Future Ready 365 – Join the Conversation!

Thanks to Cindy Romaine, SLA President 2011, for this article: Future Ready 365. This article was originally published in the 2011 Best Practices for Government Libraries: e-Initiatives and e-Efforts: Expanding Our Horizons. Best Practices is a collaborative document that is put out annually on a specific topic of interest to government librarians. The 2011 edition includes over 70 articles and other submissions provided by more than 60 contributors from librarians in government agencies, courts, and the military, as well as from professional association leaders, LexisNexis Consultants, and more.

If you did not write for this year’s Best Practices, submit a guest post for the Government Info Pro.

Now, read on…

With any luck at all, you have heard of this year‘s initiative for SLA, which is to focus members on becoming Future Ready. The goal is for members to adopt an attitude of being more adaptable, flexible, and confident in utilizing the skills of the information professional regarding the new knowledge economy.

To that end, we have initiated the FutureReady365 blog (http://futureready365.sla.org/) and started a big conversation on what it means to be prepared for the future. So far, we‘ve had over a million hits, and the constant stream of traffic has been amazing. The posts are focused on sharing knowledge, ideas, and insights on how all corners of the SLA community—vendors, partners, clients, and users—are ready for the future.

The intention of the blog is to have a post a day. I know, it sounds like a crazy goal, but its working! We want to provide the community with a multi-dimensional view of what Future Ready looks like throughout the profession. These are vignettes and testimonials from members just like you answering the question: “How are you Future Ready?”

You’re invited to join in

YOU—yes, Y-O-U—are invited to participate with a post to the blog.

All of us, on some level, are confronted with the increasing pace of change. Tools, services, and users are changing faster than you can say “do it at your own desk.”¹ For example, according to the Association of American Publishers, “Ebooks have become the single best-selling category in American publishing for the first time,” ² and, Gartner, the IT consulting company, is predicting that by 2014, 90 percent of organizations will support corporate applications on personal devices.³ How are ebooks and mobile devices affecting your business? How are you adapting your skills?

So, this is where you come in. Everyone who survived the recent economic doldrums has a story to tell. Just by surviving, you must have demonstrated to a skeptical boss or a tight-fisted bean-counter that you are ready for the future. We want your stories!

Here are some ideas to jump-start your medulla oblongata:

• How have your client‘s expectations of your products and services changed over the past year, and how have you addressed those changes?
• If you are not feeling future ready, what is getting in the way?
• With tighter budgets, what criteria do you now use to make your clients future ready?

You can submit your post of 250-500 words, images, or video to [email protected]. We‘ll provide an edit, get back to you with questions, or simply let you know when we‘ll post your submission. It‘s easy!

Why participate?

What would motivate you to hit the keyboard and commit to a post?…

READ THE FULL ARTICLE IN PDF starting on page 117.

Want more Best Practices?

View the 2010 Best Practices: The New Face of Value in PDF version.

View the 2009 Best Practices: Change: Managing It, Surviving It and Thriving on It in PDF version.

You can always find Best Practices for Government Libraries for 2011 and prior years Best Practices from the right sidebar here on the Government Info Pro.