It’s hard to know where to start when attempting to describe my experience as an SLA Early Career Conference Award winner. I applied for the award without entertaining the idea that I would actually be fortunate enough to become one of the recipients of the 2012 award and consequently the initial email confirming that I had won came as quite a shock. It confirmed that SLA Europe and the Pharmaceutical and Health Technology Division (P&HT) were co-sponsoring me to attend the 2012 SLA Annual Conference in Chicago. Immediately after the news was announced I was struck by the amount of tweets and emails that I received congratulating me. The feeling of inclusiveness that this engendered was one that pervaded the entire process and I’m happy to say that it continues to this day.
The build-up to the conference was impressively co-ordinated with a British and American mentor assigned to me in order to enable me to make the most of this opportunity. My British mentor Wendy Foster actually came to visit my workplace for a face to face chat about the conference over coffee and my American mentor Sue Gleckner was in touch with me via email, in the run up to travelling out to the States. Both my mentors provided really useful tips and guidance and getting to know them was a fantastic by product of winning the award. I was also extremely grateful to past winners of the award such as Ned Potter who kindly gave their insight, advice and guidance on what to expect and how to prepare for the conference.
Despite having been warned about the sheer scale of this type of conference I was still taken aback with the size of the venue and the distances that people had travelled from all across the world to attend. At first it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the extent of the conference and the many activities and sessions on offer. However being part of a group of ECCA’s and having colleagues from SLA Europe on hand really helped in navigating through the conference and making the most of the many opportunities on offer. The conference planner was an incredibly useful tool. It allowed me to pre-pick sessions of interest and see what the other ECCA’s were going to be attending for the duration of the conference.
The overriding theme that started to emerge from all of the discussions that I had about the conference was that of networking. Networking really was an absolutely central pillar of the conference experience. The type of networking that I engaged in during the conference was unlike anything that I had previously experienced. Everything seemed to be geared around encouraging people to engage with each other, whether it was division breakfasts, mixers in the evening or the many events that were organised during the conference. I have not attended any event where I have made quite as many meaningful and useful contacts. The First-Timer ribbon on my name badge proved to be a great conversation starter with many people keen to find out where I was from and my experience of the conference. Business cards were exchanged at a furious rate and nearly everyone with whom I exchanged business cards has been in touch since the end of the conference.
Earlier I mentioned the feeling of inclusiveness that I felt when dealing with the SLA in the run up to the conference. I am happy to say that this did not end with the conference as I was asked by my mentor Wendy Foster if I would consider getting involved with the work of the SLA Europe Events Committee. I was more than pleased to accept and the committee have already found plenty of projects and events for me to become involved with.
I will take away many great memories of the conference – meeting the American cop who founded a library in his police station and went on to become a fully-fledged gun carrying librarian, sharing one of the largest pizzas I have ever eaten with fellow ECCA winners and dressing up as a gangster for the IT Ball are just a snippet of a fantastic professional and personal experience.
I would like to finish by offering my sincere thanks to everyone at SLA who have been so generous with their time and urge anyone who may be thinking of applying for an Early Career Conference Award to take the plunge, as it may just prove to be one of the defining moments of your early career.