FAFLRT President

As a follow-up to the Membership Town Hall meeting at the ALA Midwinter meeting in Denver (Jan 2009), this letter was sent to President Obama stating “What the new President and administration need to know about libraries”. 

I think you’ll find the points made are relevant to your situation.  If not, let us know your additions to this letter.  It’s never too late to do something great. ala-letter-obama-town-hall-ltr-3-18-09

Thanks to Louise Guenther for sharing:  “This webcast of a debate about a new institution-wide digital media outreach initiative, which took place at the Smithsonian on April 21, may be of interest to all information professionals: http://smithsonian20.si.edu/forum_schedule.html“

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy is seeking comments on their draft report. http://www.pbs.org/engage/publicinput  

In today’s media environment - with so many newspapers cutting back on editorial staff, and online media becoming more ever-present each day
- do you have the information you need to accomplish your personal goals and to be an effective citizen?

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy and PBS Engage have teamed up to explore the issues around each citizen’s information needs, and we would like to hear from you.

    * Where do you find your information? Newspapers? Online? Television? Radio?

    * In your local community, what kinds of information do you need to inform the decisions you make and improve your understanding of the community in which you live?

    * How can local governments improve public access to the information communities need?

    * Do you think everyone in your community has access to the networks they need (online or in-person) to find important information?

    * How would you improve the quality of information available to the general public?

This week there will be a dialogue you may want to know about.

“Recovery.Gov Dialogue on Information Technology Solutions and we would like to invite you and your members to participate. This online dialogue will be reaching out to the public, state and local partners, potential recipients and solution providers around the question:

What ideas, tools, and approaches can make Recovery.gov a place where the public can monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds?

The IT Dialogue, which will run from April 27th to May 3rd, is a unique opportunity to directly influence how Recovery.gov is built and operates.

When Congress passed and the President signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February, it created a website, Recovery.gov, to openly show the public how, when and where recovery funds are spent to ensure our economic recovery is the most transparent and accountable in history. The results of the dialogue will be reviewed for the most innovative suggestions around making Recovery.gov a more effective portal for transparency.

The dialogue is being hosted by the National Academy of Public Administration, a congressionally chartered, non-profit, non-partisan, good government organization that helps tackle government’s toughest management problems.  Participation from the blogging community is critical to the success
of this initiative. We would like to ask you to participate and to do the following to help spread the word about the IT Dialogue:

Follow us on Twitter at @natldialogue - http://twitter.com/natldialogue - , or on the “Recovery Dialogue: IT Solutions” Facebook group - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81694037326 - to receive event reminders and updates.”

Joe Davidson does a good write up in the Washington Post of the constant struggle federal government has with staffing and renewal in the workforce.   The Partnership for Public service report reminds us that we should all be cognizant of the need for succession planning and talent mining which might include hiring interns in the workplace.  It is our responsibility to educate those as to the differences between internships that lead to job offers, and those that simply lead to a paycheck or college credit.

Says Susan Saulney and Karen Ann Cullotta in this NY Times article, “community need reaches far beyond reference help - and in many libraries, it is turning a normally tranquil place into an emotional and stressful hotbed”.

Yes, and frankly I don’t remember the self defense training in library school that would prepare me to two homeless men in the stacks getting into a knife fight over the warm place in the library to sleep. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/us/02library.html?_r=1&emc=eta1