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Last
week President Carol Avery Nicholson
and I attended a Symposium for Chief Elected
Officers and Chief Executive Officers sponsored
by the American Society of Association Executives.
This two-day session focused on the challenge
of leading in difficult times, something
we all grapple with on a daily basis. I
was particularly struck by the discussion
of Warren Bennis’ Four Competencies of
Leadership, which illuminated four key
leadership attributes:
- Management
of Attention: Leaders communicate
with a focus of commitment; a compelling
vision that brings others to a place they
have not been before – a set of intentions
or a vision; a sense of outcome, goal
or direction.
- Management
of Meaning: In order to make dreams
apparent to others, and to align people
with them, leaders are able to communicate
a vision; leaders integrate facts, concepts
and anecdotes into meaning and focus;
leaders get people to understand and support
goals in a variety of ways, someone who
can create “buy-in” to the issues;
- Management
of Trust: Reliability, Constancy,
Focus, Authenticity – people would much
rather follow individuals they can count
on, even when they disagree with their
viewpoint…someone who can be counted
on.
- Management
of Self: Knowing one’s skills – deploying
them effectively. Leaders know themselves;
they know their strengths and nurture
them. They also have the ability to accept
risk. Mistakes are simply another way
of doing things. They are not viewed
as failures but simply as next steps.
Law
librarians, by nature and by training possess
most if not all of these competencies and
bring great value to their organizations
because of them. In fact, we are about to
publish a Statement on the Value Added to
Organizations by Law Librarians (see following).
At
its April 4-5 meeting, the Executive Board
approved the Public Relations Committee
Statement on the Value
Added to by Law Librarians. I urge
you to read it in its entirety because it
speaks eloquently to what you bring to your
organization. In these tough economic times
this document will help you educate colleagues
and administrators about the value you bring
to your organization. We
are printing brochures and will have copies
available shortly.
For example the statement tells us that:
“law
librarians are information managers, resource
evaluators, access facilitators, expert
researchers, teachers and trainers. Law
librarians possess the knowledge and skills
to realize the full value of information
in a changing work environment. Law librarians
can bring value to organizations by reducing
research time and information costs, thus
saving money and resources.”
The
body of the document enumerates four key
areas of your expertise: as information
evaluators, as information managers, as
expert researchers, and as teachers and
trainers.
While
talking with members in the field, one question
that arises with some frequency is “What
are your plans to fill the personnel vacancies
at headquarters?” As many of you know,
we currently have two positions vacant,
Director of Programs and Customer
Service Assistant. These positions
will remain vacant until September at the
earliest. The reason I’m waiting threefold:
first, I want to have enough time in position
as your Executive Director to fully assess
organizational needs and how best to approach
them; second, our budget this year is the
most challenging it has ever been (Anne Matthewman, AALL Treasurer,
will give you a detailed report in the May
issue of AALL Spectrum)
and keeping those positions vacant helps
us to economize; and third, I want to wait
until we receive the results of the educational
needs assessment to help inform my long-range
thinking about these two important positions.
AALL
members are invited to join the Government
Relations Committee in a Professional
Development Program moderated listserv discussion
on permanent public access to government
information from May 12-16.
Titled
Permanent Public Access to Government
Information: Who’s responsible, and Why
Should We Care?, the listserv discussion
will explore how to preserve electronic
government information that often vanishes
in cyberspace. As states and the federal
government make more and more official information
available only electronically, it is time
for AALL members to educate policymakers
before more electronic government information
is lost.
For
full information, click here
Don’t
wait too long to register for the
Seattle Annual Meeting July 12 - 16, 2003!
Here’s this week’s tip from the Annual
Meeting Program Committee, courtesy
of Lyonette Louis-Jacques, University
of Chicago D'Angelo Law Library:
This
year’s Annual Meeting will debut new 30-minute programs.
What can you learn in 30 minutes? Stick
around on July 16 in Seattle and find out!
In
a half hour you can demystify “10-Q” (K-5),
“Connexion” (K-4), MARBI (L-4), NetMeeting
(M-6), and American Bar Association statistics
(L-6). Discover what the American Library
Association is up to (M-1). Get tips on
how to teach with visual aids (K-3), how
to promote AALL with advocacy Web sites
(L-2) and how to write a CALI exercise (K-1).
Other programs will offer opportunities
to exchange ideas on how to “jazz” up your
Web pages (K-2), how to keep your strategic
plan alive (M-2), how to help law review
students (L-1), and how to wrestle with
technology and win (L-3).
This
is just a sampling of the educational programs
that will be presented in this new, shorter
format. So make your list of the 30-minute programs
to attend in Seattle. You will find it
to be time well spent!
We
are more than half-way through our 2000-2005
Strategic Plan and our progress
is remarkable! Sally Holterhoff,
Chair of the Executive Board Strategic
Planning Committee deserves high
praise for her tireless work in shepherding
this ambitious directive. From time to
time I will feature our achievements against
the plan.
For
example, did you know that with the publication
of the Statement
on the Value Added to Organizations by Law
Librarians we contributed
substantially to Strategic Direction #1:
Law Librarianship is a Thriving Profession
whose Members are Valued as Critical to
their Institutions and to the Legal System?
Under Direction #1 we established the initiative
to “set standards and guidelines for
the organization and delivery of information
and services in an evolving print and electronic
environment.” And our earlier publication
of Beyond
the Boundaries fulfilled the
mandate of Initiative 1A.1: Set standards
and guidelines for the organization and
delivery of information and services in
an evolving print and electronic environment.
Sincerely,
Susan
E. Fox, CAE
Executive Director
American Association of Law Libraries
53 West Jackson Blvd., Suite 940
Chicago, IL
60604
312-939-4764, ext. 11
Fax 312-431-1097
AALL:
Maximizing the Power of the Law Library
Community Since 1906.
"Maximize Today - Envision Tomorrow" - the
96th AALL Annual Meeting and Conference
July 12 - 16, 2003, in Seattle.
For more information go to www.aallnet.org/events
"A
lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000-word
document and calls it a 'brief'."
Franz
Kafka (1883-1924)
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