Thoughts on Being an ALA Emerging Leader

It was an interesting ride, being an ALA Emerging Leader in the Class of 2009. The upshot: I got to work with a great group of people, create some cool videos, and met a lot of really interesting librarians. The downside (downshot?): I'm not really any more interested in getting active in ALA committees than I was beforehand (and that, I think, is really the point of the whole thing). That said, I recommend the program to other emerging librarians for a number of reasons.

1. You'll meet a bunch of young(er), active, new(ish) librarians with lots of energy and great ideas.
2. You'll get to collaborate on a project at a distance with a group of people you don't know very well. Okay, this sounds like a con, but really, I think this type of work, and being able to do it effectively, is becoming more and more important as we get more and more online and virtual.
3. You'll have an excellent excuse (and possibly a sponsorship) to attend both ALA conferences for a year. Attending an ALA conference won't make or break you as a librarian, and you may or may not get a whole lot out of the sessions provided, but either way it's an excellent opportunity and shouldn't be passed up (especially if you've never been to a big library conference before).

One of my fellow ELs has written much more prolifically on the topic than I have (or plan to), including her "10 Reasons to Apply for Emerging Leaders 2010."(See also 2, 3). The deadline for applying, including ALL supporting documents, is July 31st. So hopefully you're already underway, or you can type really fast and have some letters of recommendation already sitting around ... Apply to become an Emerging Leader for 2010 here. What follows are some of my thoughts on the EL process, why it's valuable, and where it's not. These are broken down into two parts: my thoughts after attending ALA Midwinter, and; my thoughts after attending ALA Annual (and finishing the EL program). If you want more info on other EL projects, documentation, and some behind-the-scenes stuff, you should check out the ALA Emerging Leader wiki, where each project is outlined and deliverables are linked.

After ALA Midwinter: A Summary and Some Thoughts

Assignments, Goals, and Outcomes

The Emerging Leaders program seeks to “enable newer librarians from across the country to participate in problem-solving work groups; network with peers; gain an inside look into ALA structure, and have an opportunity to serve the profession in a leadership capacity. It puts them on the fast track to ALA and professional leadership.” Emerging Leaders are allowed to vote on which project “team” they’d like to be on, based on their interests; there are 25 projects ongoing among the 2009 ELs, each group with 3-6 members playing a role. A lot of the organization of the EL program (and progress updates) occur through the EL wiki, located here: http://wikis.ala.org/emergingleaders/index.php/Main_Page. There were only two or three projects that were of interest to me, and I only voted to participate in one: Project I. As a result, I am working with four other ELs, under Jenny Levine and Michael Stephens, to help evaluate and promote “ALA Connect”. The projects are left fairly vague in some cases (as in ours), and are very specific in other cases. The Emerging Leaders meet for the first time on the Friday of the ALA Midwinter conference. A full-day event, we hear what it means to be an ALA Emerging Leader, and then meet with our project team, ALA liaison, and mentor to begin discussing our project and what we will do. A lot of larger discussion goes into how to work on a team effectively, which is a large part of what the EL program is about. Mainly this meeting is a chance to get on the same page with your project team before you go your separate ways and are forced to communicate (and work together) through less effective communication mediums. My team and I discussed some directions we wanted to go with our group and ways we could continue to communicate effectively during the months between conferences (when a majority of the group work is accomplished). We decided to create a series of screencast videos demonstrating and promoting the various uses of “ALA Connect”, created a timeline for doing so after parsing out roles, and communicated consistently through email and web-conferencing software. The EL program comes to a close at the ALA Annual Conference, where each team will have a poster session to show off what they’ve accomplished. We plan on having a nice poster and a laptop to show off our “ALA Connect” videos. ELs are expected to follow the EL program by becoming active with an ALA council, committee, round table, or other group.

Thoughts and Benefits

The EL program is really about learning to work with a group from a distance. In other words, it’s about creating people who would be able to do effective work on ALA committees. There are some real benefits to the program in the mentoring and structure that is provided, and it is, actually, an opportunity I’d encourage any newer librarian to vie for. Another benefit, and perhaps a more direct one, is that new librarians are provided an excellent venue to network with other new librarians. I have had the good fortune to end up in a group with four other excellent young librarians and I’m sure that they will remain good contacts as my library career progresses and transforms. Another benefit, not to be discounted, is the opportunity for newer librarians to attend both ALA conferences. This is not only a good way to help new librarians learn and grow, but allows them to meet other librarians from different types of libraries, and gives them a more solid basis of what the “librarian” profession is all about, on a national level, which they can use to ground their ongoing library career. EL is a good doorway into an active role in the library profession on a national level. It might not be that helpful for librarians who just want to work at their small, local library and not contribute to the profession in general; but for each of those librarians there are many who would benefit. As the profession changes and we become more and more networked (as people, as a society, and as librarians), EL provides a good focus upon which to build that network and contribute meaningfully to the profession of librarianship.

After ALA Annual: A Summary and Final Thoughts on Being an EL

@ ALA

We had a full-day preconference on Friday, which focused on the qualities of leadership, and spent a lot of time allowing us to reflect on our own qualities, failings, and areas to grow as leaders. We also reflected on the EL program, and were asked to provide feedback. After (too much) reflection, and various speakers, we got set up for our poster sessions. Each team created a poster for the poster session. Our poster was great, and we had two netbooks set up to show off our primary deliverables for the project, namely screencasts highlighting the uses and functions of ALA Connect. We had a captive audience, since the poster session was mandatory for all ELs; a few outsiders came by (likely in response to various tweets right beforehand saying “Come see our posters!”), but mainly it was ELs looking at EL posters and talking to other ELs. This isn’t a bad thing, since it was a good group and, for the most part, we didn’t communicate much with other ELs outside our groups. Saturday there was a very poorly attended EL town hall, which called for more reflection, and which was not the most exciting thing I attended that day (to be nice). Some ELs stood up to present their idea of sponsoring a 2010 EL using previous class donations. I think in the end they raised a little over $300 to help sponsor a future EL.

Final thoughts

The Emerging Leader program is a great opportunity to see more of the ALA underbelly, i.e. to learn how ALA works, and how people work within ALA. It was also a great opportunity to work with a group of geographically dispersed individuals on a shared goal. THIS experience, at least, was interesting and will have some real use in my future career as a librarian. The ability to perform collaborative, virtual work is becoming more and more necessary as travel budgets shrink and technology becomes more accommodating; the EL program emphasizes this and I’m grateful. Aside from the chance to perform this collaborative, virtual work, the biggest benefit of the EL program was a chance to network. I worked closely with the four other people in my group and made connections there that will last a long time. In addition, I became friends with a handful of other ELs outside my group that I look forward to keeping track of and, possibly in the future, collaborating with on projects or ideas. Of course, the main goal of the EL program is to get people excited and involved with ALA leadership. In this, the program failed. If I was interested in joining an ALA committee before, the EL program has not encouraged me. Getting a closer look at ALA structure lets one know just how byzantine it really is, and how much work goes into accomplishing the smallest tasks. I may get involved in ALA work in the future, all the same, but the EL program certainly didn’t make me EXCITED about doing so. My hope is to start more local, in any case, and get involved first in the WLA. From there, I can see how I can make a difference, and perhaps one day move up to the national association. In the meantime, my EL work will assist me in being a productive WLA member in terms of collaboration and networking. In fact, having a local EL program, in-state, could be a very effective tool in encouraging leadership and collaboration on a more local level. Something to think about? I offer my thanks to the Washington Library Association for sponsoring me as an Emerging Leader, and hope that they will continue to offer this opportunity to other emerging librarians in future years. Signing off as an Emerging Leader of 2009, Ahniwa Ferrari (emerged) BONUS: I mainly worked on video editing, but did create one (of the twelve) video screencasts we created to highlight and promote ALA Connect. Check it out below!