Four Information School alumnae were selected to participate in the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2008 Emerging Leaders program. All four say networking opportunities kindled their interest in the program.
The iSchool graduates are among 124 librarians nationwide who were selected last fall to participate in the program, now in its second year. The ALA created the program “to enable young librarians to get on the fast track to ALA and professional leadership.”
Those who participate must have graduated within the last five years or be under the age of 35. About a third of this year’s Emerging Leaders received sponsorships, including two of the iSchool graduates.
Emerging Leaders attended a daylong session during the January ALA midwinter meeting in Philadelphia where they networked with peers, explored the ALA structure, discovered opportunities to shape and lead the organization, and joined in problem-solving workgroups. Each Emerging Leader is now at work on a group project that will develop online and be presented at the annual ALA conference in Anaheim, California, in late June.
Here’s a look at two of the four iSchool MLIS graduates who are 2008 Emerging Leaders. (Profiles of the other two alumnae in the program will appear in the next issue of iNews.)
Emily Inlow-Hood (’06)
Community Services Special Projects Coordinator, WebJunction
During her eight years as a bookstore employee, Emily Inlow-Hood enjoyed having an impact on people’s daily lives. Talking about books and sharing their stories made her feel as though she’d found her niche.
Then it dawned on her that libraries offer more stable jobs with better pay.
“Libraries also are more beholden to the community. I realized I liked that idea: library as community center, a resource to both children and adults,” she says.
Today, while entrepreneurship still holds appeal for her, Inlow-Hood’s vision for the future has a lot to do with global librarianship and public access to information.
“The mission of the library is to preserve historical record and intellectual activity,” she says. “And public access to information is one of the great pillars of democracy.”
A self-avowed social activist, Inlow-Hood has volunteered for many organizations, including Casa Latina as a volunteer ESL teacher and the Seattle Public Library’s Wired for Learning program, where she taught computer classes in Spanish. She spent a summer working in the library at National Public Radio. And she worked with homeless teens to develop a library in a homeless shelter.
After living in Ecuador and Guatemala, Inlow-Hood knew she wanted to pursue work with global impact.
“In Guatemalan libraries,” she describes, “everyone wanted to reinvent the wheel. They didn’t know how to catalog or how to network their computers and there wasn’t a professional ethic librarians carried with them.”
In December 2006, Inlow-Hood received an e-mail from one of her fellow iSchool alumni about an opening at WebJunction in Seattle. Michael Crandall, chair of the iSchool’s Master of Science in Information Management program, was involved in the creation of this national public access Web portal hosted by Online Computer Library Center (OCLC).
“A lot of iSchool alumni work there,” she says. “I’ve had many opportunities because of the network I developed at the iSchool. That’s such an important piece.”
By February 2007, she was working for the Seattle office of WebJunction. Today, Inlow-Hood is a member of WebJunction’s editorial team. WebJunction’s online library community features professional development that addresses day-to-day issues faced by librarians.
“With the online training WebJunction is doing, it soon will have a much greater global reach,” notes Inlow-Hood, who, concurrent with her MLIS degree, completed a certificate program in international development policy at the UW’s Evans School of Public Affairs.
A peer encouraged her to apply to the Emerging Leaders program. She sees it as a great networking opportunity and is especially pleased with her project and workgroup.
“Working in groups feels a lot like what we did in grad school,” she says.
The project relates to the Public Library Association’s desire to restructure its committees to develop communities of practice for better knowledge sharing.
“We’re tasked with how the association would do that, both the technical tools to do it and the organizational roles people will play to make it happen,” she says.
Etienne Wenger, globally recognized as a research pioneer in the field of communities of practice, defines the concept as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”
Inlow-Hood says it’s an exciting project, although her workgroup has struggled with its deliverables and connecting with some of the mentors.
“A bigger criticism of the Emerging Leaders program is that it needs to be valued and respected by the organization,” she says.
It’s a process, she concedes, for a program still in its infancy. “I think all of us in this second year of the Emerging Leaders program are benefiting from the lessons the ALA learned from the program’s first year,” she says.
Reese (Coffin) Evenson (’06)
Children’s Librarian, Jefferson County (Colo.) Public Libraries
When she was an iSchool student, Reese (Coffin) Evenson was drawn to the diversity of community college libraries. She liked the idea of assisting such varied groups as high school students doing college-level work, adult students returning to college, trades people and those for whom English is a second language.
Before she arrived at the iSchool, however, Evenson worked for Raytheon Polar Services Co. in the National Science Foundation’s U.S. Antarctic Program. While in Antarctica, Evenson worked in quality assurance and as a trainer of warehouse and transaction supply staff.
When she returned to the States, she took advantage of opportunities to give school presentations about living and working in Antarctica. It was these experiences with schoolchildren that warmed her to the idea of becoming a children’s librarian once she had completed her MLIS degree at the iSchool and relocated to Arvada, Colorado, between Denver and Boulder.
“It turns out I love being a children’s librarian. Kids crack me up every day,” she says, adding, “A lot of children’s librarians end up managing libraries. Deborah Jacobs, Seattle’s top librarian, started out as a children’s librarian in Bend, Oregon.”
Evenson says she looks forward to added responsibilities and a managerial library position for herself in the future. She also has a developing interest in competitive intelligence, a form of market research analysis to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for businesses.
A fellow librarian at the Jefferson County (Colo.) libraries encouraged her to apply to be an ALA Emerging Leader. Evenson figured it would be a good way to build up her resume and become more involved in ALA.
“I thought the Emerging Leaders program would help get me on other committees and offer opportunities for me to pursue other skills,” she says.
She’s already a member of the Library Administration and Management Association (LAMA), which is also her sponsor for Emerging Leaders. In addition to financial support from LAMA, her library contributed another $800 to offset her expenses.
“My library is really supportive of professional development and of me being an Emerging Leader,” she says.
Evenson’s group project relates to the prestigious biennial library building awards sponsored by LAMA and the American Institute of Architects.
“We’re developing a policy statement on how entries will be managed and accessed,” she says. “Some of these projects are not necessarily well thought out. We’re having a hard time getting from our mentors and liaisons what they want from us. It’s not that we’re not pumped as a team, but this program is only in its second year. It needs to be fleshed out a little more.”
What excites Evenson are the opportunities for change within ALA.
“The Emerging Leaders program is more about being a leader within ALA than it is about giving you leadership skills,” she says. “The ALA is really looking at transforming the organization and its structure. They know change needs to happen and they’re looking to us, as Emerging Leaders, to do it. It’s very inspiring because you do see how you can be an active participant, change the organization and lead the ALA.”
There’s only one factor that might hold her back a bit for the immediate future, anyway. Evenson is pregnant with her first baby. Her due date is June 15.
“I can still be part of my project, I just won’t be able to go to the conference in Anaheim at the end of June. It has been very hard for me to accept that, but I don’t see how I can go,” she says.
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