The RMSLA community meets the needs of its members throughout the four-state region of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and South Dakota by providing professional development opportunities, currency on information profession topics, networking, camaraderie, and engagement. Your Chapter website lists RMSLA news and events and provides access to member benefits from SLA headquarters, RMSLA’s Facebook page, and much more. We actively solicit posts from members, partners and other interested parties. If you have an item or self-authored article of professional interest, please send it to president@rockymountain.sla.org.

Thank you for using and contributing to your RMSLA website.

Recca Larson
2012 Chapter President

If you were unable to join us (physically or virtually) for last night’s RMSLA Membership Meeting and Celebration event, well you’re in luck. Here’s a recap as well as link to the video archive!

The evening started off with networking, food, music and a slideshow of events and fun facts from 1951. We especially wanted to thank (and thank again now) all the wonderful sponsors of our event:

• IHS and Pamm Gross
• University of Denver and Mary Stansbury
• CLiC and Julie Teglovic
• Pattern Research and Pat Wagner

We also had excellent door prize donations from:

• Information Today provided 6 books (including two from RMSLA members Marcy Phelps and Mary Ellen Bates)
• Mary Ellen Bates offered a free hour of business coaching certificate
• Ulla de Stricker sent a certificate for the book she co-authored with Jill Hurst-Wahl: “The Information and Knowledge Professional’s Career Handbook: Define and Create Your Success”

Our guest speaker was the 2011 SLA President, Cindy Romaine. She spoke on being Future Ready, that is, to adopt an attitude of being adaptable, flexible, and confident in utilizing the skills of the information and knowledge professional. Cindy’s initiative as SLA President is to encourage information professional to become Future Ready by adopting strategies that will prepare us for emerging opportunities in the information industry. Her presentation starts around the 42 minute mark on the video archive: http://connect.cboces.org/p9u46a5i8e9/. She also showed us a fun video on Mia Finder:

Future Ready – Action!

Cindy had a special door prize of her own – a signed copy of Guy Kawasaki’s book “Enchantment”. That lucky winner was Joe Kraus!

Afterwards, we had cake and a champagne toast celebrating our Chapter’s 60th Anniversary (pictures coming soon!). We heard from past RMSLA presidents Wanda McDavid, Kathleen Rainwater, Kurt Keeley, Ty Webb (via Recca Larson) and Marcia Rodney (via Connie Clem) as well as Scott Brown via video recording!

And for the grand finale, we had 3 special door prizes to giveaway:

1. Amazon gift certificate for one of the 8 virtual attendees (congratulations Jody Hangenberg!)
2. Tattered Cover gift card for one of the 50+ physical attendees (congratulations Lee Ann Benkert!)
3. Wynkoop gift card for another one of the 50+ physical attendees (congrats to Barbara Wagner!)

If you were unable to join us this time, we hope to see you at one of our future events. And for those in attendance, we hope you had a great time and we’ll see you soon!

P.S. A special shout out to Kris Johnson (RMSLA Membership Chair) and Recca Larson (RMSLA President-Elect) for the hard work they spent on coordinating and planning this event. You guys rule!

Julie Cavender
RMSLA President, 2011

If you were unable to join us today, here’s what happened at our virtual lunch recap of the SLA 2011 Conference!

The Rocky Mountain Chapter was joined by the Rio Grande Chapter for Q&A session with the SLA President-Elect Candidates David Cappoli and Deb Hunt.

Q: Could the candidates speak to what an alternative or different model for conference might look like?

Q: What ideas do you have for bringing a multidisciplinary audience to SLA conferences or partnering to enable librarians to attend non-librarian conferences under member registration fees and get CE credits?

Q: What changes  would you like to see in SLA’s business model to ensure financial sustainability. “In your opinion, how can SLA’s leadership improve transparency with its members?

Q: What are your thoughts on marketing SLA membership outside the traditional MLS/MLIS audience? (e.g., is publicizing our training events a good pull?)

Check out the SLA Blog with all the SLA candidates’ answers to questions: http://slablogger.typepad.com/sla_blog/2011-candidates/

The Presidents from Rocky Mountain (Julie Cavender) and Rio Grande (Nora Stoecker) chapters spoke about their experiences at the SLA 2011 Conference. We also heard from RMSLA Director, Connie Clem, about her experience with the virtual conference component. The  SLA 2011_Recap slides are available for download. Here’s one more quotable from a CI Session:

“Information is everywhere, insight is rare”

There were a record number 22 people in attendance! Sure there were a few technical glitches and we got through them.  It was great having Rio Grande members participate and contribute. We hope to have more collaborative events in the future. And thank you to David and Deb for speaking to our Chapters!

This morning at the Leadership Development Institute (part of the Annual SLA Conference), James Kane announced the Rocky Mountain Chapter, along with 5 other chapters, will work with him on the SLA Loyalty Pilot Project. Over the course of a year, Mr. Kane will work with our Chapter and help us develop strategic planning as well as a greater sense of belonging and purpose. He will also visit our Chapter and provide training to our leadership and volunteers. There are some costs associated with this project, so look for fundraising efforts in the coming months. We are excited and thrilled to be a part of this project and look forward to sharing more information with all of you!

Julie Cavender
RMSLA President, 2011

“It’s radical!  It’s risky!  It’s revolutionary!  Why wouldn’t we do it?”

In sharing this response from a staff member, Pam Sandlian Smith (Anythink Libraries Director and 2011 RMSLA Shirley Alldredge speaker) demonstrated the energy, creativity and passion with which “Anythinkers” approach their work. Anythink Libraries were once the worst library system in the state of Colorado, yet within three years transformed so completely into a future-focused library that they won the 2010 National Medal for Library and Museum Service.

In 2011, Anythink was named one of five winners of the John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award.  The award acknowledged Anythink’s customer service philosophy and creative branding initiative which pushed the number of card holders up by 42% and increased visitors by 66%.

Anythink has opened four new libraries and is in the process of completing renovation on three more.  Two of the libraries are gold LEEDs-certified. Throughout Anythink facilities, the focus is on people rather than materials.  The cataloging system was converted from Dewey to BISAC Subject Headings, a system overwhelming preferred by library users.

Driving this remarkable run of building, renovation and improvement is Anythink’s culture of optimism, creativity and empowerment.  The summer reading program theme “Read, Think, Do” succinctly sums up the process Anythink used to transform their once-failing library system into a system of buildings, programs and, most importantly, attitudes that successfully serve and honor Anythink’s fondly-dubbed community of wizards, geniuses and explorers.

Ms. Sandlian Smith reads widely outside the library profession for inspiration.  When asked by an audience member for recommendations, she named three:  Setting the Table by Danny Meyer (customer service philosophy), Leadership is an Art by Max Depree and Beyond Disruption by Jean-Marie Dru.

Julie Cavender
RMSLA President, 2011