Attending the SLA 2011 Annual Conference in Philadelphia was an exciting, thought-provoking and exhausting experience. I applied for the Early Career Conference Award as a way to engage with the profession on a broader level than that of my daily work. I had been qualified for 18 months and wanted to develop my understanding of the issues facing the information profession and to get involved with external networks. Essentially, I needed to broaden my library horizons. Already following some past ECCA winners on Twitter offered inspiration as I was impressed with the work they were doing at an early stage in their LIS careers. It was exactly what I needed.
My award was sponsored by SLA Europe and the Business & Finance Division and I experienced its benefits before boarding the plane to Philadelphia. I started to attend SLA Europe events and met UK information professionals who offered insights on the conference and the SLA. Of course, I could have gone along without winning an ECCA, but the award helped pull me out of a partial state of professional paralysis. I was also assigned an SLA Europe mentor, Neil Infield, who was generous with his time and offered some conference tips. Neil’s most useful tip was: if you’re not enjoying a session, leave and go to another. I did. It felt great.
Some of the key things I learned at SLA 2011:
Big ideas and practical tips
The conference combined big ideas and practical sessions. In terms of big ideas, I particularly enjoyed Mike Linksvayer’s (Vice-President of Creative Commons) session, Opening the Special Library, in which he discussed the importance of open access as a social responsibility. He suggested businesses and corporations should support openness as a policy in order to increase equality, engage with more people and enable innovation. Thomas Friedman’s keynote speech and Stephen Abram’s Getting Out in Front of the Curve were also thought-provoking and occasionally controversial discussions. From an academic library perspective, the Business & Finance Division sessions, including The Corporate Library in Turbulent Times, were useful for considering how academic libraries can learn from corporate libraries in a difficult financial environment.
Practical sessions such as 60 sites in 60 minutes and Elevator Speeches: How to Develop Them were useful for picking up practical tips to take to work on Monday morning. I blogged about elevator speeches here.
Networking isn’t just chatting
In the past, I was under the impression that networking was a quick chat over a free glass of wine, possibly with someone I already knew in a professional capacity. How wrong I was. At SLA 2011, swapping business cards at the end of a conversation was common practice. I saw good networking in action and learned it’s about forming mutually beneficial relationships with other delegates that can be followed up in the future.
Mastering the fine art of professional networking was the steepest learning curve of my conference experience. In a networking capacity, I often found instigating conversations difficult. However, at SLA 2011 the First-Timer ribbon on my name tag was often a conversation-starter and throughout the four days I built up the confidence to initiate discussions and complete successful business card swaps. By the final day, I was approaching spotlight session speakers to explain how much I’d enjoyed their sessions. We swapped business cards at the end of our discussion, naturally.
Much more than 9-5
I also realised being an information professional isn’t just about going to work every day but engaging, contributing and advocating. This was a strong message at SLA 2011 and was emphasised by the Future Ready theme of the conference. This ethos was strengthened by the range of genuinely interested professionals I met throughout the event, working to advance developments in their field. I encountered dozens of engaged librarians, including my fellow ECCAs and SLA Europe members, who actively campaign and push boundaries outside of their day jobs. I left the conference full of energy and asking myself, ‘What can I do to contribute?’ One of the first things I did was to set up a blog – I needed to reflect upon and share all of the stuff!
Five tips for anyone considering applying for an ECCA in the future:
1. Apply! You have nothing to lose by applying. I certainly plan to apply for anything and everything of this sort in the future.
2. If you’re in gainful employment, get your line manager on your side. Express the benefits attending the conference would bring to your organisation and share with colleagues when you get back.
3. Sleep. I didn’t do enough of this and should probably have escaped for a few snoozes throughout the conference. Jet lag is a cruel mistress! Don’t feel guilty for taking time to see the sights of the city you’re in – take the opportunity to be a tourist for an afternoon.
4. Get some business cards made up. This was Hazel Hall’s top tip and proved to be indispensible. Exchanging business cards is common practice at SLA events and I came home with new contacts to connect with on LinkedIn.
5. Write about it! Share the knowledge. The process of writing blog posts about my top SLA 2011 sessions helped me to reflect upon what I learned.
Many thanks to SLA Europe and the Business & Finance Division for sponsoring my ECCA. Hope to see you at SLA 2012 in Chicago!