Talkin’ ‘bout my generation!
by Robyn Hagle
Don’t go looking up the lyrics for this song and think I’m trying to diss on anyone! It’s not about you; it’s about US and our future!
I recently accepted an assignment to serve on the AALL Futures Summit Planning Special Committee. The committee has been tasked with developing an agenda for and planning a Futures Summit to be held in Chicago in early November. The Futures Summit, which will be by invitation, will bring together newer and more seasoned members to discuss ways to engage, encourage and prepare new member law librarians for their future as the next leaders of the association and the profession. As the more seasoned generation of member law librarians prepares to retire, issues around communication, participation, and understanding of newer members will be critical to a healthy transition and the future of our association.
As a member of the planning committee, I will be “researching issues related to the topics of member engagement, communication (including social media), leadership development, mentoring, generational differences, and ongoing changes in the profession of law librarianship.” My fellow committee members will be holding a number of informal coffee talks at the annual meeting in Philadelphia in order to get feedback and ideas from members about what we should be talking about regarding the future of AALL and the profession. Please consider attending one of these talks if you will be in Philadelphia.
Or, better yet, let’s get a conversation about this topic started in the comments. What are the issues you think are most important on this topic? I would love to bring some ideas from our local LLOPS community to my first committee meeting. And, if there’s interest, perhaps we can plan for an informal in-person discussion of these issues as well. SOUND OFF!
Themocracy
Is there a genuine worry over the number of retiring librarians (say within the next 20 years) and not enough coming librarians to fill positions, manage AALL/LLOPS, etc.?
The disparity in the legal library field is probably much greater than in public and/or academic(non-law) libraries. What else could AALL do to reach out to students and librarians in other fields?