by Pat Carterette, LearnRT President 2009-2010
This is promising to be another big year for the Learning Round Table. We started off with a bang with our official name change – in case you hadn’t heard, we’re now the Learning Round Table. We may be the first round table in ALA history to use a real word as our name rather than an acronym. By the way, our name will be abbreviated as LearnRT in ALA publications. Bear with us as it will take awhile to get all the CLENERTs changed to LearnRTs. I hope you agree that “learning” is indicative of who we are (we’re interested and/or engaged in staff learning and continuing library education) and what we’re all about.
So… what’s up with the Learning Round Table? Already there are projects in the works and more in the initial planning stages. Here’s a partial list of projects and plans for 2009-2010.
- New marketing campaign (watch for a new logo, tag line, recruitment plan and more)
- New website: alalearning.org is being developed and improved on a daily basis. The goal is to be easily accessible to all our current and future round table members.
- First ever Emerging Leader sponsorship – we are proudly sponsoring an ALA Emerging Leader for the first time – the applicant we select will be someone who has a particular interest in staff training and development. Two potential Emerging Leader projects include creating a Staff Day Success publication and planning and producing a series of Learning Webinars.
- New Committee Chairs for 2009-2010
- Marketing and Communication – Lori Reed, Chair
- Membership – Sandra Smith and Shelley Walchak, Co-Chairs
- Programming – Betha Gutsche, Chair
- Training Showcase – Louise Whitaker, Chair
- Strategic Planning – Sharon Morris, Chair
- LearnRT programs at PLA Portland, ALA Midwinter Boston and ALA Washington DC will include planning staff development days, leadership for new leaders, beyond F@F training, and core competencies
- Social networking tools we use: a blog, a wiki, Facebook and Twitter
- More opportunities for member engagement: interested in blogging, writing newsletter articles relating to learning, training and continuing ed, assisting with the wiki, serving on a LearnRT committee, volunteering to help at ALA programs? Opportunities will be posted on our www.alalearning website… check it regularly!
- Monthly Virtual Meetings – all LearnRT members are invited to participate and contribute to our monthly meetings. Log in instructions will be found at our website and a reminder will be sent out to all members prior to each meeting. All meetings are one hour and start at 2:00 pm Eastern. 2009 meeting schedule:
- Wednesday, August 12
- Thursday, September 17
- Wednesday, October 14
- Thursday, November 19
- Wednesday, December 9
If you haven’t felt connected to the round table in the past, please don’t give up on us. We are working very hard at finding new ways to engage our members and address your needs. We want to hear from you. We want you to tell your friends and colleagues about us. The Learning Round Table’s mission is to provide a thought-provoking resource for those interested in learning and training in libraries, including self-learning, no matter what your position in the library.
Please contact me, Pat Carterette (pcarterette “at” georgialibraries.org) or the LearnRT board (info “at” alalearning.org ) at any time with your comments, feedback or questions. In conclusion, I feel privileged to be representing the Learning Round Table as your president this year. The energy level and enthusiasm among the board and round table members is not only exciting, it’s infectious! Thank you all for your continued support and contributions to making the Learning Round Table the best!
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