relationships among the schools and the community arts organizations, and would provide the students with greater opportunity to expand their own talents through exposure to the many types of creativity found in the Seattle arts community.

The application is needed before the start of the school year in September of 2009.

Point of Contact:
Margaret Chodos-Irvine
(children’s book author and illustrator and recipient of Caldecott Honors for her book, Ella Sarah Gets Dressed. Her web site is: http://chodos-irvine.com/index.cfm.)
margaret@chodos-irvine.com
206-935-0901

Requirements include (but are not limited to):

Data elements/fields
Organization name
Organization type (i.e. art, dance/movement; language arts; theater)
Organization contact information
School contact information
Interaction type (i.e. performance; instruction; workshop)
Interaction site (i.e. on-campus; at organization site)
Interaction date
Subject and curriculum tie-in
Class(es) involved
Fee
Evaluation

Retrieval
Fielded searching
Free-text searching
Boolean capability
Guided query-building

Maintenance
The user needs to be able to retain current information as new information is added to each record, creating a historical perspective of the activities over time. The user will be performing her own file maintenance; therefore update routines should be extremely user-friendly

Portability
There is the potential for this application to be used replicated; therefore, it should be easily adapted to, and installed on, platforms other than the Mac.

Follow-on development
It would be desirable to provide for a “Wish List” capability that would record specific requests from the teachers and bump them against the organizations contained in this database. This would be a secondary requirement.

Continuing Education

A new resource: Northwest Central, the continuing education network for library staff in the Pacific Northwest.

Northwest Central is a community-driven online clearinghouse for library continuing education and collaboration serving library staff in Oregon, Washington, and beyond. The project was developed in 2005 by the PORTALS (Portland Area Library System) consortium with LSTA funding from the Oregon State Library. In June 2006 the pilot site was launched, and in November 2008, a redesign of the site by Insite Web Publishing was released. Portland Community College Library provides hosting and administrative support for Northwest Central.

As a free, community-driven project, Northwest Central depends upon members of the library community to share their resources, ideas, and calendar listings. Northwest Central invites you to join their community of life-long library learners.

SLA Name Change Wiki

SLA members from any division are welcome to post suggestions to the SLA Name Change Wiki for a new name of SLA. Make sure to log into SLA's wiki to add your suggestions or comment on an existing one. Also, to discuss on Twitter, use #slaname

Job announcement

The Office of the Secretary of State, Washington State Library is recruiting for a permanent, part-time Branch Library Associates (Library & Archives Paraprofessional 5). This is a direct employment opportunity and the recruitment announcement may be viewed at:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/employment.aspx
<http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/employment.aspx> ; choose Part-time Branch Library Associates (09 LAPP5 SLBS 0492).

News from SLA Division Cabinet Chair

At the SLA Annual Conference, the SLA members interested in creating a new SLA Taxonomy Division gained approval to circulate a petition to identify members for the proposed division, which will focus on ways to organize and structure information so that content is accessible and useful.

The proposed Taxonomy Division would offer a practical context for exploring issues and sharing experiences related to planning, creating, maintaining and using taxonomies, thesauri, authority files, and other controlled vocabularies and information structures.

To learn more or to sign the petition agreeing to join this new division. You must be a current SLA member to sign the petition.

Contact Margie Hlava (mhlava@accessinn.com) or Janice Keeler (jkeelersla@sbcglobal.net) for more information or to volunteer to help get this division started.

SLA Member benefits

Janice Lachance, SLA Chief Executive Officer announced that SLA and Information Today, Inc. (ITI), have negotiated a discount for SLA members to attend WebSearch University, a conference taking place 14-15 September at the Washington Marriott in Washington, D.C. The discount rate is $445, a $200 savings on the regular price. Click here to activate your discount and register for the conference.

WebSearch University is where searchers learn the latest developments that affect their internet research activities. The curriculum is packed with information on search techniques, collaborative technologies, mobile search, personalization, alternative search engines, and current awareness tools. New this year are sessions on rich resources for specific topics such as sci-tech, competitive intelligence, international, and legal. Learn more about the conference.

SLA2009 Photos

Enjoy the 900+ photos of the SLA 2009 Annual Conference in Washington, DC!  

SLA PNW Chapter President's Message

Greetings all,

I just returned from the 2009 SLA Annual Conference in Washington, DC! What better time to attend than during SLA's Centennial Celebration! For me the highlights were the Opening Session with former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell discussing his views on leadership and the importance of information technology; the receptions and other networking events; the Centennial Leadership Celebration at the Library of Congress; and the Closing Session with Judy Woodruff moderating a panel discussion on the state of information gathering.

At the Joint Chapter and Division meeting, the Chapter Cabinet Chair related that many chapter programs are focusing on topics to help members during this economic downturn. Despite the economy, SLA membership has increased with the strong interest from our international members. In fact, there were over 30 countries represented by SLA attendees. But membership retention rate is only 70%. SLA Headquarters indicated that they will be disseminating membership reports soon. Please note that due to the low level of interest, the Communities of Practice sites will be going away by December 31, 2009. Other news includes the creation of the new Academic Division and discussions on forming a Taxonomy Division.

The major topic of discussion at the Closing Session/Membership Meeting was SLA’s Alignment research. What can be expected? A name change for SLA that will better reflect the value we add to our organizations, especially to people outside of our profession. Other announcements included SLA’s new video channel SLA-TV, and the Beta version of the new Alignment Information Portal.

Also reported was the trend of chapters using blogs instead of newsletters to keep members up-to-date. Kudos to our web master Andy Szydlowski for setting up the SLA PNW’s Blog site! This is our space to actively share news and stay connected.

SLA Student Night Event Report and Presentation Slides (May 6th 2009)

In collaboration with the SLA PNW professional chapter, the SLA UW student chapter hosted the annual SLA Student Night.

This year’s event took place at the UW Washington Activities Center overlooking the placid waters of Lake Washington on a warm May evening. The event drew a large

Presentation Slides
Our special thanks to for presenting and being kind enough to provide their slides so we can post them below:

• Michelle Goodwin, Medical Librarians
  Finding Water in a Drought (pdf)
• Nick Berry, Content Architect & Taxonomist, REI
  Alternative Careers for Librarians (SlideShare)
• Traci Timmons, Manager of Library Services, Seattle Art Museum
  The Museum Library and the Downturned Economy (pdf)

More about Student Night's program.

crowd, including UW students and faculty, along with a wide array of information professionals from the Seattle area. Tables were stocked with fine cuisine and a healthy supply of beverages. There was never a lull in conversation as the room was filled with the clamoring of enthusiastic voices from people mingling and sharing information.

The event’s main attraction was led by Medical Librarian, Michelle Goodwin, Nick Berry Content Architect & Taxonomist from REI, and Traci Timmons, Head Librarian at The Seattle Art Museum. The presenters spoke with candor regarding the challenges libraries and businesses are experiencing due to the current economic crisis. The insight and knowledge of how information professionals are coping with these challenges generated a lively Q & A discussion, leaving students that are soon to enter the job market with a more sound understanding of what’s to come! Overall, the evening was a resounding achievement and could not have happened without the guidance and leadership from the student chapter’s adviser, Nancy Gershenfeld and the diligent efforts of this year’s student officers! SLA UW thanks the PNW chapter for their support and contributions to making this year’s student night one to remember.

Annalisa Pesek
SLA UW student chapter, Chair
2008-2009

West Coast Chapters Reception

When: Monday, June 15, 2009, 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Where: National Press Club, Washington, DC

[view invitation] (pdf)

SLA UW Student Chapter awarded SLA Merit Award for Creative Use of Electronic Resources

The University of Washington Student SLA Chapter was just awarded the SLA Merit Award for Creative Use of Electronic Resources. Our congratulations to the UW Chapter and in particular the Technology Officer, Kristen Dietiker, for the well earned recognition. This award recognizes the UW SLA Chapter for its use of various resources for outreach and communication, including the web presence, RSS, Twitter, Facebook and Google sites.

Congratulations!

During the 2009 SLA Leadership Summit, the SLA PNW Chapter was awarded the 2008 President Citation Award (pdf) of the Knowledge to Go Green initiative for the chapter's efforts during the 2008 SLA Annual Conference.