THE BULLETIN - Business & Finance Division - Special Libraries ...

B&F Bulletin
and going—a true testament to the high caliber of the
conference sessions. The rest of my days were filled
with thought-provoking lectures and walks through
the sense-tantalizing exhibit floor. At first I was a
little leery to approach the exhibitors, as I didn’t
want to feel like I was wasting their time. I’m not
currently in a position where I have any purchasing
power in my organization, so I didn’t know how eager
they would be to spend time with me. As with the
many conference attendees, each of the vendors I
spoke with was warm and welcoming. They took the
time to explain their product to me, even though, in
most cases, it was unlikely that a sale would result
from their efforts.
Each evening, as I had intended, I headed to a variety
of social gatherings. One night I attended another
dinner round-table; a second evening, I “party
hopped” between vendor and division events.
Regardless of what I was doing, I had a good time,
met interesting people, and learned a bit more
about the variety of careers and experiences
possessed by individuals working in the world of
special libraries.
So, back to my three questions: Would I enjoy myself?
Would I feel welcomed, being a graduate student and a
conference first-timer? Would I walk away from the
experience with a better idea of where I would like to
take my career? As I stated in the beginning, the answer
to each of these questions is Yes! I had a great time; I
met a variety of people who all seemed genuinely
interested in getting to know me and help out in
whatever way they could; and my career horizons have
been expanded exponentially. (In fact, I have a phone
interview this week that is a direct result of the contacts
I made at the conference.)
Thank you again, B&F, for funding this opportunity! It
has been the boost to take me to the next step on my
“climb to new heights.”
Leslie Wolf will receive her Masters in Library and
Information Science from San Jose State University in May
2008. She has a BA in Comparative Literature from the
University of California, Berkeley. Leslie has over 15 years of
experience as a service quality consultant, helping clients to
improve performance in service metrics; processes and
procedures; project management; and internal
communication.
My conference experience started on Friday, when I
met two lively librarians on the airport shuttle to
Denver. It ended on Wednesday, when I got on the
airport shuttle to find a colleague from San Francisco
on her way home. Wherever I looked around
Denver, there were librarians—at the coffee shop; at
the cocktail parties; at the hotel; at the Denver
Museum. At the conference center I saw them
listening, sharing, and blogging. Everywhere I
looked, people were embracing old friends and
making new ones.
Everyone I talked to was encouraging and happy to
answer the questions uppermost on my mind: how did
people find their career path, and—because I needed to
register the next week for classes—do I really need to
take cataloging? The answers: I learned about the
diversity of jobs possible with an MLIS, and I signed up
for cataloging this fall.
Another benefit was one you might not expect. The
San Jose State University MLIS program is a longdistance
learning program. Some of my classes are
conducted only online, and some meet on campus
once or twice a semester. I was surprised and
pleased to find three people I knew from the
program, and we had a great time over dinner
comparing sessions, giving advice on classes, and
offering career help.
Choosing the “right” conference session is hard; there
are always two others that look equally intriguing. Here
are three that stood out for me.
“Making a Business Case for the Information Center”:
Lesley Robinson presented a thorough business case
outline and facilitated some lively group interactions.
Her discussion of the sweeping changes she made at the
Financial Times was absorbing, and participants shared
innovative ideas to measure the value of their
information centers. It’s clear that you can never be
complacent—you must always demonstrate value and
actively market your services.
“Finding the Concept: Using Ontologies and
Semantics”: Because I just finished classes in
vocabulary design and Web 2.0, I was fascinated to
learn about the “next big thing”—the power of
ontology to create Web-like relationships and to help
people find concepts even when they don’t know
exactly what words to search.
“Collection Development in the Electronic Age”:
We got a great set of questions to ask of the users
and the vendors when purchasing digital resources. It=
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