With attendance numbers of around 100 Colorado information professionals, Colleague Connection 2012 was a rousing success.  See Robert Linz’s fantastic photos here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmlinz/sets/72157629929403429/.  Last Thursday evening was filled with delicious food, delightful conversation and networking, and an interesting and informative speaker in Erika Napoletano of http://www.redheadwriting.com/.

One highlight of the evening was the result of Erika’s shushing contest, which had no winner, for apparently our colleagues were happy to hear the story of a young girl raised in a houseful of books, who spent her weekends at the public library. “I’m not a librarian, but my sister is.” That quote sums up much of Erika’s passionate speech, as she asked us to think about unpopular v. unlikeable thoughts. Unpopular thoughts are generally the thoughts that need to be voiced, and we as information professionals need to be ambassadors of information and our services. “I am an information addict.” As information professionals, how are we serving our information addicts? We are perfectly positioned to demonstrate our value and bridge the chasms between parents and educations, educators and dollars, and dollars and sense. If we build our support structure with champions like Erika Napoletano, who wants to be surrounded by librarians at the Zombie Apocalypse, we can brand ourselves as the valuable and necessary professionals we are, regardless of our specific job titles. Overall, the crowd enjoyed Erika’s engaging and thoughtful speech on the important work that we do every day.

I want to thank CAL, CoALL, SRMA, CCML, and the University of Denver Library and Information Science Program for co-hosting this event with RMSLA. I can’t wait until next year!

- Rachel Bates Wilfahrt, RMSLA President-Elect

RMSLA is planning several events this year, with more information to come as the dates and locations are finalized.

• Directors Connie Clem and Jason Youngstrom will be organizing dine-arounds in early to mid March, so please be on the lookout for that email and consider hosting one in your area!
• Past-President Julie Cavender and I will be hosting an informal happy hour in April and plan to schedule more throughout the year.  We’d also love for our members to host happy hours, lunches, or whatever setting you’d like to network with your colleagues in, so please contact me if you have ideas on when and where you’d like to plan something!
• RMSLA is once again co-sponsoring Colleague Connection on April 26, with registration information to be sent out in the next few weeks.
• In May, we’ll hold our second annual Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz fundraiser to benefit the Rebecca Jackson Memorial Scholarship.  Read about last year’s event here:  http://rockymountain.sla.org/fundraising/pub-quiz-after-buzz/ and the scholarship here: http://rockymountain.sla.org/scholarship/about-the-scholarship/).
• In addition to a post-Annual Conference virtual lunch wrap-up, we’ll be organizing another set of dine-arounds in the week or two following the Annual Conference (July 15-18).
• On Tuesday August 28, plan to meet at Coors Field for the 6:40 PM game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Mark your calendars now for the return of this classic scholarship fundraiser (tickets are $25, with $10 benefiting the scholarship), and I will send out more information very soon.
• Our membership meeting will be held in early October.  Have ideas for a dynamic speaker for this event?  Email me!
• The last three virtual lunch webinars of the year will be a set of career workshops from LIS career gurus Kim Dority ( http://www.dorityassociates.com/) and Scott Brown ( http://socialinformationgroup.com/).  These sessions, run by two of our field’s top practitioners, will provide you with practical tips for taking your information career to the next level.
• We also plan to hold an end-of-year holiday party and an in-person career event where you can take head shots for your LinkedIn profile or other online portfolio.  Stay tuned for more details!

Save the Date!

The Colorado Association of Libraries, in conjunction with the Colorado Association of Law Libraries, the Colorado Council of Medical Librarians, the Society of Rocky Mountain Archivists, the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Special Libraries Association, and the University of Denver Library and Information Science Program, is pleased to present Colleague Connection 2012.

5:30 – 8:30pm, Thursday, April 26, 2012
Ruffatto Hall, University of Denver, 1999 E. Evans Avenue, Denver, CO

Colleague Connection is an annual event sponsored by Colorado library and archives organizations to encourage networking and learning among students, paraprofessional staff, librarians, archivists, trustees and friends of libraries. All information professionals are invited to join us.

Details and registration instructions will be shared when available.

It was great seeing everyone at the RMSLA holiday party at the Art Institute of Denver on December 12, 2011. Excellent food and company, and the gift exchange and Art Institute tour were fun. Thanks to Glenn Pflum for hosting us and for showing us around. Check out the pictures at RMSLA’s Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rocky-Mountain-Chapter-SLA/154495284576384 – and help tag them!

Also at the meeting, RMSLA formally awarded Julie Teglovic the 2011 Rebecca Jackson Memorial Scholarship. See more about the award and Julie here.

Thanks to everyone who put the event together and to those who made the scholarship possible – by arranging a fundraiser (Tina Jayroe), by coming to a fundraiser (lots of people), by directly contributing to the scholarship fund (you know who you are), or by managing the award process (Kendra Spahr). RMSLA also thanks all of this year’s scholarship applicants.

Don’t miss RMSLA’s holiday meeting at the Art Institute of Colorado on Monday, 12/12/11 from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. The Art Institute is located at 1200 Lincoln St. in Denver. The evening’s agenda is guaranteed to put you and/or keep you in a holiday mood. Plan to bring a tchotchke from your library, business, or organization wrapped for a gift exchange.

We will also be announcing the winner of this year’s Rebecca Jackson Memorial Scholarship. Come and celebrate!