At the January 10, 2007 meeting of the NJLA Reference Section, Dawn Popoff, (creator of the CJARL group) spoke about librarians meeting in discussion groups. Paul Schroeder, Chair of the Reference Section, sent this summary of Dawn's talk:
Originally, Dawn set up the Academic Librarians' discussion group to meet once a semester, but she suggested that each group should decide on a meeting schedule that is best for its members. Also, the discussion group should agree not to take on any projects. Any ideas that come from the discussion are passed on to the appropriate group: school administration, NJLA etc. The group meets for two hours and is divided into four topic sessions: for example, technology, reference tools, current issues, etc. Again each group would choose the topics that suited them. One of Dawn's main messages is that discussion groups foster empowerment and support among librarians. You can find an article Dawn wrote about this in the Sept 2006 issue of American Libraries. Dawn will also be presenting a program on discussion groups at the NJLA Conference in April.
Thanks to Lisa Coats for alerting me to this information and to Paul Schroeder for sending the summary!
2 comments:
I didn't know we were mentioned in American Libraries. I'll pass copies of the article on the the rest of the members here.
Martin,
Dawn's article talks about the benefits of librarian discussion groups in general, not about CJARL in specific. However, we are mentioned in the blurb about the author. Do pass the article along!
Amy
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