Should you apply for Emerging Leaders?

Photo by ellenm1

Are you thinking about applying for ALA's Emerging Leaders program? The deadline is fast approaching (August 1), so I wanted to share my thoughts on the program. As you know, I was a member of the 2011 class of Emerging Leaders.

Overall, the program was a positive experience for me. I got to work with some great librarians whom I never would have met otherwise. I had fabulous mentors (JP, Justin, and Buffy) who were hands-off enough to let us take ownership of our project, but constantly available for questions and feedback. If nothing else, it was great to get to know them and our wonderful ALA staff liason, Jenny. Also, to be frank, getting into the program was what enabled me to attend ALA's Midwinter and Annual Conferences for the first time. My library isn't often able to send people to conferences, but they were very supportive of me in this endeavor and made it happen!

So, here are a few of my thoughts. Just know that they're solely based on my experience, which is not necessarily going to be the same as everyone else's experience.

EMERGING LEADERS IS...


... getting to work with librarians all over the country. And not just any librarians, but librarians who have also applied for and been accepted to the Emerging Leaders program. These are librarians who are dedicated to our field. These are good people to know.

... a great thing to put on your resume and possibly a step up for your committee applications. When you fill out applications for ALA committees, you can check off that you were part of the Emerging Leaders program. This will mean something to the people assigning committee spaces (or so I am told!).

... potentially a chance to meet and work with awesome mentors who will tell you to party hard and #makeithappen. But then again, I think I lucked out in the mentor department, so I can't guarantee that your mentors will be as awesome as mine. :)

... a chance to use technology you might not be familiar with. Since ELs are located all over the country, the vast majority of the work is done virtually. My group used Skype, ALA Connect, Google docs, and email heavily throughout our working months.

... going to entail a good deal of work in May and June, leading up to the Annual conference. I mention this specifically for my public, children's and teen librarian friends. I am not gonna lie: It was super stressful to have so much work on top of all the stuff I was doing for my actual job. And as much as you say to yourself that you'll plan ahead and get the stuff done early, when you're working with other people, it's just not going to happen (no matter who your group is - and I had a great group!).

... a group project. And yes, theoretically the people in your group are hard-working, dedicated fellow emerging leaders. But sometimes life gets in the way, sometimes communicating is hard, sometimes people don't do what you think they're supposed to do. I mean, it's a group project. Take that as you will.

... dedicated to improving itself and open to feedback from participants. I truly believe it's a great idea and that the program will only get better as more people go through it and offer their feedback.

EMERGING LEADERS IS NOT...


... a free ride to Conference. It's possible that this may change at some point, but through my year at least, ALA did not provide financial assistance for conference attendance. And you are required to attend both conferences. There are some sponsorship opportunities available that may offer you some financial assistance and I encourage you to look outside the box, consider state library associations and other groups you belong to that might sponsor you. I was not sponsored, but luckily my library and our Friends of the Library were able to pay for me to attend both conferences.

... an automatic committee assignment. Yes, you will network and get to know people within the organization. Yes, it looks good on your resume and has weight on committee applications. But you still have to stand up and reach for what you want. If you want to serve on a committee, you're still going to have to do the legwork (figuring out where you want to serve, applying, etc.). And the work of ALA is done in committees (pretty exclusively, from what I can tell... just like pretty much everything else outside of ALA...!).

... the only way to be on a committee or to get involved with ALA. 90% of getting involved is just showing up and being willing to work. There are virtual committee spots available on some committees so that you don't have to attend conference at all. If Emerging Leaders isn't for you, that doesn't mean you can't get involved.

Take these thoughts as you will... And if anyone has any questions about my experiences in Emerging Leaders, I'm happy to talk about it. Leave a comment on this post or shoot me an email at abbylibrarian@gmail.com!

Got a Videogame Collection?

Now, y'all know that I have been working on this project for the ALA Emerging Leaders. Of course, I promised you updates as I went along and instead I have been, y'know, working. And it's just about time for us to present that work to everybody at the ALA Annual Conference!

Are you thinking about starting a videogame collection for your library? Are you wondering how to take your videogame collection to the next level? Join the 2011 ALA Emerging Leaders Team G for a poster presentation on videogame collection development at the ALA Annual Conference on Friday, June 24, 2011 from 3:00pm – 4:00pm in Conference Center Room 271-273.

Team G, comprised of Erik Bobilin, Abby Johnson [that's me!], Kate Kosturski, Jonathan Lu, and Nicole Pagowsky, will present information on issues and best practices when developing a video game collection, including Circulation & Access, Selection & Purchasing, Weeding, and an ideal MARC record. The team surveyed public, academic, and school libraries across the United States and Canada and spoke with experts in the field to find out what innovative ideas might change what we know about videogame collections in libraries.

ALA’s Emerging Leaders program allows new professionals to gain experience and create personal networks within the American Library Association by working with a group on an assigned project.

For more information, check out the team's website: http://bit.ly/libvideogames

If you're going to be at Annual and if you're free Friday afternoon, please come by! I would love to see you and, if I say so myself, we've got an awesome presentation for you. If you're collecting videogames or thinking about starting a videogame collection, this is the place to be!

If you're not attending the conference or if you've got pre-cons or something else more important than me going on Friday afternoon, worry not! All our information will be posted online and I'll be sure to shove that down your throats share the links when it's all up and ready.

PS: Who else is excited about NOLA?!

ALA Recap: Emerging Leaders

Photo by David Paul Ohmer

We will emerge and lead you!

The whole reason I got to go to ALA Midwinter was because I was accepted into the 2011 Class of Emerging Leaders, a program designed to give young and new librarians a leg up into committee work and getting involved with ALA.  I was more than a little intimidated to join this group of talented, passionate people, but to my huge relief everyone was incredibly nice and genuine.

The fantastic Dre organized a massive dinner Thursday night, which was a really great chance to meet people in the group and talk.  We went to Rama, a Thai restaurant located near the convention center.  Not only was the food fabulous, but the restaurant employees were very friendly and super accommodating!  For future Emerging Leaders, if you can con someone into organizing a pre-conference get-together, I highly recommend it.  It definitely took the edge off meeting so many new people at once!

Friday, we were up early for a day of leadership training and networking. We heard from Peter Bromberg, the Assistant Director of the program, about what we'd be doing and then Leslie Burger, chair of the ALA's Public Awareness Committee, talked about the organization of ALA, its mission, etc.

One thing Leslie talked about was that ALA is an organization in which you get out of it what you put into it.  It's up to each person to create the ALA experience that he or she wants to have.  She also emphasized that ALA is a democratic, member-driven organization.  They want to listen to what their members want, but it's up to us to make sure our voices are heard!

Divisions exist to narrow the focus of "big ALA" and make the organization more relevant to your work (but it would be impossible for those divisions to exist without the umbrella of "big ALA" supporting them).  Leslie said that part of the work of ALA is to "continually reinvent itself", so it's up to us to change it and make it support the work we do.

This is part of why the Emerging Leaders program exists - to get new voices in the organization!

We also heard from Maureen Sullivan on leadership, Molly Raphael (ALA's president-elect), and Jenny Levine on ALA Connect (which seems like it might become a wonderful way to make your voice heard in the organization.  They are open to feedback and constantly trying to improve it!).

In addition to hearing from great speakers, I got a chance to meet and work with my project group.  I am working on Project G and we're working on a model collection development policy for video games.  I will definitely be soliciting some information from any readers who have video game collections at your library, but that'll come in a separate post...

My group is awesome!  There are five of us working on the project and we have wonderful mentors: JP and Justin of 8bit Library and Buffy of The Unquiet Librarian.  Before going to the meeting, I was a little concerned about working on a group project, thinking back to group projects in undergrad and graduate school where quite often I was the one stuck putting everything together because no one else would do any work.  And then it occurred to me that Emerging Leaders is made up of all those people who always put together their group projects.  I think this is going to be a great project to work on and a great group of people to work with.

So, here I am: excited and eager, standing on the threshold of this project.  So far, Emerging Leaders has been an awesome experience.

Now, ask me again in a couple of months and we'll see where we are. ;)

Coming soon: more recaps of ALA!  Stay tuned!!

I Will Emerge and Lead (I Guess)

Well, it's been announced, so I suppose I can announce it, too.

I've been selected for the ALA's 2011 Class of Emerging Leaders!

What is that?


Emerging Leaders is a program that gives young and/or new librarians a chance for leadership training and networking with the goal of getting them involved in their professional organization.  From ALA's website: "The program enables librarians and library staff from across the country to participate in project planning workgroups; network with peers; gain an inside look into ALA structure; and have an opportunity to serve the profession in a leadership capacity early in their careers."

What will I be doing?


Well, I'll be attending the Midwinter Conference and meeting 82 of my new best friends.  We'll network, learn about ALA, and then we'll be divided up into groups to work on some sort of project, which will be presented at the ALA Annual meeting in June.

I'm excited to see what it's going to be like.  I'm excited to meet all sorts of library people from all over the country.  And yeah, I'm excited to go to San Diego in January.  :)

I'm also excited because a few weeks ago, I told you that ALA is not your mom.  Being part of Emerging Leaders might just help me put my money where my mouth is.  Maybe it's the first step towards changing the world.  Who knows?

So, what I want to know is who will be at Midwinter?  And can I coerce you into hanging out with me?

And also, any past Emerging Leaders out there?  What did you think of the program?  Got any advice for me?