HLS and LibraryLab Meetup at ALA!

Are you going to ALA later this month? We’re teaming up with LibraryLab to host a meetup on Sunday, June 30th from 8:00-10:00 at the Green Door.  The meetup is a fun and informal way to hang out with us, network, and make some new friends while having a cocktail! You can add it to your ALA calendar by going to this link.

Also, if you’re in the DC area, remember we’re hosting meetups in June!

Questionable Promotion/Advocacy

I recently received an ALA Store catalog in the mail and was happily flipping through the pages, considering whether or not I should order my own supply of Love My Library buttons, when I stumbled across this t-shirt:

Sold by ALA Store, design by Andy Woodworth (Image source: ALA Store)

It has pictures of endangered animals (a giant panda, a mountain gorilla, a black rhino) and then the library symbol, the point being that libraries are endangered. I’m sorry to say it but something about this t-shirt does not sit well with me. It rings a little alarmist and reminds me of the Huffington Post “Libraries in Crisis” page which Turner Masland covered in an excellent Hack Library School post called HuffPo: Helping or Hurting?.

The Importance of Professionalism

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Katie Clausen.

“Suits” by Paul G under CC license via flickr.

In one of my courses we are analyzing ALA’s “Core Values of Librarianship.” We take on one core value every week, reading articles and discussing how these values define us as librarians. It is important to understand the policy that makes the foundation of our profession, even though it can be….well, boring. But if we take the principles and apply them to our everyday lives and jobs, it is easy to see why we need these standards. They are, as the ALA states, “the foundation of modern librarianship.”

Last week, we tackled Professionalism, and it was quite the dialogue.

First of all, The American Library Association’s core value of professionalism states that the ALA “supports the provision of library services by professionally qualified personnel who have been educated in graduate programs within institutions of higher education. It is of vital importance that there be professional education available to meet the social needs and goals of library services.”

Let’s break it down. What does professionalism mean? Why do we need it?

Emerging Leaders and Professional Involvement

“G536 Zoom in, Sign up” by Brad Smith via Flickr under CC license

Editor’s Note: This is a Guest Post by Anita R. Dryden

This past year I had the pleasure of participating in the American Library Association’s Emerging Leaders program, which is designed to help new librarians get involved in ALA. Throughout the course of the program you attend leadership training, meet many of the current leaders in ALA, and are assigned to a small group to complete a project for a Division or Round Table. The EL program was a wonderful experience – I loved getting to know a group of really engaged, passionate young professionals while working on an exciting and beneficial project that helped me learn more about how the beast that is ALA works.

Hack ALA Annual: Recovery

We are slowly getting reacclimatized to real life after an absolutely fantastic and overwhelming time at ALA Annual over the weekend. We learned, we networked, we were inspired, we picked up tons of great freebies in the exhibit hall, we partied hard and we generally geeked out on all things LIS.

We hope you enjoyed the event — either in reality or virtually — as much as we did. It was an absolute pleasure to meet so many of you in Anaheim.

We are working on various posts to summarize the event and share our experiences, expect those to roll out in the coming weeks. In the meantime you can continue to contribute to the #HLSConvo and of course browse our archive to find applicable content to your current hacking needs.

- Your Friendly LIS Hackers