Information portals

Information Outlook, March, 2005 by Carolyn J. Sosnowski

"What is your experience with XYZ automation product?" "How do I plan a library move?" "Do you have examples of user surveys?" "My employer wants me to prove my value. Now what?"

These questions are typical of requests I see on SLA's discussion lists and receive here at headquarters. Many of our members are solo librarians who rely on electronic networking and their professional association to help them solve problems and get ideas for new services and products. We are fortunate to have a community that is so knowledgeable and willing to share its experiences.

I try to use every opportunity to promote our information portals (or, more accurately, your information portals). I was thrilled to discover them myself before I began working at SLA and used several of them to improve my knowledge in areas such as information audits and marketing, initiatives in which our resource center was involved.

What is an information portal? It's a collection of resources on a particular topic of interest to information professionals. Currently, the SLA Web site offers almost 50 portals, on topics ranging from copyright to career planning to vendor reviews. In the past year or so, we have added portals on blogging and RSS, open access, taxonomy, and communities of practice. We continually monitor trends and discussion lists for ideas for new portals, and we welcome suggestions.

The portals are composed of various kinds of resources, most commonly article and monograph citations and Internet links. Whenever possible, links are provided to the full text of articles, presentations, and reports. Although full text is not always available, you can find many of the listed resources through the online services you use in your information centers. In the portals, you will find best practices, experiential articles, reviews, and ideas for creating and expanding your services.

Most of the portals have been edited in 2005 for currency and relevance, and they are continually updated with new content from professional journals, conference proceedings, industry reports, and resources gleaned from the SLA community. A few--including the career planning and competencies and vendor products portals--will undergo major revision in the coming months to make them easier to navigate. Cross-references will be added to some portals, so you can easily link to portals on related subjects. If you have resources you would like to add to a portal (your own conference presentations, for example), let us know at resources@sla.org. In this way, you can share valuable information with the rest of the membership.

You will find the portals at www.sla.org/infoportals.cfm.> [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Management Documents Collection

Another way to contribute to information exchange is to share resources that you have created in your information centers. In the July 2004 Information Management column, we requested sample documents from members in order to revitalize our management documents collection, which had become outdated. The user surveys and policies, for example, will be shared, for a small fee, with members who request such items. As a bonus, contributors will receive a free packet of documents.

In response to our request, we received several contributions from members. Thank you! However, we did not receive as many samples as we had hoped for and would like to collect additional material before making the packets available to the membership.

What are we looking for? So far, we have received great examples of user surveys, purchasing policies, and newsletters. We'd like to get more of these samples, as well as brochures, mission statements, floor plans, and any policy documents you have created. Submissions in electronic format are preferred, but hard copy samples are also welcome.

As I am sure you have seen from the discussion lists, there are many requests for this type of information-templates that members can build on for the needs of their own information centers. What works for one office may not work for another, but sharing among colleagues can spark ideas and get the ball rolling in the challenging task of creating a marketing tool or collection development policy from scratch. I think we are all looking for ways to communicate with our clients, streamline processes, and best serve the needs of our organizations. If you have created ways to accomplish these goals, please share them with us.

Send your samples to resources@sla.org. Your fellow members thank you.

By Carolyn J. Sosnowski, MLIS

Carolyn Sosnowski, MLIS, is an information specialist at SLA.