It’s been a long haul this semester and I am nearly done for this year but not quite yet.
I attended a very well organized, useful, and fun workshop titled Rethinking Library Collaboration and Partnerships in San Francisco held by InfoPeople. The workshop instructor, Joan Frye Williams, knows her stuff. The class reminded us of the strengths that the library has and really emphasized leading with our strengths when we are ready to approach folks with partnership ideas. Libraries tend to come across as beggars and not really partners. By sharing what we do have to offer puts us in a better position to negotiate collaborative partnerships. The rest of the class and the framework built on those concepts and really created an easy framework (built around a courtship metaphor) for how to find likely partners, get to know them, and start a partnership. What I really liked was that all of the exercises were not just exercises but actual processes that were part of the larger goal. This is where the modern librarian needs to be headed and I suggested that we get her to speak to a group of students and she was all over it. In all honesty, this is how all classes should be taught.