Every Month is Library Month

How many months, weeks, and days are celebrated by libraries? A lot. Here is a chronological list of "library months" with a bias for Canadian and US activities to limit the number:

If you feel your month is not represented in this list, which is not intended to be exhaustive, then post a comment. Clearly, we have a lot to celebrate as librarians.

With some regret, we could not find a Library Vendors' Month. Perhaps that month exists, and we simply could not find it at the top of the search results.

Has anyone created a calendar with every library month, week, and day on it?

FEBRUARY

Library Lovers' Month [Friends & Foundations of California Libraries]

There are several public libraries that seem to have a "library month in February."


APRIL

National Library Week [ALA]

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School Library Media Month

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April 13

National Library Workers Day [ALA-APA]

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April 14

National Bookmobile Day

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Banned Books Week [ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom]

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April 15

Teen Literature Day [YALSA]


SEPTEMBER

Library Card Sign-Up Month [ALA]


September 8

International Literacy Day [UNESCO]


OCTOBER

Canadian Library Month

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International School Library Month

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National Medical Librarians Month

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Fourth Monday in October

National School Library Day [e.g. British Columbia Teacher-Librarians'Association]

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Theological Libraries Month [American Theological Library Association]

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National Information Literacy Awareness Month

There are many, many more library months, weeks, and days to celebrate.

Change SLA to ASKPro

You may have already heard that the Special Libraries Association (SLA) is proposing to change its name to the the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals (ASKPro).

We think a change to the name of the Special Libraries Association is overdue.

As a vendor that serves special libraries, we changed our approach to marketing to special libraries many years ago to reflect how senior management comes to know the library.

Whether it is stopping an attorney on the tradeshow floor at LegalTech, or a CIO at the ILTA conference, the term "library" may make the person reach for the dictionary.

The Special Libraries Association is correct in its letter to members explaining the need for the change:

"...executives who make hiring decisions and allocate budget dollars do not understand what it means."

Of course, senior management knows what the term means, but that can be the problem when we are trying to describe how library professionals support intranets, cost recovery, databases design, competitive intelligence, etc. SLA has shown restraint in coming up with ASKPro.

What's in a name? We have found so many derivations that it must be a difficult task for SLA to have arrived at a proposal.

Whether it is a knowledge management division, information resource centres, research support centres, etc., we have found that "library" is not enough to convey where our services and products fit in with the strategic goals of the parent organization being served by the library.

Even if the final name does not incorporate "strategic knowledge," it is a step in the right direction. While our staff will continue to use "librarian" on their business cards, it makes sense for the professional body advocating their expertise - SLA - to speak to a broader audience.

Whether it is SydneyPLUS International, or any other major vendor supporting library systems, it is interesting to note that vendors do not have "libraries" in their names.

In part, these vendors have known for a long time that there is a wider audience to be marketing their services and products too. And the library director or manager knows that too.

On the lighter side, here are some random thoughts on the matter:

• The domain for askpro.org and askpro.com is already taken. Whether or not it has been registered by SLA, we do not know. At least one of these domains appears to be owned by an individual. We wonder whether or not SLA will also register for .com

• Wonder if the proposed name change will cascade to other professional organizations, such as AALL and MLA? It is probably a matter of time.

SydneyPLUS Thanks for Thanksgiving (Canada)

With the (Canadian) Thanksgiving Day on Monday, October 12th, we thought our members may want to take a break from reading about SydneyPLUS products and services, and reflect on an inspiring story about a William Kamkwamba, a windmill, and the positive role of libraries.

Here is the inspiring story:

William Kamkwamba was born August 5, 1987, in Malawi, Africa. Something remarkable happened to him at the age of 14. While poverty made him drop out of school at that age, he built a windmill to generate electricity for his home in a country where only two percent of the population can afford it. Where did he learn to build a windmill? A nearby library.

Movingwindmills.org, an official site with more information, affirms the role of the library:

"Armed with curiosity, determination and a library book he discovered in a nearby library, he embarked on a daring plan—to build a windmill that could bring his family the electricity only two percent of Malawians could afford."

You can read William's autobiography this Thanksgiving as it was recently released worldwide on September 29, 2009.

Cost Recovery Must Be On the Radar

Recently finished reading the posting "Using Technology to Manage Costs" on the blog Above and Beyond KM, but we were surprised that there was no mention of using a Cost Recovery system to track the usage of legal research despite law firms spending over $1 million on online resources.

"...costs for electronic re­sources other than LexisNexis and Westlaw rose in 2008, with the average firm spending just over $1 million, compared to some $929,000 in 2007."
Source: http://tinyurl.com/y98l3ly

Making the Case for Cost Recovery

Here are two relevant articles that make the case that Cost Recovery should be part of your strategy:

Law Firm Cost Recovery Is Here to Stay
http://tinyurl.com/kqabdh

By Robert C. Mattern
Special to Law.com
July 6, 2009

Law Librarians: 'No More Sacred Cows'
http://tinyurl.com/y98l3ly

By Alan Cohen
The American Lawyer
September 3, 2009