News Library News Online
Vol. 23, No. 2/Winter 2001

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Debra BadeNotes from the Chair
By Debra Bade


A World of Information within Your Reach

That sounds like a line that could be on your resume or business card doesn’t it? After all, as news librarians we do have the world of information at our fingertips, and we successfully navigate that world every day as we provide news and corporate research to people within our organizations. But "A World of Information within Your Reach" is also the theme of this year’s International Special Librarians Day on April 5, 2001 -- so do something special to celebrate. It’s a good day to work on increasing awareness of what we do within our organizations and for all of us to help increase the "global awareness" of what librarians and information specialists are all about.

The year 2000 saw many accomplishments for us and brought new international members into the Special Libraries Association and the News Division for the first time as SLA reached out with the Global 2000 conference. SLA as an association became more "virtual" and that continues to enhance what SLA can do. One successful push in 2000 came with content from conference presentations becoming more formally available across all Divisions, allowing members who were unable to attend meetings in person to attend virtually by visiting Division and SLA web sites. And this of course is only the beginning of what we can achieve in terms of sharing information on a global level.

Online Information 2000

Online Information 2000 was another of the international meetings pulling together information specialists from all areas of the world. This conference met in London, England this past December. Learned Information is the top-notch organizer of this conference, which in 2000 included 300 exhibitors, with more than 18,000 visitors expected.

I participated in a panel session moderated by Marydee Ojala of Online and titled "Information Literacy in the Information Age." We were also joined by panelists Bill Johnston of the University of Strathclyde’s Centre for Academic Practice in Glasgow, Ross Shimmon of IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions), and John Davies of GlaxoWellcome plc. Though we came from very different organizations we found we had much in common, with themes of teaching, learning, training, curriculum design and international goals and clients running ever-present through our daily responsibilities.

Other key conference sessions included "National Libraries in the eworld" from Lynne Brindley of The British Library, and "The Newspaper in Your Pocket" from Neil Budde of wsj.com, plus sessions on search engines, super searchers, intranets and content management.

SLA Winter Meeting

Mentoring, strategic planning, task force accomplishments, and the virtual association were also themes at the SLA Winter Meeting in Savannah, Georgia this January as SLA officers gathered to share information and improve their skills as division and chapter leaders. SLA sponsored a Strategic Learning Symposium at Winter Meeting – this year’s topic: "Powerful Client Service: Creating Indispensable Partnerships." Responding to the changing demands upon members and the new technologies and skills impacting the profession is a top goal for SLA. Keeping the association vital is essential and will in turn keep our membership roll on an incline. F.Y.I.: within the News Division we’ve seen growth over the past decade, growing from a low of 681 members in 1990 to 812 members in 2000. (But note that we peaked at 891 members in 1997.)

Nominees for Office

Congratulations to Michael Jesse who is the News Division’s nominee for Chair-elect, also to Catherine Kitchell and Sandy Levy, our candidates for Treasurer, and to Jennifer Evert and Denise Jones who are candidates for Director of Education. You’ll find bios for each of them in this issue of NLN and will be receiving ballots in the mail – be sure to vote! Thanks to Linda Henderson and committee members for finding such strong candidates for these positions.


Debra Bade is the Director of Online Training and Development for CNN. You can contact her at debra.bade@turner.com.