I find that the summer seems to go by in a blink. One day it’s Victoria Day and the next it’s Labour Day. For the Executive Board this is a time to reflect on the successes and challenges of the year while starting to plan for 2007. Your input is welcome and I encourage you to contact any member of the board to discuss your ideas.

Several members of the chapter were able to join us at the end of August for our joint summer social with CASLIS. This pub night is becoming an annual tradition for SLA Toronto. Greg Barber, host extraordinaire, organized another superb evening of libations and networking. Members have indicated that networking events are important and so we aim to hold informal social events from time to time.

Our fall schedule kicked off on September 21 with a programme delivered by Randy Park about influential presentations. I know Randy from my days in the Joie de Vivre Toastmasters club and can attest to his abilities both as a public speaker and as a trainer of presenters. Speaking before an audience can be a trying experience, but almost all of us at some time have to make presentations at work and/or address large groups. Randy’s programme was a great step in helping you create and present effective presentations that hold your audience’s attention and win you kudos.

We are planning an event for October 26 about research skills in health information.
This programme will be of interest to both health information specialists and
non-specialists. On November 23 we will be holding a technology-oriented programme.
In addition, some of our subgroups will be putting on programmes during the
fall, and we will be offering several virtual seminars. More information about
these and other SLA Toronto events can be found on our web site, www.sla.org/chapter/ctor.

As a result of the changes that were made to SLA’s governing year, we now hold our annual general meeting in December. This year we are moving the holiday social back to December and combining it with our AGM. Many of you have attended the joint social with CASLIS in the past. This year’s event will be held at the Arts & Letters Club. More information will be available shortly and I hope to see many of you there.

Lastly, I am going to make a call for volunteers. The board asks that you do
just one thing during the year. A major time commitment on your part is not
required. Volunteering for SLA can be very rewarding and I encourage each of
you to donate a few hours to your chapter. If you are interested in volunteering
please contact our president-elect, Pam Casey, at pcasey1@cogeco.ca.

This will be my last column as president of SLA Toronto. I have enjoyed my year as president and look forward to serving the chapter and the association in other ways in the years to come. I want to extend a special thank you to the current Executive Board – Pam Casey, Joy Shanfield, Tylene Reaume, Daniel Lee, Melissa Troemel, Heather Ritchie and Sandra Craig – for their support and encouragement. The Advisory Board has also worked hard over the year to organize programmes, find speakers, review resumes, coordinate subgroups, obtain vendor sponsorship and many other tasks, and I thank them too.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy fall and winter.

Martha Foote

Wow, it’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since Elizabeth and I began editing this newsletter. With 4 issues under our belts we’d like to take this opportunity to thank those who have submitted articles over the past year – we literally couldn’t do it without you. For those who haven’t written for the Courier before, why not give it a try?

We are always looking for writers, occasional and regular, to contribute ideas, comments, thoughts, and news items. Share your experiences with your colleagues. Contact us directly anytime for more information.

When Baltasar Gracian, a 17th century Jesuit scholar, said “Good things, when short, are twice as good” he could have been referring to this issue. Although short on word count, we are big on content! In addition to the regular exciting updates from our Board and Committee members, we present a touching article on an SLA initiative to bring libraries to children in Africa. And if you’re like me and send (or receive) dozens of emails a day you may want to read Peter de Jager’s article on “The Perils of E-Mail” before you send another.

Enjoy!!

Heather Postill
hpostill@sympatico.ca

Elizabeth Malak-McMullan
elizabeth.malak-mcmullan@vaughan.ca

1. From Janice LeChance, CEO
A lot is happening within SLA to build stronger ties between the global community of information professionals and the information industry. I see this as a very positive sign that we are moving towards inclusiveness in our community and convergence between buyers and sellers of content. I’d like to share with you some of the activities taking place.

First, the SLA Board of Directors has asked me to act on several recommendations
(www.sla.org/PDFs/boarddocs/2006/A06-42.pdf)
from a task force of SLA members designed to explore our intentions and strategy
with regard to alliances and partnerships. We have been moving towards stronger
relationships between SLA and our industry partners for several years now. Moving
forward, I suspect that we will be opening the door for a broader strategy to
involve more companies and their representatives in our activities, so that
we can gain from their knowledge and expertise and they can learn from the people
who know the real world of information management – you and your colleagues.

Second, we are actively recruiting employees in the information industry for the first time. Bringing them into our community as individuals can only mean great things for you and for SLA. More members broaden the network of contacts you have at your fingertips. And this audience of prospective members has a stake in your success.

Third, the SLA Board seeks to build a working relationship with the information
industry’s leading trade group, the Software and Information Industry Association.
SLA Headquarters joined SIIA as an associate member several months ago, and
I recently attended their Content Forum in San Francisco. We have also agreed
to serve as a sponsor of their inaugural Global Information Industry Summit,
to be held 14-15 September in Amsterdam (www.siia.net/giis).
This event will be an excellent opportunity for SLA to build stronger ties to
the industry that serves our community and to expand our relationship beyond
existing boundaries. I’ll be there, and I think that anyone from our community
who can be there should join me there!

Finally, in the afterglow of a successful SLA 2006 in Baltimore, our research of the event indicates that the Info-Expo is clearly one of the top reasons information professionals attend our Annual Conference. Exposure to the exhibiting companies and awareness of their products and services is one of many great ways for you to expand your value proposition to your organization through SLA.

2. Voice your Opinion: SLA Annual Conference
At the June 2006 SLA Board of Directors meeting a workgroup was formed to look
at all aspects of the SLA annual conference including what was good, what was
great, and what could be improved. The group is hard at work consulting the
membership through both surveys and interviews. This is an opportunity to provide
your opinion and your fantastic “out-of-the-box” ideas. If you wish to participate
and be interviewed, please e-mail Gloria Zamora, gjzamor@sandia.gov.
The workgroup will report back to the Board in October 2006 with implementation
planned for the Seattle conference in 2008.

3. Member Service Focus: The SLA Career Center
When SLA redesigned its website in June, the SLA career center got a whole new look and some improved features. If you haven’t been looking for a job, chances are you haven’t been to that part of the website, but there are so many tools and information resources available in the SLA career center that can be beneficial to you regardless of your current job status.

You can access such resources as:

• Articles
  on Career Advancement (www.sla.org/content/jobs/careerportal/index.cfm)
• The
  SLA Salary Survey (www.sla.org/content/resources/research/salarysurveys/salsur2005/index.cfm)
• Career
  Disruption Assistance (www.sla.org/content/jobs/disruptment.cfm)

Take a look around today and improve your work situation! The SLA Career Center
(www.sla.org/careers/)
offers a complete range of services for info pros seeking new jobs or further
career development.

4. SLA Forms Knowledge Management Division
Thanks to the efforts of your fellow members, SLA HQ is happy to announce the creation of a new professional interest division for SLA members who are currently practicing or have an interest in knowledge management in their organizations. The Knowledge Management (KM) Division of SLA will focus on the characteristics and processes through which organizations facilitate the creation, sharing and use of knowledge. The creation of the new KM Division was unanimously approved by the SLA Board of Directors last month.

5. Receive Up To USD 6,000 Toward Advancing Your Education
Ease the financial burden of paying for graduate school; apply for an SLA scholarship
today! SLA’s
Scholarship Program (www.sla.org/content/learn/scholarship/sch-index/index.cfm)
consists of awards for graduate study leading to a Master’s Degree, graduate
study leading to a Ph.D., and for post-M.L.S. study. Eligible students are awarded
up to USD 6,000 in scholarship funds. Details of the SLA Scholarship Program
and applications can be found on the SLA Web site. Get your application in today
to meet the 31 October 2006 deadline to apply.

6.Net-neutrality: SLA endorses S. 2360, the Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006
The U.S. House of Representatives passed its telecommunications bill, H.R. 5252, in May 2006 without adequate net neutrality protections. Now the fight has moved to the U.S. Senate. On 28 June, the Senate Commerce Committee passed its own telecom bill, S. 2686. While an amendment to the bill that would have added meaningful net neutrality safeguards failed 11-11, this tie vote marks a significant political victory and gives the effort new momentum. The debate now shifts to the full Senate, where SLA and its allies will be working to get strong net neutrality language in any bill that the Senate considers.

SLA, in conjunction with the AALL, ALA and ARL delivered a letter endorsing
S. 2360, the Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006, which deals with the controversial
issue of Net-neutrality. Together, these associations represent over 139,000
libraries as well as millions of library patrons. The letter was delivered on
26 March 2006, and explained that, “Assuring network neutrality is important
as the digital world spawns an international knowledge-based economy. Important
steps must be taken to prevent interfering with blocking, degrading, altering,
modifying or changing traffic on the Internet and prohibiting priority lanes
where some content providers can purchase faster access to end users” while
those who don’t or cannot pay the fee are left in the slow lane.” SLA will also
continue to monitor the progress of the telecommunications bill and will continue
bring up-to-date develops as they occur. For a clever look at this issue from
the technology side read this opinion article written by Andrew Orlowski posted
on The
Register (www.theregister.com/2006/08/02/net_neut_opinions/).

On September 11, 2006, the vibrant presence that was Vicki Casey finally left this world. She had valiantly battled brain cancer for 10 torturous months – remaining upbeat for as long as humanly possible – until this insidious disease finally stole her completely away. Her absence is palpable. But let me share with you some memories of this beacon of the library and information industry.

Vicki often spoke of her early days as an indexer with Micromedia – and she was particularly grateful for this opportunity, as it afforded her the maximum flexibility to be with her then very young son, Patrick (who remained the light of her life to the end). She stayed within the Micromedia “family” to become a researcher with SVP Canada where she was well-known for her passionate commitment to clients and for her capacity to think outside the box and generate new ideas. She then took these abilities to the Metro Reference Library where she was instrumental in pioneering IntelliSearch, their fee-for-service line of business. At the same time, she played a lead role in Canada Online – a not-to-be-missed trade show for the burgeoning information industry – which evolved into the Information Highways conference. For many years, she was the editor of the magazine Information Highways and their conference convener. More recently, Vicki was a lecturer at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information Studies and in the Library & Information Technician program at Seneca College, sharing her knowledge and insights with the next generation. She strongly believed in giving back to the community and especially in supporting the development of newer information professionals – which was how I had the great good fortune to come to know her.

Vicki was caring, innovative, committed – a true believer in the power of librarians and information. She was a great friend to many of us – and her light is sorely missed.

The SLA Toronto Chapter is looking for volunteers’ for both the chapter and the programming groups. The commitment would begin in January 2007.

We are looking for names to add onto to our volunteer pool. Whenever we need to fill a position on the executive or advisory board, we turn first to the volunteer pool then to the general membership of the chapter.

Volunteering for the association is a great thing to add onto your resume and gives you the opportunity to have a say in what goes on in the chapter.

If you are interested please send me an email at pcasey1@cogeco.ca

Pam Casey
President-Elect, SLA Toronto

I would like to start this report with thanks to my predecessor, Gillian Clinton, who has run the Solo Committee with efficiency and unfailing good humour. She has certainly set a high standard for me to follow.

Thanks are also due to Kolette Taber of The Canadian Health & Life Insurance Association (CLHIA) who continues to provide meeting space for the Downtown Solos.

Downtown Lunch Meetings

Our first meeting of the new session took place on September 11 and was a discussion on copyright and licensing issues led by Paul Cheeseman. It was agreed that this is a complex issue which needs to be handled with care. The discussion focused on:

• The importance of access to professional advice.
• The extent to which it was prudent to rely on the doctrine of “fair dealing” given the uncertainties of its application to specific issues.
• The advantages of obtaining clear rights to use copyright material in a certain manner via licensing agreements.
• Restrictions on redistribution of certain types of electronic material within organizations.
• The effects of these issues on the provision of internal press monitoring services.

Future Plans

Our next meeting on October 16 will be a discussion on Project Management for Solos, and in November we revisit the issue of Media Monitoring. As always we are delighted to welcome new members.

My current term of office ends in December 2006 and due to growth in my organization
I am no longer a Solo Librarian. For that reason I would be pleased to identify
a “genuine” solo as my successor. If anyone is interested in running for Chair
for 2007, please contact me (see below) or Martha Foote, Chapter President,
at Martha.Foote@sunlife.com.

Paul Cheeseman is the Librarian at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board
and can be reached at 416-868-5060 or pcheeseman@cppib.ca.

2006/2007 Events
Events of the New Information Professionals (NIP) Program will be starting soon! Watch for event announcements on the SLA Toronto chapter website and listserv!

If you have topic or speaker suggestions, please get in touch with me at clysnes@alphaplus.ca.

New Members
We are always looking for new information professionals with whom to connect. So pass this issue of Courier around and encourage a new information professional or soon-to-be-graduating Master of Information Studies (MISt) student to come to our next event!

Since graduating from the Faculty of Information Studies at the University
of Toronto in 2004, Claire Lysnes (clysnes@alphaplus.ca)
has been Information Resources Officer (Projects) with AlphaPlus Centre, a government-funded
organization serving the Ontario adult literacy community.

At the end of the September, Rani Pooran changed roles from conducting legal research and creating internal marketing communications for the tax practice in Tax Knowledge & Innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers (London, UK). Her new role involves conducting legal research, as well as consulting with business teams and networks about their knowledge management needs and delivering solutions to them.

Lisa Tarrison-Schramp started a new position in July at CanReg Inc. She is working as a Medical Information Researcher in the Resource Centre at CanReg Inc. in Dundas, Ontario.

Nortel has moved from Brampton to Toronto. Anne Choate Little’s new contact information is:

Law Library, MS T05/05/008
Nortel
195 The West Mall
Toronto, Ontario, M9C 5K1
Tel: 905-863-1169 Fax: 905-863-1637
Email: littlea@nortel.com

Peggy Cameron was a librarian for 25 years with all levels of government in Ottawa and Toronto before starting up her own company, PCTriptych. Her new title is Librarian Entrepreneur and her company offers research services as well as tutoring, photography and the sale of paper products. Peggy’s contact information is:

Peggy Cameron
PCTriptych
211 College Street, #117
Toronto
Tel: 416-340-1855

People on the Move will be a regular column highlighting the achievements of our members and help keep us all in touch. Please share your career changes, retirements, life changes, volunteer work.

Submit your news to Frances Wong at FWong@blgcanada.com
or Radikha Jaggernauth at rjaggernauth@hsf.on.ca.

Special Librarian Jane Kinney Meyers sees it clearly: a network of small, open-access
libraries across sub-Saharan Africa providing basic education and literacy skills
to as many of the 43 million orphaned and street children as possible. And so,
her Lubuto Library Project (www.lubuto.org)
was incorporated as a non-profit in January 2005. The first Lubuto Library is
slated for completion in November 2006 in Lusaka, Zambia, with 2 more to follow
shortly.

Living and working in Zambia and Malawi for some 7 years, Jane witnessed the dire circumstances of these kids first-hand. In Zambia, she became increasingly involved with services to street children offered by the Fountain of Hope, a drop-in shelter in Lusaka. She established a reading program, served on the Board, raised funds, and created a library for the children-among her many contributions to the center. But that was not enough.

Most of the 40+ million African orphans are collateral victims of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and at least 11 million of them have had both parents die of AIDS. In 10 sub-Saharan African countries, more than 1 in 5 14-year-olds are parentless. According to US government and UN estimates, this number will continue to grow due to the high proportion of adults there already living with HIV/AIDS and the difficulties in expanding access to life-prolonging antiretroviral treatment.

While international relief and development agencies and national governments strive diligently to meet the basic needs of food, medical care, and clothing, most of these children cannot attend school and face a lifetime of poverty and despair engendered by a lack of education.

Architect’s Model of a Lubuto Library in the Style of Traditional Zambian Homesteads: Entry (center), Activities Building (right), Library Reading Room (left)

Construction of 1st Library, Lusaka, Zambia; Completion Date: November 2006

A former World Bank and US AID librarian, Meyers aims to build and staff libraries complete with excellent book collections carefully compiled utilizing the professional expertise and volunteerism of librarians, writers, booksellers, and US schoolchildren. Lubuto Libraries will afford a safe gathering place and an opportunity for an informal education for orphans, street children, and other vulnerable children. The libraries will hold events with traditional storytellers-giving the children the opportunity to transcribe and help preserve a vanishing oral culture, as well as create their own books. Beyond this, while participating in the Lubuto effort, American students will learn of the plight of their African peers who deal with HIV/AIDS on a personal, daily basis. To this latter end, Lubuto produced a film, Kids Just Like You, which is narrated by Julian Bond and made its debut in May 2006.

The Lubuto Project plans to ship the first collection of 5,000 donated books to fill the shelves of its Lusaka library before the end of the year. As of end-July, appeals had raised 3/4 of the funds required for construction, with a need for some $15,000 remaining. Every penny donated to the project goes for this purpose, and the project is appealing to you, as people who understand the value of books and reading, to find a way to reach out now to the children in Zambia who need books to nurture their imaginations and hope. Please visit the Lubuto Library Project website to contribute.

“Lubuto,” in the language of the Bemba people of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, means “enlightenment, knowledge, and light.”

It’s easier to sleep in a hammock full of cats, than it is to hold meaningful and civilized conversations via E-mail. At least, that’s the impression you get if you watch a large enough sample of E-Mail.

Somewhere between the art of conversation and the act of E-mail, we lose our patience, tolerance, perspective and most importantly our sense of humor.

The result? We ruffle the feathers of our peers, rub the fur of management the wrong way, act like foxes in a hen house, and generally forget we’re human beings.

E-mail is different, difficult and demanding. It’s not talking by typing. When we talk we repeat ourselves to clarify our meaning. When we type we remove repetitions because we were told never to use the same word more than once in a paragraph.

Repetition in writing is a no-no. It’s a no-no to repeat yourself in writing. See? Whenever we see blatant repetition, we cringe. Even though it serves a very useful and accepted role in everyday speech.

This lack of repetition also allows ambiguity to creep into our messages. When we repeat an idea, we reinforce meaning. Without repetition, we don’t know if the writer really meant what they wrote.

Lack of repetition also means that we don’t know what is important to the writer. Repetition serves to highlight important points and issues. When we repeat a particular point, it is obvious to the listener that that particular point is important to our argument.

Another aspect of writing and speaking is that it is difficult (if not impossible sometimes) to put our exact meaning and intent into mere words. This difficulty is aggravated by the speed of E-mail. We tend to fire off responses without really considering our words and what they might convey to the reader.

Our typing and grammar skills (rather, our lack of these skills) adds yet another layer of confusion to E-mail. We all make typos and grammatical errors, which is why editors make a living. “”Nothing should see print until it’s edited”" is a pretty good policy.

E-mail ignores the concept of proofreading … most people mail their first draft of a note, without ever even reading it. Is it any wonder that Flaming (the act of heated written abuse in response to some transgression, real or imagined) has become a national pastime?

E-mail is new. We learnt how to talk on our own because it’s built into our programming somehow. We were taught how to read and write, and for the most part we practice a lot of reading, but little writing.

For many people, E-mail is their only form of writing, other than shopping lists, yet nobody teaches us how to write short electronic messages, which resist misunderstanding.

All of this: the lack of repetition, the difficulty of writing what we mean, typos, the errors in grammar, the lack of proofreading, our lack of practice in writing short, concise notes etc. etc. results in E-mail which seldom, if ever, contains within it, the true intent and meaning of the writer. Then why do we respond to E-mail as if it did?

Most of our communication problems in E-mail result from us responding to it as if it truly conveyed what the writer meant to say. We respond with notes beginning “”You said…”" rather than “”I understood your note to mean…”" To communicate better in E-mail keep in mind just two things:

1. What you think they meant, is likely not what they meant to write.
2. If someone mis-reads what you wrote, it’s likely because you mis-wrote what you meant.

You can of course e-mail me to comment on this little missive!

© 2006, Peter de Jager – Reprinted with Permission – Peter is a keynote
speaker, writer and consultant – to read more of his work visit www.technobility.com
– for bookings contact him at pdejager@technobility.com
.