Thank you to the outstanding vendor sponsors who are supporting SLA Government Information Division programming at the 2013 SLA conference in San Diego:

Platinum Level ($2,500 and over)

LexisNexis

Gold ($751 to $1,250)

CQ Press, an imprint of Sage

Elsevier

Leadership Directories

Springer

WT.Cox Information Services

Silver ($501 to $750)

Gale Cengage Learning

ProQuest Dialog

Bronze ($500 and under)

Basch Subscriptions, Inc.

For more information on Government Information Division sponsorships, please visit http://govinfo.sla.org/sponsorship/ on our division website!

The Government Information Division (DGI) is pleased to announce this year’s essay contest.

Library students:

Would you like to win a student registration to attend the SLA Annual Conference in San Diego?
Here is your chance!

The Division of Government Information is a community of knowledgeable information professionals who share an interest in government information.  Everyone uses government information.  From unemployment numbers to climate change, government resources help local governments, businesses and families to make decisions that affect us all.  We are interested in hearing new and innovative ideas about how governments can improve access to their information, especially to the public. Governments can include local, state, provincial or federal.  Current MLIS students, present your thoughts and ideas to us.

Here are the rules:

• Word Count: 1500 or less
• Deadline: May 1^st, 2013
• Winner must be eligible for a student registration (current student in a library & information science program such as MLS, MLIS, information management, human computer interaction etc), and must be a member of DGI by April 15, 2013. To become a DGI member, please see http://www.sla.org/content/membership/unitchange.cfm.
• Please remember, DGI cannot take political positions and can only accept apolitical postings. Political entries will be disqualified.
• Only one entry per participant. The winner should plan to attend the DGI Business Meeting at the 2013 Annual Conference.
• The winning essay will be published on the DGI blog http://govinfo.sla.org/blog/
• Should the winner be unable to attend the conference, an alternate winner will be selected.
• The division will reimburse the winner for the student registration cost on presentation of a receipt. Additional ticketed events, if desired, can be purchased at the winner’s expense.
• DGI cannot cover travel, lodging, food, or any other additional conference expenses.

Submit questions and entries to jennifer_klang@ios.doi.gov

The SLA Government Information Division is proud to share that news that our current chair, Aileen Marshall, has been selected as a 2013 SLA Rising Star. According to the SLA announcement, the Rising Star Award “is presented annually to information professionals who show exceptional promise of leadership and contribution to their profession and to SLA.” We’ve already seen that in her work as DGI chair-elect and chair.

Congratulations, Aileen!

It’s exciting to see DGI member Naomi House featured in the Library Journal, in the 22 February article Nine Questions with Naomi House, founder of I Need A Library Job.

I Need A Library Job (INALJ.com) is a mega-site for library and archives job postings and resources in the U.S., Canada, and other countries. The site grew out of Naomi’s own job-hunting experience and is now her hobby and passion:

My hope was to help at least one person find a job and now we are nearing 800 success stories and those are just the people who shared their success with me. There are many more.

Naomi started out solo and now has 150 volunteers helping. Some other figures:

 I had 3,700 [subscribers] to the daily email which transitioned to the INALJ Jobs pages in 2013. I have nearly 800 subscribers to the blog, and I will reach 1 million page views in the next month or two. In 2012 fans from 151 countries visited INALJ.com.

But this is just what she does in her spare time. Naomi has a full-time day job as a federal librarian, a job she found on a listserv.

Another Leadership Summit has concluded … and what a great summit it was!

First and foremost I would like to thank the Texas Chapter for hosting us in “Big D”. I am sure that I speak for all of us when I say that we had a great time and enjoyed the company, restaurants and attractions such as the Dallas World Aquarium and the Sixth Floor Museum. Thanks to the staff who stayed late to let us in (and out) of the building, and who took time to show us their lovely and super-interesting reading room that contains all things Kennedy.

Thank you, SLA Fellows, for sharing their stories about how their involvement in SLA helped them in their careers as leaders and also enriched them personally: Richard Huffine, Ulla de Stricker, Sara Tompson, Stacey Greenwell and librarian/retired law enforcement officer Tom Rink (the “guncarryinglibrarian” … gotta love this guy even if you are (like me) not a fan of guns).

Despite the great weather in Dallas, we spent most of our time in conference rooms; but I haven’t heard anybody complain about it. The sessions were too interesting to do so. True to our current challenges, we heard and talked a lot about budget, membership retention and engagement, developing leadership skills etc. Listening and talking to fellow librarians and other professionals as well as the SLA Board and staff was truly inspiring and eye-opening!

I think I speak for all of us by saying that the news that we all were most excited about is the upcoming launch of the new SLA web site (thanks for the picture, Chris). It has a wonderfully clean look … way to go, HQ!

Although I liked all the sessions and presentations, I’d like to highlight the fantastic job that My Jeffra Bussman (Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics Division) and Valerie Ryder (Philadelphia Chapter) did; they presented their division’s/chapter’s brand new strategic plans, and thanks to their hard work, other divisions (like mine) don’t have to reinvent the wheel but can use these documents as template to create their own plans for the future. Thanks, ladies and everyone involved in this effort!

Finally, this year’s Fellows and Rising Stars were announced by President Deb Hunt:

2013 Fellows: David Cappoli, Dennie Heye, Martha Foote, Mary Talley, Rebecca Vargha
2013 Rising Stars: Alyson Avery, Kendra Levine, Amy Sarola, Rachel Bates Wilfahrt, Aileen Marshall.

Thank you all for making the Leadership Summit a memorable experience. Hope to see you all in San Diego!

Aileen
DGI Chair

The Government Information Division has announced the results of its 2013 Executive Board election:

• Chair-Elect: George Franchois
• Director of Membership: Jennifer Klang
• Director of Planning: Hannah Gladfelter Rubin
• Secretary: Lisa Foster

They join the Executive Board alongside previously elected members:

• Chair – Aileen M J Marshall
• Immediate Past Chair – Kim Shultz
• Treasurer – Kari Anderson

Congratulations to our new Board members, and thank you to 2012 Past Chair Marie Kaddell for her work on organizing the DGI Election.

The voting has begun in the Government Information Division Executive Board election! Biographies of the four candidates running for positions on the DGI Executive Board are listed below.

To vote in the election, go to our SurveyMonkey ballot and follow the instructions. All votes must be received by November 24, 2012, at 5 p.m. Eastern time (US).

Chair Elect (unopposed): George Franchois is the Director of the U.S. Department of the Interior Library in Washington, DC. He has served as the Director since 2006, overseeing the daily operations of the DOI Library. He also serves on the Federal Library and Information Center Committee’s (FEDLINK) Executive Board and FEDLINK’s Education Working Group, coordinating its “Great Escapes” program series. Additionally, he is active in the Special Library Association’s Government Information Division, serving as its Programming Director from 2008 to 2010, and serving on its Fundraising Committee for Conference programming for the past three years.

During his time as Director of the Department of the Interior Library, George has worked with Interior Department officials and the library staff to greatly increase the number of electronic resources available to Interior Department personnel around the country through the Library’s website (http://library.doi.gov). He has also implemented a series of regular training programs on print and electronic resources available at the Interior Library, as well as special programs highlighting National Park Service sites and resources in the Washington area. All of these programs have been made available not only to Interior Department personnel, but also to the library community and the general public.

Prior to his current appointment, he worked for Lockheed-Martin/Aspen Systems Corporation as the Project Manager/Reference Librarian for the Interior Library staffing contract from 2002-2006. He has also served at the Interior Library as Deputy Project Manager/Reference Librarian from 2000 to 2002 and as a Library Technician from 1994 to 2000. He also has experience as a Library Technician at the Broadcast Pioneers Library in Washington from 1988 to 1991 and the EPA Headquarters Library from 1991 to 1994.

George received his Masters degree in Library and Information Science from the Catholic University of America and his undergraduate degree in History from the Pennsylvania State University.

Director of Membership (unopposed): Jennifer Klang is the Head of Reference Services at the Department of the Interior Library, where she has worked for 11 years. In addition to providing reference assistance, she also provides training courses to Interior employees, Federal Government employees and the public, and is responsible for collection development activities at the library. She has taught courses in general web searching, database usage, invisible web searching and legislative history.

Her articles have been featured in LexisNexis Best Practices in Government Libraries, as well in the GPO’s FDLP newsletter. In June 2011, Jennifer offered a presentation at the SLA conference titled “Return on Investment for Libraries and Librarians” which offered practical suggestions that librarians could implement to improve their perceived value to their organization. Jennifer has been a guest speaker at the Library of Congress at the Institute for Library Technicians. She has also been a guest lecturer at the CUA library science program’s Federal Library Institute. As a federal library contractor for 9 years, Jennifer was able to offer students at the institute a first-hand perspective on the processes and issues surrounding federal library contracting.

Jennifer has worked in the Washington DC library community for 14 years for both private and public sector organizations. Prior to her employment at DOI, she worked for a public relations firm as a knowledge specialist conducting research projects for clients across a wide variety of subject areas.

Jennifer holds an MLS from Catholic University of America and a BA from St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City.

Director of Planning (unopposed): Hannah Gladfelter Rubin has been an information professional at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) since 2005. Her work at CRS includes enterprise information management and analysis, taxonomy and metadata development, and strategic planning.

While pursuing a library science degree at the University of Maryland, she worked as a student contractor in the Special Collections of the National Agricultural Library. Her prior experience was as a writer and editor, primarily for public policy newsletters.

She served as chair of the SLA Taxonomy Division in 2011, and led program planning for the division as founding chair-elect in 2009 and 2010. She also planned programs as president of the SLA student chapter at the University of Maryland from 2005-2006, and as co-chair of Taxonomy Tuesday, a Washington, D.C. group, from 2008-2009.

Hannah has an MLS from the University of Maryland and a BA in Comparative Religion from Carleton College.

Secretary (unopposed): Lisa Foster is a second year graduate student at the University of Washington Information School, and a candidate for an MLIS degree in early 2014. She has been a practicing lawyer in the San Diego, California area for over 22 years, and plans to combine her legal background with an MLIS to become a law librarian. She currently works for the law firm of McDougal, Love, Eckis, Boehmer & Foley, where she is a partner specializing in public agency law. She served as City Attorney for the City of Poway for five years, and also worked as a Deputy City Attorney for the City of San Diego for about fifteen years prior to joining the firm.

Lisa has a law degree from California Western School of Law, and a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice Administration from San Diego State University.

She is a native San Diegan, and currently live in Alpine, California with her husband Rich, two dogs and three parrots. When she has free time (which she notes is a dim memory right now) she likes to do yoga, racewalk, garden with cactus and succulents, and travel.

Lisa won the 2012 SLA DGI student contest with her blog post: Access to Government Information: The Balancing Act.

Marie Kaddell of LexisNexis has just released Best Practices for Government Libraries 2012: Pushing Boundaries:  Mobility, Community, Accessibility [PDF]. Marie, 2012 Past Chair of SLA/DGI, edits the annual compilation of content submitted by government librarians and community leaders with an interest in government libraries. On her Government Info Pro blog, Marie reports “the 2012 edition includes over 70 articles and other submissions provided by more than 75 contributors including librarians in government agencies, courts, and the military, as well as from professional association leaders, LexisNexis Consultants, and more.”

Contributions cover benchmarking, career planning, international work, open government, public libraries, public records, records management, and social media.

Articles and guides contributed by DGI members include:

• Pushing Boundaries: From Collections to Service, by James King, Information Architect, National Institutes of Health Library
• An Online Community Is Born: NIC’s National Jail Exchange, by Connie Clem, Managing Editor, National Jail Exchange, Principal, Clem Information Strategies
• Gaining Management Skills through Professional Association Leadership, by Kim Schultz, Marketing Research Analyst, Affinion Loyalty Group
• Reaching Out to Tribal College and University Libraries: A Project to
  Provide Interior Library Resources and Services, by George Franchois, Director, U.S. Department of the Interior Library
• Planning for the Worst: Disaster Preparedness and Response in Federal Libraries, by Aileen M. J. Marshall, MA, MLIS, Reference Librarian at the U.S. Department of Transportation

An e-book edition of Best Practices is in the works.

I can’t believe that the SLA 2012 Annual Conference in Chicago, IL has already come and gone!  While the Government Information Division is busy planning for the 2013 conference, I want to provide follow-up information on presentations that took place during conference.

The following presentations are being made available online at our SlideShare account:

Patent Research 101

Open Data in Chicago

Gov on the Go: Mobile Content Assessment and Evaluation

In addition, Patrice McDermott’s speech on “The Wikileaks Controversy” is available as a PDF file by clicking the link below:

DGI Spotlight Session: The Wikileaks Controversy

I hope that everyone in Chicago enjoyed our sessions and on behalf of myself and our 2012 planner Deb Knox, it has been an honor and a pleasure planning Government Information Division sessions for the 2012 conference, and we look forward to a great slate of programming from our Chair-elect Aileen Marshall in 2013!

And one last big thanks to our 2012 session sponsors – we couldn’t have done it without you!

Kim Schultz

2012 DGI Chair

DGI sessions taking place next week in Chicago, that include Power Point slides, will be available via our Slideshare account – just look for “2012″  in the presentation title.

http://www.slideshare.net/DGISLA2011/presentations

So far, we have slides from our Patent Research 101, Gov on the Go: Mobile Apps, and Open Data in Chicago sessions.  Be sure to check back after conference, for all available presentation slides.

For updates during conference, follow @SLAChicago @SLADGI and I’ll be tweeting as well @klyall