Ranging in sizes from 4 to 14, the 2013 neighborhood dinners showcased the eclectic interests of our members. Food, wine and great conversation was had by all. Thank you to all who participated, and especially to those who provided the recaps below. – Tricia

Marin/Sonoma
by Diane Rosenberger
Nine of us enjoyed good food and heard good music at Panama Hotel & Restaurant in San Rafael on Tuesday, April 23. Conversation was a challenge because of the music, but still everyone seemed to have a good time.

Shane Curtin, currently an intern under David Grossman’s direction in the Mill Valley Public Library History Room, said that he will be starting the MLIS program at San Jose State in the fall. We all offered encouragement.

Barbara Janis distributed information about the many activities going on at the Presidio. See http://www.presidio.gov/welcome and http://offthegridsf.com/picnic

Angie Brunton continues to enjoy her mystery and music-filled retirement.

The next dinner is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday July 24 in northern Marin or southern Sonoma.

Oakland
by Lauren Reid
On April 18 there were 11 of us who met at Bocanova in Jack London Square for what was a stupendous night of wonderful food, superb company, and refreshing wine. Those who attended were Sarah Rae Cook, Kathryn Olson, Lauren Reid, Debbie Bardon, Lydia Petersen, Sandy Malloy, David Grossman, Cynthia Eastman, Claudia Fenelon, Julie Tunnell, and Kris Waller. Conversations were diverse, with discussions about career opportunities, life in Oakland, and current library/information trends. Everyone chimed in on their favorite dishes, such as the wine (which included a California pinot gris and a Spanish merlot/cab blend), asparagus, cooked peppers, and cauliflower. Everyone was also asked to provide a word or two about what they felt about the dinner, which included such inspiring words as: “my tribe,” “jovial,” “impressed,” “warm,” “energizing,” “sparkling,” “relaxing and easy,” “scintillating,” and “happy to be reprieved.”

Daly City
By Craig Cruz, Jr.
On a cool but clear Thursday evening, our quartet of librarians met at Boulevard Café in Daly City. Over cocktails and the restaurant’s mix of upscale bistro food (with touches of Greek cuisine), we discussed the state of librarian employment today. Jaye Lapachet shared her experience in law librarianship and Linda Yamamoto talked about the situation in the academic world. Claressa Mazzetti talked about her exciting job in research, where deadlines and new topics allow no room for boredom. She asked for information on open-source ILS options and we offered suggestions and caveats. Jaye, in particular, had ideas from her days as an independent consultant. Craig detailed his job search efforts, and Jaye and Linda recommended the upcoming SLA conference to him and Claressa as a prime networking opportunity, especially as the event will be held in California this year. Eventually, conversation turned to leisure time reading, including how audiobooks enable one to enjoy books while remaining occupied with hobbies and commuting to work. By the time technology made its way into the discussion – this time in the form of phone apps and the challenge in identifying an unmet need, it was time to head home. The much smaller group this year allowed us to really spend time on topics with the whole group. We encourage everyone to attend a Neighborhood Dinner. See you next year at Boulevard Café in Daly City!

Bernal Heights, San Francisco

A intimate group of 4 dined at Liberty Cafe on April 24th: Matthew Woods, Jo Falcon, Phi Huynh and Phi’s guest. Below is a brief recap of the conversation by Matthew. – ed.

We didn’t talk about the same old “there are no jobs” and “my boss sucks” glarb. In fact we really didn’t talk shop much at all, we instead discussed: the history of Bernal Heights, focusing on its gentrification; local restaurants, particularly those in “Vega’s empire;” the manga Drops of God and manga history; the concept of perfection, particularly in one’s appearance; and several other things I don’t remember enough details of. I noticed that Jo has a wealth of stimulating knowledge and guided much of the conversation. We talked, we finished our meals, and then we departed. A pleasing evening that almost didn’t happen but thankfully did.

SLA Members at Mission neighborhood dinner
Photo by Hilary Schiraldi

Mission District, San Francisco
by Rita M Evans
Fourteen chapter members converged on Aslam’s Rosoi in San Francisco’s Mission District on April 11 for an evening of lively conversation and great food. Yes, it’s Neighborhood Dinner time, and our long table was filled by librarians from law firms, corporations, and universities, as well as students from SJSU. Host Hilary Schiraldi chose an excellent location for our annual smaller get-together where the focus is on the members rather than an invited speaker.

Conversations ranged far and wide and touched on some of the Bay Area’s favorite topics – house buying, travel in our beautiful state, and how easy it is to fill your days after retirement. We didn’t completely neglect the professional side as career change tips were exchanged, we commiserated about tight resources and difficult co-workers, and were even able to cheer on some successes.

This flexible format is a great way to meet new people, reconnect with old colleagues, and try a new place for dinner. All in all, a most successful evening!

I’m happy to introduce the SF Bay Region Chapter’s first annual Conference Buddy Program!

Are you going to the conference in San Diego as a first-timer or relative novice? If you’re feeling a bit new at all this, or would like to be introduced to other SLA members, sign up today! We’ll pair you with a buddy to help you navigate the programs, INFO-Expo Hall, and receptions. Once you have a familiar face or two at the conference, you’ll be amazed at how often you’ll see them in the halls!

Are you a more experienced conference-goer with several years under your belt and a heavy weight of conference pins for your lanyard? Sign up to mentor a chapter member with less experience, and gain a chance to see this year’s conference through fresh eyes.

We’ll be pairing up first-timers with veteran conference-goers for as much advice, mentoring, and familiar-face-at-networking-events as is desired. Mentor buddies will be asked to contact their mentees before the conference in order to help answer any pre-conference questions that come up. Buddies can attend an open house or reception together, grab something to drink during a break, hit a dine-around, or whatever works for the pair. The experienced buddy can introduce the newbie to other SLA members and provide tips on how to best tackle the conference.

Please sign up for the Conference Buddy Program by Monday, April 22nd. We’ll match up buddies and email you so that you can make plans for the conference, and maybe meet first at the chapter program on May 22nd!

Of course, the first tip is to catch that worm! If you haven’t already registered for the conference, stop delaying! The Early Bird rate is only available through April 12th; on April 13th, the full member rate rises from $529 to $699. Student registrations are just $190!

Taxonomies: What are they and how are they useful

with Marjorie M.K. Hlava, President and Chairmanof Access Innovations, Inc.

An SLA-SF Professional Development Webinar

By Lisa Ngo

Margie Hlava makes the world better one search term at a time. If you’ve ever conducted a search online or tagged a photo in social media, you’ve likely taken advantage of our friend the Taxonomy. Taxonomies make information findable and direct users to consistently relevant search results, and Margie Hlava is one of SLA’s resident experts in taxonomies.

Margie, President and Chief Scientist at Access Innovation, was also founding Chair of the SLA Taxonomy Division. She took time from her busy schedule on March 12th to present an SLA-SF Professional Development Webinar on taxonomies, educating us on how to build and implement them, as well as the international standards applicable to developing taxonomies.

Though many of us may remember learning about them in library school, unless you work with them on a daily basis, you probably never think twice about taxonomies when you execute a search. But did you know that they’re now used for image databases, in data mashups, data visualizations, web crawlers, spam filters, and social networking sites? Margie explains that, at their core, taxonomies help us leverage our data and make it discoverable and findable, and are defined as “a collection of controlled vocabulary terms organized into a hierarchical structure” (ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005).

So how do you build and implement a taxonomy?

First, you should know that there are standards that govern taxonomies; the ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005 standard is one reference, but there are also standards from ISO and W3C.

Margie explains that it’s not scary at all to build a taxonomy; in fact, you may not even need to build it from scratch. There are term registries and taxonomy warehouses where you can find a base for the taxonomy you need and build out from there. You can also mix and match existing taxonomies; in the process, you need to organize and fill in gaps, and then flesh out and interrelate terms.

Margie has great advice about how to determine terms – for instance, be unambiguous with your vocabulary and only use one term for each concept. Relationships between terms are also important and need to be considered when building your term hierarchy. When you think you’re done, you’re not done! You must edit, test, edit, and test some more; taxonomies should evolve with usage and need to be maintained for them to remain relevant.

Lastly, taxonomies can be implemented in a myriad of ways, with search and websites being the most popular.

I am sure I have done Margie a disservice with my incredibly brief recap of her talk, but fear not. Margie is presenting an in-depth “Introduction to Taxonomies” workshop in June at SLA in San Diego – get your tickets now.

Thanks go to Information Express for their generous sponsorship of this event.

In late November of last year, the San Francisco Bay Region and Silicon Valley Chapters of SLA hosted a joint chapter tour of the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.  This was a special behind-the-scenes tour, showcasing the museum’s archives, collection storage, and other areas seldom seen by the public.

Our tour guide, Patience Young, presented us with a thorough history of the museum along with an overview of its operations day to day.  We got to see where future exhibits are designed and put together, where Japanese swords and Mediterranean pottery are stored and kept safe from earthquakes and the elements, and where the entire collection is being digitally photographed, one piece at a time.   As a participant on the tour, I was struck by the commonalities between museums and archives.   The techniques used to store and preserve items, and the use of digital tools to document them brought me back my days as an intern at the Society of California Pioneers’ archive and research library.

The Cantor Center has been an integral part of Stanford University since its founding.  Its original purpose was to make the Stanford family’s art collection available to students and the general public.  The Stanford family, including Leland Jr., collected art as they traveled around the world, and this formed the basis for what was to become the Cantor Center.  The museum now boasts a collection spanning more than 5,000 years of art history and including the largest collection of Auguste Rodin sculptures outside of the Musée Rodin in Paris.

After the tour, many of us gathered in the museum’s Kool Café for dinner and networking.  It was wonderful to see that the tour was attended by members based throughout the Bay Area, from Danville to the San Jose area.  Some of us also took some time to wander about the museum, taking in some of the exhibits after getting a sense of the work involved in creating them.  This was a very memorable tour, and I think everyone who attended was thankful to the Cantor Center for giving us such an in-depth look behind the scenes.

By Kim Ewart

Way back what seems like ages ago, but is, in reality, only 3 weeks past, I was in Dallas for SLA’s 2013 Leadership Summit. Many thanks to the Texas Chapter for all of their hard work and their big Texas welcome! For those unfamiliar with the event, this annual meeting brings together the SLA Board, HQ staff, and chapter and division Presidents/Chairs and Presidents/Chairs-Elect to discuss the state of the Association, the challenges we face, and the plans for the road ahead.

This was my first Summit – my trip last year as President-Elect was cancelled at the very last minute due to some personal drama – so I was very excited to be able to attend this year. In spite of the fact that I spent two full days in a hotel conference room, it was a wonderful experience and I encourage anyone interested in getting involved in leadership positions with SLA, or who is just interested in the inner workings of the association, to attend. You do not have to be a current unit Board member to go. While there are obviously plenty of opportunities to meet people at the Annual Conference, the Leadership Summit provides a more intimate setting, bringing together folks with SLA-famous Twitter handles for the common goal of making our Association more vital and relevant to members and potential members everywhere.

Some of the highlights of this year’s Summit include:

In his Treasurer’s Report, new SLA Treasurer John DiGilio emphasized the “we are all one SLA” theme, and introduced specific plans for enhanced openness. He has started a new discussion list for unit Treasurers to more easily share information and ideas, and has committed to sending financial reports to unit leaders throughout the year. I will be sharing this information with the chapter as it arrives. John also reported that SLA broke even in 2012, and is projected to do so again in 2013. However, he noted an ongoing trend – over the last four years, SLA has managed to decrease expenses to keep in line with decreasing revenue, resulting in a balanced budget. This has led to some projects being deferred and, as we all know, a reduction in SLA HQ staff. They are running a very small, tight crew in Alexandria right now. There isn’t much fat left to cut, so the key issue going forward has to be bringing that downward revenue line on the graph back up. John also noted that 63% of SLA’s revenue comes from the annual conference, while conference expenses represent 43% of our outflow. So, everyone, register for the conference in San Diego!

SLA’s new Strategic Agenda was emphasized throughout the Summit. All leaders are being encouraged to consider how the decisions and actions we take in our chapters and divisions can support one of the five tiers of this program. For those unfamiliar with the agenda items, they include:

1. Strengthening and Improving the Annual Conference
2. Providing Professional Development Opportunities for Our Members Throughout the Year
3. Creating Richer Volunteer Experiences to Help Members Develop In-Demand Skills
4. Opening New Markets through Collaboration
5. Growth through Diversification of Information Professionals

Your chapter Board and Advisory Council will be exploring ways to promote and incorporate these ideas into our chapter activities going forward.

Chris Zammarelli, Chair of the First Five Years Advisory Council, announced a plan to hold a focus group at the 2013 conference to explore what our colleagues who are newer to the profession would find helpful and meaningful through their association membership. Please contact me if you are a newish information professional attending the conference and you would like to participate, or if you know someone who should.

By far, the announcement that received the most excitement, demonstrated by frequent “oohs”, “aahs”, and applause, was the introduction of the new SLA web site. Built on WordPress, the new site not only reflects the unified design aesthetics adopted by the units under Operation Vitality, it also makes things <gasp> easier to find. The site is attractive, intuitive, and functional. Prompted largely by a suggestion made by our own Tony Landolt, the new web site will also feature an association-wide event calendar, allowing members to view the programs hosted by various units throughout the year. You can use the calendar to find webinars in which you’d like to participate, or possibly to find interesting programs to attend and SLA members to meet if you happen to be travelling to another chapter region. The new web site is currently set to launch in early April. I stopped holding my breath a long time ago, but now that I’ve seen what’s coming, I’m virtually breathless with antici. . . (say it, say it) . . .pation.

The Leadership Summit also serves as the official kick-off for planning the 2014 Annual Conference. The conference will be held in Vancouver (June 8-10, 2014), and the theme is Beyond Borders. More changes are in store as SLA explores various ways to make the conference even more relevant to members, including a variety of session time slots lasting 60, 90, and 120 minutes, and 15-minute “Quick Take” slots for hot topics. Three themes were also announced for further consideration by all divisions in spotlight sessions, Sunday: Embedded Information Services, Monday: Digital Content and Big Data, Tuesday: Leadership in the Human Age.

I represented the San Francisco Bay Region Chapter with a presentation on our chapter’s first foray last fall into charging for webinars. The extremely detailed procedures document written by Chris Orr, our Professional Development Chair, proved invaluable in developing the presentation, and the session was well-received. The detailed instructions, lessons learned, and issues to consider going forward seemed to be very useful for the units who have not embarked on this endeavor before. My presentation was also well-matched with that of Rachel Bates Wilfahrt, president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter. Since their chapter sponsored several webinars last year, it was nice to have the perspective of a unit with lots of experience to show what’s possible, as well as that of our chapter which still has our lessons learned so fresh in our heads. The slides from my presentation, as well as all of the other presentations from the 2013 Leadership Summit, are available here: http://www.sla.org/content/resources/leadcenter/LeadershipSummit/13leadsummit/slides.cfm. Note, member login is required for access.

Finally, last, but most certainly not least, the 2013 Fellows and Rising Stars were announced:

2013 Fellows: David Cappoli, Dennie Heye, Martha Foote, Mary Talley, Rebecca Vargha
2013 Rising Stars: Alyson Avery, Kendra Levine, Amy Sarola, Rachel Bates Wilfahrt, Aileen Marshall

A special shout out for San Francisco Bay Region Chapter member Kendra Levine, current Chair of the Transportation Division, for her recognition.

The Summit concluded with a look forward to San Diego, including the introduction of SLA’s “Get on the Beach” Recruitment Campaign, and the enjoyment of the always visionary musical stylings of Richard Geiger and Tim DeWolf. As you gear up to attend the conference, kick your excitement up to 11 with this rousing rendition of a Woody Guthrie classic! You can listen while you register!

By Anne N. Barker
Chapter President

If this review is late, it’s Tasha Bergson-Michelson’s fault. She’s got me compulsively clicking on every pixel of my Google search page, looking for hidden treasures.

We all search – a LOT, in this job – but do we think about HOW we search? That’s Tasha’s job. She’s a self-described “passionate search geek” who opened her presentation to the SLA-BayNet joint meeting with “My world is about learning what you search for, and how.” Since Google has, to quote legendary reference professor Terry Crowley, “drenched us all with a fire-hose of information,” its Search Education program is working to make making sense of all that information. Dan Russell, whom we visited at Google in 2011, and Tasha are at the forefront of this effort, introducing us to all the features of Google search that relatively few searchers know about or use. The site at http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation/ offers a variety of tools for getting the most out of these features, along with sample searches, self-paced lesson plans, and tests — even a Continuing Education certificate for the truly dedicated.

The way we in the profession talk about search both helps and hinders us: the jargon doesn’t translate. Things we get stoked about – Boolean logic, controlled vocabulary, stop words — are meaningless to most end-users. That’s why Tasha and Dan teach classes: it gives them shoulders to peek over, to see how people with basic skills do basic searches.

We tend to make our initial searches very specific, forgetting that every word counts and too much precision rules out partial answers that could lead us to better ones. Sometimes an informal search works best, as Tasha showed with the Stanford basketball song that goes “oooh-oooh-ooh.” Who’d think you could get a viable answer by entering “sports song oooh-oooh-ooh.” Try it! The song elected “Best Answer” at Ask.com, “Kernkraft 400 “ by Zonbuie Nation, has been taken down by the copyright owner, which may prove something, but it’s amazing how large the result set is.

Yes, this did remind me of the reference desk classic where the kid says “Mom wants to know what this song is” and hands the librarian a slip of paper on which Mom has written “dum-e-dum, dum DAH-de-dee-dum,” – but it worked. And Tasha addressed the other ref-desk classic, “I don’t remember the title or author, but the cover was pink.” Under the “search tools” button (“all the good stuff is hiding under this button,” she says) in Image Search is an “any color” button. This pulls down to give a click-able choice of colors, so when you enter the word “book” and whatever the patron does remember of the subject – Anglo-Saxon art, in her example – and filter by color, this will limit the results to a less overwhelming number. She also showed us how to use background color for implied context: where searching for SF Giants images brings up the predictable orange and black, filtering for green gives you action shots on the green field.

Learning how to read search results productively is a skill in itself. A first question, especially a more formal one, can bring in results that look far off the point – but much can be learned from them: better key words to use, the type of sites that seem to have the best answers, criteria to filter by. One of the most interesting experiments Tasha mentioned on watching people search is one she’s doing with Diane Sands of the California Academy of Sciences, whose cartoons and drawings (and brownie recipe) have been featured on this newsletter (she also has a book out, Hot From the Toaster.) The team is encouraging searchers to draw their queries, bypassing words altogether. The results have been “eye-opening, sometimes stunning.” I’d love to hear more about this – perhaps another meeting topic?

The main take-home lesson was “Know your options,” In Tasha’s case, that meant exhaustively experimenting with everything on the Google search page, especially the wonders hidden under that magical search button. For us, it can be one-click easy:

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation will get you to the Power Search class, live training opportunities, and the addictive “Google-a-day” trivia search challenge.

Enjoy!
Jo Falcon

Thanks go to Information Express for their generous sponsorship of this event.

Photo by Tricia Soto

I am very pleased to announce the launch of the SF Bay Region chapter’s newly revitalized social media presence. Many of you may already be aware of the chapter’s group on LinkedIn. This group will continue on as it has, albeit with a few additional administrators. If you aren’t already a member of this group, I urge you to join.

In addition, thanks to the efforts of Lauren Reid, our new Networking Chair, our chapter has new, active accounts on Twitter and FaceBook. Lauren has been working energetically on both accounts for a few weeks now, so check them out to see the type of information that is being made available to you. In addition to SLA announcements and links to Bayline posts, you’ll find information about networking and professional development opportunities, calls for papers, and news of general interest to information professionals.

Follow the Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/SLASFBay.

On FaceBook, we opted for a group, rather than a page, because it is focused more on the people making up the community. All group members should feel free to post stories of interest or comment on anything you see on that page. I hope you’ll join our group at https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/50637818626/. We also plan to use this account to promote chapter events, so be sure to connect with your colleagues by marking yourself as “attending” an event if you plan to register.

In addition to using these venues to connect with each other, we hope these resources will also help us communicate our presence and value to non-members. Heather Gamberg, our PR Chair, is currently strategizing the best ways to use these resources, and other forms of media, to push our message out past the choir box and into the larger world.

Finally, on the topic of chapter communications, are you signed up for the chapter discussion list? If you’re reading this via e-mail, you may be thinking that I have lost my mind. “Of course, I’m signed up for the discussion list. I’m reading this, aren’t I?” Look up at the “From” line. If you only receive chapter messages that appear to come from Linda Yamamoto, you are not signed up for the discussion list.

Linda very ably administers the discussion list, but she also moderates the chapter reflector. The reflector is an e-mail list used for official chapter and SLA headquarters announcements. You will see event listings and important messages from yours truly on this list, but the only person with permission to post to this account is Linda. All chapter members are automatically signed up for the chapter reflector by SLA headquarters.

The discussion list is a completely separate resource to which any subscriber can post. You’ll see the same types of official announcements as on the reflector, but also a variety of other e-mails sent by members, from requests for recommendations for particular software or services, to a vast array of webinar opportunities forwarded from other SLA units, many of them free to members.

If you are starting to wonder if you are on the discussion list, but can’t remember who has always been in that “From” line, there’s another easy way to tell. Have you been getting the Intersect Alert? This newsletter is sent to the discussion list every Sunday or Monday by the faithful members of your Government Relations committee, Michael Sholinbeck, Tony Sheaffer, and me. It provides annotated links to news stories related to the intersection between libraries/librarians and government information policies. If you have not seen this newsletter recently, you are not on the discussion list.

Please sign up for the chapter discussion list by sending an e-mail to lyris@sla.lyris.net in the following format (leave the subject line blank):
Subscribe SLA-CSFO your-e-mail_address “FirstName LastName” (e.g. Subscribe SLA-CSFO jdoe@xyz.com “John Doe”)

If you are not on the chapter discussion list, you are missing a great opportunity to connect with our chapter and its members. Don’t worry; the number of e-mails is not overwhelming.

Please note, even if you signed up in the past, the Lyris platform has an unfortunate tendency to drop people from time to time. This usually happens if your employer’s e-mail server flags a few messages as spam and, unknown to the subscriber, sends an “unsubscribe” request back. For those of you who signed up with your UC Berkeley e-mail address, it’s probably time to sign up again. I am working with HQ to try and find a way to resolve this ongoing issue, so hopefully we’ll have a better way to deal with it in the future.

Your chapter leaders are working hard to offer you ways to engage through a number of communication channels. Pick the one(s) that work best for you. I hope to be hearing from you soon!

By Anne N. Barker
Chapter President

Registration for SLA’s Annual Conference in San Diego, June 8-11, opens today! This is the first time the conference has been in our time zone since Seattle in 2008. Think about being able to make it to those 8:00 am sessions without the feeling that no amount of caffeine will keep your eyes open!

The conference schedule has changed this year; all CE programs will be on Saturday and regular sessions start on Sunday. The conference ends on Tuesday. The online conference planner is already up and running, so you can start choosing your sessions now.

Make sure to put the Western States Chapter Reception on your calendar for Sunday the 9^th at 7:30. This year’s reception is being planned by our neighbors to the east in the Sierra Nevada Chapter. I spoke with BJ Combs, of the Sierra Nevada Chapter, while at the Leadership Summit last week, and the food and beverages promise to be plentiful!

Get to know San Diego and all it has to offer by visiting the conference wiki. Keep an eye on the site leading up to the conference as it will be continually updated.

It’s a short, inexpensive flight down the coast to beautiful San Diego! More details will be coming soon, but you’ll even have a chance to win lunch on the beach with Deb Hunt, who, it seems, could be easily convinced to take you on a boogie boarding adventure!

Happy 2013, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter of SLA!

Last week, the chapter’s Executive Board and Advisory Council had our 2013 turnover meeting; this is the time that outgoing Chairs officially hand their duties over to the new incoming Chairs. This also marks the start of my term as chapter President and I am both thrilled and humbled by this opportunity.

Once again, I would like to thank the many chapter members who have volunteered their time to serve as Board and Council members. None of the many fantastic chapter events and resources available to you would exist without their efforts. I would like to ask all of our members to think about some of the chapter benefits that have been made possible by their efforts. Maybe you love to attend the informative speaker programs, tours, and professional development events organized throughout the year. Perhaps you are drawn more to the social nature of the neighborhood dinners and holiday party. Or maybe you look forward to reading Bayline articles posted on the chapter website, or are kept informed of government activities that impact our access to information by the Intersect Alert. When you see a chapter Council member, take a moment to thank them for their efforts.

Now think about how lucky we are to be members of a chapter that has all of this to offer in a relatively compact geographic area. It is true that many of our programs are held in San Francisco, although there are events annually in the East Bay, and neighborhood dinners several times a year in Marin. But consider the SLA chapters which encompass entire states; for example, the Nebraska chapter with its 21 members. Or entire regions, like our neighbors to the north in the Pacific Northwest chapter, which covers members in Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Alaska. Or entire continents, like the Europe chapter, home to SLA’s current President-Elect. It may seem difficult to make it to a chapter function 20 or 30 miles from home, but consider how much easier that is relative to negotiating state and country borders?

Like so many of the San Francisco Bay Region chapter presidents before me, I’ve selected a theme for my term; that theme is Investment. Whether you are brand new to the chapter or a long-time member, this is the year I want to challenge you to get invested.  If you’ve never been to a chapter event, come out to a program, and introduce yourself to me. Is there a topic about which you are knowledgeable, perhaps digitization technologies, social networking strategies, or business research resources and techniques? Share it in an article for Bayline. Is there a skill set that you would like to develop? Look at the various Advisory Council committees and select the one that you think would have a volunteer opportunity that would facilitate that growth. Throughout the year, I will be sending notices to the discussion list asking for volunteers to help with discrete, focused projects. Take me up on it.

Maybe you’re hesitant to come to events because you don’t know anyone there, or you just haven’t seen how SLA can impact your career. Well, here’s the thing about volunteering: you get to know people. Last year, an SLA task force surveyed 527 association members about volunteering with SLA. When asked how their volunteer experience paid off:

• 35% said they got new job because of the volunteer experience
• 30% said they built professional connections
• 30% said the volunteer experience helped with their career development and professional growth

Think about all that your San Francisco Bay Region chapter can offer you, and then think about how you can maximize those benefits. During my years volunteering with the chapter, I have known several people on the chapter’s Executive Board and Advisory Council to get both internships and full-time jobs as a direct result of their networking with others in the chapter. However, it’s difficult for chapter members to be of assistance if we don’t know you, that you’re looking for a job, or what you’re interested in. The best way for SLA to benefit you is by giving you the networking opportunities and professional development tools you can use to broaden your prospects.

Your SLA leaders work throughout the year to provide our members with programming and information to help you grow as a professional. We are invested in you. This is the time for you to invest in your career and your profession. It’s time for you to invest in SLA. Just ask me how.

By Anne N. Barker
Chapter President

By Judy Bolstad, Editor

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Ari Kleiman shares that this year, his temporary job as Patient Health Librarian at UCSF received permanent funding from the Medical Center. He is enjoying what he calls his feel-good job, doing research for patients and teaching them about using authoritative resources. The UCSF Patient Health Library is open to the public and research services are available in-person, by email and by phone. If folks want to know more, they can visit the web site at UCSFPatientHealthLibrary.org.

After a long absence from the music world, Ari also joined a chorus in San Francisco, called Resound Ensemble. It’s a mixed chorus (men and women) that sings an eclectic mix of modern choral music peppered with some interesting surprises. He is having fun, being challenged and pleased to be immersed in beautiful music in the company of a group of very nice people! (http://www.resoundensemble.org).

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After a year of research and team collaboration, Chris Orr (Information Services Manager) and Paul Atwood (IT and Records Manager) successfully launched a web-based document and email management system (DMS) for the General Counsel of the University of California, at the UC Office of the President in Oakland, where they are based. The system is a cloud solution from NetDocuments (http://netdocuments.com). They brought all their information skills to bear in vetting the service for security, promoting user adoption, designing metadata structure, scheduling training and facilitating installation. They are happy to report that attorneys and staff have embraced the DMS, using it every day for their voluminous work product on behalf of the University. Their next challenge is to share the NetDocs love with UC counsel on the ten campuses of the system, not one of them alike in systems and tech experience!

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Jaye Lapachet exhibited a quilt at the Pacific International Quilt Festival in the New Quilts of Northern California exhibit, which was held October 10-14 in Santa Clara, California. The New Quilts of Northern California exhibit is juried and this is the second year one of Jaye’s quilts has been selected for exhibition. You can see the quilt at: http://artquiltmaker.com/blog/2012/09/finished-renewed-jelly-roll-race/

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Dana Kittrelle announces that InfoArmy just raised $17.3 million dollars in Series B venture funding from Norwest Venture Partners and Trinity Ventures! They plan to use the money to continue building their ‘Army’ of researchers.

Press Release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/10/prweb10042325.htm
TechCrunch Article:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/23/data-2-0-goes-large-infoarmy-raises-17-3m-to-build-out-its-crowdsourced-competitive-intelligence-platform/

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Nancy Crossfield of Owen Medical Library, Saint Agnes Medical Center, in Fresno, moved outside the box to serve as a Revenue Buddy during her hospital’s 2-week electronic medical record go-live in October. She was in a team that worked with clinical departments to ensure proper charging and revenue posting in the new system. It was challenging!

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Deb Hunt and David Grossman presented a half day workshop titled “Tech Skills Boot Camp,” where upwardly mobile information professionals came from as far away as Barbados to attend at the Internet Librarian conference in Monterey. They continue to receive an enthusiastic response to their popular series of “Expanding Your Career Potential” workshops and webinars attended by librarians and information professionals from around the world. They use the workshop venue to challenge and motivate their colleagues to expand, strengthen and more effectively utilize their individual portfolios of business, information management, interpersonal and technical skills and to continually “think outside the box” and seize every opportunity for career advancement.

Deb says, “It’s exciting to see that light bulb suddenly switch on as our colleagues recognize the enormous value and transferability of their existing skills within a wide variety of traditional and non-traditional settings.” Deb and David also coach workshop participants to develop their own customized plans to acquire any additional skills required to take their careers to that next step and beyond. Many “Expanding Your Career Potential” workshop alumnae stay connected to their colleagues and the ongoing conversations by joining Deb’s free Career Sustainability group http://linkd.in/pqkjzp on LinkedIn, now approaching 300 members.

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Dear readers:

The next submission deadline is January 25.

Please continue to send me your news. I look forward to hearing from you!

Judy Bolstad, Editor, Mosaic column, jbolstad@library.berkeley.edu