OLA Annual Conference 2017

For early-career librarians who want to be leaders, finding the right path toward leadership development can be challenging. Instead of pricey leadership institutes, one affordable and sustainable method of developing new leaders is through mentoring. Mentoring can happen formally or informally; through established workplace or association programs, or simply by meeting someone who wants to take you under their wing. Mentoring not only supports the professional development of early-career librarians, but also enables experienced leaders to share their knowledge and insights with the next generation of library leaders, ensuring important knowledge transfer in our profession. This panel of successful mentors and mentees will look at the value of mentoring in leadership development, discuss their experiences in mentoring relationships, and will share practical tips for mentors and those seeking a mentor.

The Pacific Northwest Library Association is a regional organization bringing together librarians and library staff from all types of libraries and disciplines. PNLA is responsible for PNLA Leads, a biennial leadership institute which to date has trained 196 individuals to be effective leaders from any position in their home libraries and communities. PNLA’s contributions to the region are rounded out by a peer-reviewed online quarterly journal – PNLA Quarterly, and the annual Young Reader’s Choice Award which allows children and teens in the region to choose which books are the best in three divisions. The annual conference each August offers speakers and breakout sessions relating to every facet of library work, from special and academic libraries to programming in public libraries to library design. Join PNLA Vice-President Rick Stoddart and find out how PNLA can help you. 

In 2011 the first of the Baby Boomers turned 65, and by the year 2030 the number of seniors will be 20% of the U.S. population. These older adults have a wide range of computer abilities as well as health interests. People’s health information needs change over the years just as healthcare changes. This "train the trainer" class is designed to help librarians assist their older adult patrons find reliable health information as well as become empowered and engaged in their healthcare. Learn to evaluate health information resources and become aware of the usability issues that affect older adults. Become acquainted with the free resources of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to better serve the health information needs of older adults. Learn how to incorporate these NLM resources into your collections, your social media, and your library programming. Caregiver needs and resources will also be included.

Did you know that Oregon library staff and citizens can use some of the services offered by state government libraries and archives? Since we are in the state’s capitol, it is a great opportunity to learn more about some of the more specialized libraries and archives in our community. This session will highlight the services and resources available at the State of Oregon Law Library, the Oregon OSHA Resource Center, the Oregon Department of Transportation Library, the Oregon State Archives, and the Government Information and Library Services Division of the Oregon State Library. Learn how to make good referrals, get reference assistance, and use government library and archives staff to help provide great service to Oregonians.

Librarians working with the public need to be aware of issues surrounding genetics, and resources to assist patrons in locating and evaluating sometimes complex and confusing information. Precision medicine, pharmacogenomics, and direct-to-consumer genetic testing are a few of the topics emerging at the intersection between health and genetics, and consumers need access to information about these and other related topics in a manner that is understandable. This class will cover some basics, such as how to locate information on basic genetics terms, conditions with a genetic component, and genetic testing; as well as a brief introduction to precision medicine. We will also discuss the importance of genomic health literacy and ethical considerations, and present a variety of free reliable health information resources from the National Library of Medicine and other government agencies. These resources will be of value to a variety of libraries who serve the public, health professionals, as well as high school students.

Oregon Digital, a communal pool of 31 digital collections contributed by the University of Oregon and Oregon State University, migrated from a shared instance of CONTENTdm to Hydra in 2014-2015. The migration of content from one system to another gave librarians and staff an unprecedented opportunity to do massive data clean up and normalize metadata schema into a unified cross-institutional set of fields for all digital collections. Linked Open Data (LOD), a key component for building the Semantic Web, was also incorporated into the metadata scheme and all descriptive records, allowing our data to be harvested and reused by systems outside of Oregon Digital. Fields and vocabularies not contained within existing LOD datasets were published in a new open source triple store, Opaquenamespace.org. Looking forward, the Oregon Digital team continues to make significant contributions to the development of the Hydra Project and is working to include our content in the Digital Public Library of America. Attendees will learn about how two libraries worked together to transform legacy practices and build digital collections for the Semantic Web.

Oregon libraries work to meet the information needs of our communities, a mission that is dependent on teamwork. Library managers are tasked with leading, supporting and developing the teams that serve our communities. Social justice and critical theory are frameworks that are often discussed within library practice, but are only starting to be applied to library management practice. The more we discuss social justice, the more apparent it is that inclusion and equity are essential aspects of library management. This program will open with a brief presentation discussing the overlap between critical theory and library management, then we will open the discussion up to our panel. We will leave plenty of time for audience questions and wider discussion. The intended outcome for the panel discussion is to foster a robust discussion of how the incorporation of critical theory and social justice frameworks can improve our approaches to management and our service to our communities. The goal we are setting is for audience members to think critically about their own management practice and consider ways of improving equity and in their own organizations.