All Sessions

Targeted at library directors, department heads and senior staff from public, academic and special libraries, this hands-on workshop will train participants in dialogue facilitation skills with proven success in strengthening partnerships, building effective teams across departments and organizations, and raising the profile of the library as a center for community life. Participants will leave with valuable facilitation skills that can immediately be put to use for their libraries and communities.

Based on the self-development style of the popular publication Be a Great Boss: One Year to Success, this new project focuses on a year of education and exercises to foster team building. The preconference will introduce attendees to both the habit of continuing one’s own professional learning and to the value inherent in building and sustaining strong teams in any organization.

This program will outline a theoretically driven pragmatic approach to leadership by presenting leadership styles and appropriate applications to give the participants a solid cookbook approach to resolving various situational and structural issues.

Jay Johnston is Director of the Farmington Libraries, Farmington CT. His vision, knowledge of technology, coalition building skills, and belief in the importance of the public library sustain his dedication to a staff-centered, customer-focused, high-energy leadership model.

Christine Bradley is currently the director of Norwalk Public Library.

The 2012 ALA Emerging Leaders will showcase their final projects at this culminating event for their class. Since the ALA Midwinter Meeting, the groups have been working virtually on projects related to ALA or a professional concern. These groups have been supported by ALA staff and member mentors from the profession. The poster session will allow each group to showcase its creative and innovative solutions for their projects. All are welcome and are encouraged to attend.

Are you ready to get involved with BCALA? BCALA leaders will discuss the mission, vision, constitution and by-laws, organization structure, and opportunities to get involved.

Find out what's going in ALCTS and meet ALCTS members and leaders

All LLAMA Section Committees

Training staff to take on leadership roles in your library addresses their interests in assuming additional responsibility as well as cultivates successors into leadership positions. Especially in difficult times, libraries need to continue looking forward and developing their future leaders and managers. This presentation will discuss innovative ways that San Diego County (CA) and Orange County (FL) Library Systems have fostered and developed leaders and potential managers from within existing staff as well as introduced three leadership programs to assist staff into ascending the rungs of leadership.

Do we know what it takes to successfully position the library as a core service in government and community? We talk to ourselves about what it takes to tell our story and the value we bring, but rarely do we hear from city and county executives about the real truths on how they see libraries, and the skinny on the skills they look for in library leaders.

Join us for a provocative conversation with renowned government executives and proven directors to hear straight talk about leadership and positioning libraries as key partners in city and county government.

Representation of diversity in LIS education and research is paramount to achieving our diversity recruitment goals. A panel featuring current doctoral students will be followed by an hour-long Options Fair with representatives from LIS doctoral programs. Don't miss this unique opportunity to explore PhD and funding options from schools across the country. All are welcome to join us!

The FCC describes libraries as "vital centers for digital literacy," but to extend broadband access and encourage adoption of digital technology to improve opportunities for education, employment and civic engagement takes the effort of whole communities. Learn about the Framework for Building Digital Communities and the IMLS-funded project with WebJunction and partners ICMA (International City/County Management Association) and TechSoup Global in this far-reaching effort; and share with us your vision of a connected community.

Faced with a mass retirement of librarians, university libraries need to confront the loss of hundreds of years of subject, programmatic, and institutional knowledge, skills, and abilities. This potentially detrimental gap can be lessened and even avoided by fostering librarian leadership and implementing a succession plan. In this session, a group of diverse librarians and educators in higher education will discuss best practices in succession planning at their own institutions.

“In each of us there is a talent and we are capable of leading from where we are” says President Maria Kramer. Association members of every job classification and from every type of library provide the foundation for advancing the vision, while at the same time are placed at the pulse of community library and information needs and dreams. The role of this interactive program is to inspire and instill the member-leader, volunteer-leader, and/or community-leader in all of us!

Be it strategic planning, tracking operational performance, report filings, stakeholder relations, customer satisfaction, accreditation, etc., data management (collecting and report output and sharing) is increasingly "mission critical." This session will demonstrate a practical, integrated and affordable solution for these issues.

"21st century challenges require 21st century solutions."

Sponsored by Counting Opinions.

Heather Krasna, career expert and author of Jobs That Matter: Find a Stable, Fulfilling Career in Public Service, will lead a dynamic and engaging session that will leave you with an inspiring new goal to achieve and a plan in place to get there.

Whether your five-year goal is to be promoted, change career tracks, enhance the scope of your position, or even to retire, this session will give you the tools you need.

Join staff of the King County (Wash.) Library System to hear about their ongoing effort to implement a Future Services Strategy, a long-range strategic plan for greater depth, breadth, and relevance of service in the community. Learn what steps they took—like creating a staffing model and focusing on an enhanced service provision—to shift a large library system from a traditional way of providing service to one that also serves online customers and reaches out to the community. The presenters will share what they learned as well as where the library system is headed from here.

Seek innovation where it lives –your staff! Join the Orange County Library System (FL) to learn how they have developed an organizational initiative to tap into the energy, creative spark and passion of staff for thinking “outside the box” and planning for the future. The award winning Innovation Champions team has been created to encourage an environment of ideas and global trendwatching. Hear about the journey of the team; learn how they are harnessing the power of idea sharing, and how to harvest your very own!

This program lays the groundwork for library planning standards through unique exercises that include group activities related to library standards, measurements, funding and advocacy. Participants are offered the opportunity to experience the initial steps of planning and are given the chance to research library planning standards that can make or break a project. This program is for academic librarians, educators, K-12 school librarians, special and public librarians.