bulletin - Business & Finance Division - Special Libraries Association

Business & Finance Division Bulletin • number 124
top floor of the über–lounge–ish Hotel Hudson.
It was a beautiful night, and a great opportunity
to reconnect with some long lost colleagues from
times past.
Stewart Brand’s general session presentation on
Tuesday was a conference highlight for me. As
an avid reader of Wired Magazine, and a
member of the World Future Society, it was a
thrill to hear one of our most well known futurists.
Mr. Brand discussed the “long now” concept,
which is a framework for combating the short
attention span and lack of foresight that we see
in popular society today. In order to deeply
consider possible future trends, we need to expand
our concept of what “now” means—not this week,
or this month, but this 20,000–year period.
Be sure to take a look at www.longnow.org—
and place your bets for how libraries will look
in 100 years!
In a Tuesday afternoon session I felt a sensation
we all know: “Oh my god, I’ve got to get with
it!” It seems sometimes that no matter how
hard we try to stay on the leading edge of
technology, we are always reminded of how
much more there is to learn. The session I
attended, “What’s Sizzle and What’s Fizzle”,
zoomed through dozens of new types of
research–related websites and technologies.
New search engines with visual data mapping
capabilities are being developed (and used)
which will enable us to view patterns in large
quantities of data more easily. Our clients will
start to use this technology regularly—if we want
to remain relevant, we’ll have to keep up! As the
speaker said, we need to move from being
“textheads to nextheads.” At the conclusion of
this session, most of the bleary–eyed researchers
in attendance knew it was time to hit the books
once again!
Hearing Madeleine Albright was a great start
to my closing conference day. Her remarks
were a reminder to me of our global and
interconnected world. Nothing brought this
notion home to me more than hearing the
presentation later that morning from John
Beyman, the CIO of Lehman Brothers. A main
focus of his presentation was the growing need
to outsource “offshore” technology–related
workers, including information center staffers.
Although this practice is unpopular with
employees and hurts morale, it has become a
business imperative because everyone is doing
Fall 2003 • page 53
2002–2003
Grants and Stipends
it. The forces of globalization are having an
impact on our profession, and we’ll need to keep
our eyes on this issue in coming years.
Having been away from SLA for a few years, I
found the vendor booths amusing. I know
this isn’t really the case, but it seemed that
Thomson has bought everything! Everywhere
I turned was a blue Thomson sign. But seriously,
vendor consolidation by Thomson and other
players has had an impact. There seem to be
dozens of products rolling up different databases
into single “easy to use” packages for either
end users or information professionals.
Nipping at the heels of the big vendors are the
small players, offering similar information at
a cut–rate price. I think in “the trenches”
researchers definitely notice this—we often have
to comparison shop at several products before
we know which one offers any given report at
the lowest price.
Once again, I’d like to express my gratitude to
the Business and Finance Division for selecting
me as the professional grant recipient this year.
Our profession is in the midst of so many changes,
and facing so many new and unforeseen issues,
that it is a must to stay on top of what is
happening. Thanks to attending SLA, I’m
energized, informed, and ready to plunge into
another year of challenging work!
James Cohler is a research librarian with William
Blair & Company in Chicago, Illinois. Prior to
that, James also worked as a researcher at AT
Kearney and Harris Nesbitt, both also in Chicago.
James received his MLIS from Dominican
University in River Forrest, Illinois in 1997, and
his BA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in
Annapolis, Maryland in 1993.
$125.00 • SLA Members $45.00
To order, contact Publications
by phone at 202–234–4700
or e–mail Helen at Helen@sla.org