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
