Join us at the next Job Hunters’ Discussion Group meeting on Thursday, January 31st! Space is limited so please R.S.V.P. to Jackie Kilberg, Discussion Leader at kilberg@earthlink.net as soon as possible.

When: Thursday, January 31, 2013 from 9 a.m. – 10 a.m.
Where: South Regional Library
4505 S. Alston Avenue
Durham, North Carolina 27713

Welcome to the North Carolina Chapter of SLA. We value the support of our vendor/partners and look forward to creating mutually beneficial relationships with a wide range of organizations.

Who are our members?
Our members manage, locate, and disseminate information to support professional workplaces. You can find our members working as directors, managers, researchers, and specialists in information centers, knowledge management departments, professional online and consultants’ services, academic and government institutions, law firms, nonprofits, and much more.

Why sponsor NCSLA programs?
Partnering with NCSLA can provide your organization with access to a wide range of information professionals in North Carolina. Our members represent a mix of corporations, non-profits, government agencies and academic institutions, and they have a variety of information and information management needs.

What can NCSLA offer you?
In return for your support, NCSLA offers:
•    Advertising on our website
•    Venues for promoting products, services, and messages
•    Lead generation
•    Insight into the needs of our members

We offer various opportunities for support:

After-Work Happy Hour Sponsorship
We have strong attendance at after-work happy hours, which are informal occasions for members to catch up with one another. They are often held in the Triangle area but are sometimes held in the Triad area. ($100)
•    One company representative can attend the happy hour.
•    Receive recognition in all event announcements, including emails and the NCSLA website, and in the calendar of events.
•    Publish your logo and web site on NCSLA’s Partners Page.

Workshop Sponsorships
NCSLA offers several professional development workshops per year. They are intended for members to learn new skills and network with one another. We offer three levels of workshop sponsorships:

Silver  Workshop Sponsorship ($300)
•    One company representative can attend the workshop.
•    Recognition from the podium at the workshop
•    Receive recognition in all event announcements, including emails and the NCSLA website, and in the calendar of events.
•    Receive a contact list of all NCSLA attendees.
•    Distribute your promotional materials at a sponsored exhibit table and/or dining tables.
•    Publish your logo and website on the NCSLA website for 3 months.

Gold Workshop Sponsorship ($400)
•    The Silver package, plus:
•    Publish your logo and website on the NCSLA website for 6 months.

Platinum Workshop Sponsorship ($500)
•    The Gold package, plus:
•    Your representative can address the workshop audience for up to  15 minutes.

Officer Travel Sponsorship    
Sponsor support for our officers to travel to the annual SLA Conference. ($1,000)
•    Publish your logo and website on the NCSLA website for one year (January – December).
•    Receive special recognition at the NCSLA Annual Banquet in December
•    Receive a contact list of all attendees at the NCSLA Banquet in December

Other sponsorship opportunities may be available.  NCSLA will partner  with you to create a sponsorship package that meets the needs of your business.  Please contact our fundraising chair at ncsla@yahoo.com to inquire about sponsorships.

The votes are counted and here are the results for NCSLA’s new officers:

President-Elect: Terry B. Hill

First Year Director: Thea Allen

Secretary: Stephanie Brantley

Treasurer: Mary Krautter

Thank you to all our excellent candidates for their willingness to stand for election.  We are so fortunate to have such talented SLA members in our chapter. And many thanks to Rebecca Vargha and Mary Lane for serving as the NCSLA Nominating Committee.

On Friday, May 13, 2011, information professionals and graduate students from across North Carolina gathered at the Joseph Bryan Jr. Auditorium at Guilford College in Greensboro for CareerWise 2011. This career focused event was jointly sponsored by the North Carolina Chapter of the Special Libraries Association and the North Carolina Library Association’s Round Table for Ethnic Minority Concerns Roundtable (REMCo) and  Reference & Adult Services Section (RASS).

Mary Scanlon, Business Librarian at Wake Forest University, and Kathy Makens, Head of Adult Services at the South Regional Branch of the Durham County Libraries, gave a presentation entitled Social Networking for Career Advancement: it’s not your teenager’s Facebook. This talk provided important tips for managing and optimizing your professional presence on social networking sites, and provided insight into helpful tools that can be used to make the job search more efficient and successful.

Ellen Shlom, Area Sales Manager for Belk, Friendly Center, talked to the group about appropriate dress for interviewing and in the workplace. Ellen gave many helpful tips about looking your best so that you feel confident and project a professional image. To illustrate Ellen’s points, several members of NCSLA and NCLA modeled clothing during the presentation.

After a break for networking and snacks, attendees participated in a panel discussion on career and job seeking advice. The panel included human resources and hiring professionals representing public, academic and corporate libraries.  Kim Hailey of the Greensboro City Public Libraries, Tiffany Allen of the UNC Chapel Hill Library System, and Mariel Christian of RTI International all provided invaluable tips on resumes, cover letters, and interviewing. The panelists took many questions from the audience, making for an interactive and highly relevant session.

CareerWise 2011 was a great opportunity for professional development and Networking!

“The Power of You”- Negotiation Skills Workshop was presented by NCSLA on April 29th at the Duke Conference Center in Morrisville, NC. The four-hour workshop was sponsored by Inconitel Consulting Services and was led by Joanie Olivier, Executive Partner and founder of Iconital, Inc. It was a well- attended event with an audience consisting of librarians, information professionals, and library science students. Joanie began the presentation by explaining that negotiation is not just limited to purchases, but every aspect of our lives. Negotiations take place in the home, the office, and social circles. It can encompass everything from dinner plans to exchanging ideas or concepts. Joanie further explained that there are two approaches in negotiations. The win-win approach is a collaborative effort that leaves both parties happy while the win-lose approach results in one party being happy and the other unhappy. The number one rule in a successful negotiation experience is to know what you want and at what point you will walk away from the negotiation. The workshop continued with participants learning about the top four personality styles. The participants were broken down into four groups according to their personality style. Volunteers were asked to role-play negotiations between the different personality groups. This active learning portion gave participants an opportunity to gain experience negotiating with different personality types. The presentation concluded with participants creating a negotiation strategy for a simulated negotiation.  The participants enjoyed the presentation and are ready to apply their new negotiation skills.

For the past two years, the NCSLA Board has put out a programming survey to gauge the interests and needs of the membership. A big thanks to everyone who has participated in these surveys – your feedback has been critical in targeting topics and speakers for our events and I hope you’ll continue to provide this feedback in the future.

I wanted to “close the loop” so to speak and share our results with everyone. We took an open-ended approach this year and there was quite a bit of raw data to work with. The first thing I did was “code” each response to consolidate similar answers. Example – responses regarding the librarian’s role as teacher, instructor, and trainer, were coded as “outreach/instruction”. Next, I created word clouds for each of the three open-ended questions in the survey: What skills do you think are most valuable for information professionals in today’s marketplace? What areas of training would be particularly beneficial to you? What did you not learn in Library School that you have been/are required to know/do in your current role? Finally, I created one large word cloud using the responses to all three questions since they are all driving towards the same point – the skills we need most today. This visual representation made it possible to identify our hot topics “at a glance”.

I shared the full report with our Board at the January meeting – a few of the most popular topics include:

Communication Skills
Return on Investment (ROI)
Budgeting
Outreach/Instruction
New Technology
Negotiations
Marketing
Management
Creative Thinking
Social Networking
Copyright

Several members mentioned increased opportunities for casual face-to-face networking and we were excited with the high number of volunteers to host February networking lunches and dinners. NCSLA coordinated with Joanie Olivier of Iconitel to present a negotiation skills workshop which also spoke widely to boosting communication skills in general. On May 13^th the chapter is co-hosting CareerWise 2011 with NCLA, a career focused workshop for librarians and information professionals in all fields.

Topics on tap for the rest of the year include: budgeting, presentation skills, a panel on ROI, hiring from a management perspective, and more networking opportunities. Stay tuned for additional details on these events! As always, please let us know of any events you might like to host.

-Tiffany Lopez
2nd Year Director

From our site you will find job post along with new and exciting career opportunities for permanent, part-time, and contract work.

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