The Fall 2010 issue of SLIS Network (Volume 48, Number 2) was recently mailed to SLIS alumni. The magazine is mailed by the IU Alumni Association. If you did not receive a copy, you can update your address by emailing us at: slisnews@indiana.edu
In each issue, Dean Blaise Cronin contributes a "Dean's Note" - (see below.) The theme of the issue was on alumni leadership roles in professional associations. The cover title was "Professional Passion - Passionate Professionals."
Dean's Note:
A Loquacious Tribe
"I don’t know if librarians would want to be lumped in with the chattering classes, but the profession is second to none when it comes to conference participation, online discussion and public advocacy. Not a week—not a day—goes by without one or more professional meetings at the local, regional, national and international levels. You could spend the entire year shuttling from conference to conference, from PLA in Portland, Oregon to IFLA in Gothenburg, Sweden, following the summer winds and the latest trends. There are quite so many conferences because the patchwork quilt of library and information science is made up of so many professional associations and SIGs. Just as scholarly journals splinter to reflect increasing specialization within academic disciplines, so too with professional societies and conferences. The behemoths are still with us (think of the ALA annual conference and the swarms of eco tote bags) but the number of boutique events continues to rise, reflecting the growing maturity of the field and the increasing specialization that has become a fact of professional life. Facebook, Twitter, et al. notwithstanding, face-to-face contact with a distinguished keynote speaker and the pressing of sweaty flesh at an over-heated presidential reception are hard to beat. Networking is the name of the proverbial game, our elders and betters tell us with numbing regularity, and they are not wrong. We listen and learn at conferences; on a good day our eyes are opened to new ways of doing things as we sit hour after hour in brutally air-conditioned ballrooms. All it takes is a casual encounter at a new members’ get-together to spark a research project, launch a collaboration, or forge a lifelong professional friendship.
To the outside world (and certainly anyone who has read the novels of Malcolm Bradbury or David Lodge) it’s all a junket, a massive boondoggle. Do we need to be in a Mediterranean resort to discuss the finer points of ontologies or critical theory? Probably not, but a change is as good as a rest, so laissez les bons temps rouler. Much of this is made possible by the volunteer efforts of those friends and colleagues who spend innumerable hours as office bearers or technical program directors in professional/scholarly associations. Assuming the presidency of a body such as ALA or ASIS&T is a daunting undertaking, given the complexity of these organizations and the financial importance of conferences and annual meetings to their bottom line. As this issue of the newsletter makes abundantly clear, SLIS graduates have been stepping up to the plate with gusto.
We continue to produce more than our fair share of professional leaders—Chuck Davis, Ralf Shaw and Herb White were all elected President of ASIS&T at one time or another and Herb was pipped at the post when he ran for the presidency of ALA in the nineties—and I see no reason to believe that the picture will change. Our newest faculty colleague, Cassidy Sugimoto, has already compiled a service record that would put most of us to shame and Howard Rosenbaum is, as I write, in with a 50/50 chance of being the next President-elect of ASIS&T. Watch this space!"
Blaise Cronin
Dean and Rudy Professor of Information Science
Posted December 02, 2010