CPD23 – Thing 7 – “Professional Involvement is a Marathon, Not a Sprint”

Did I miss a week? I see Thing 6 sitting there in Google Reader, but I don’t remember it coming in. :/

Anyway, professional organizations are very much on my mind right now. I am, as those of us on the tenure track sometimes say, “overcommitted to service” at the moment. The problem is, I find involvement in professional organizations very fulfilling, which makes it hard for me to say “no” as often as I probably should. I feel like it’s easier to make a difference in my volunteer work than it is to do so within the confines of my place of work, for a number of reasons.

That said, a line does have to be drawn. I am not, for instance, attending the Pacific Northwest Library Association (PNLA) conference this year, though I had originally planned to do so. After the email went out saying how low the pre-registration numbers were, I feel extra guilty about it. I very much want to support the organization, because their leadership institute was such a good experience for me, but I already went to another conference, this summer, and I’m trying to buy a house (expected closing date: August 1) and plan a wedding/reception on the east coast (in mid-October). I just can’t justify the expense.

Before I talk more about what I’m not doing, maybe I should talk a little about what I do. From local up, here is my involvement:

• I’m the President of the Anchorage Chapter of the Alaska Library Association (AkLA). (I was co-President, but my co- stepped down.) If any other Anchorageites are reading this, I would really recommend AkLA-A as an easy way to get involved. Even our officers aren’t crazy busy–let alone our regular members–and you get to know other local librarians!
• Until we meet in person for the first time in February, I’m acting as Chair for the newly-formed AkLA New Members Roundtable. I did a lot of the pushing/pulling/writing to get the group formed, but I want it to have legs other than mine, too. So we’ll elect a chair–not me–at the AkLA Annual Conference. My hope is for this to be an easy way for new people (new librarians, new Alaskans) to be involved in AkLA.
• I’m on AkLA’s Social Media Committee. We aren’t super active, honestly. Since I run MPOW’s Social Media Team and have my own social media accounts to monitor, I admit, I’m not really pushing people into posting more often. But I do monitor our Twitter stream for at-comments, and Facebook has made Page-monitoring much easier. So we don’t ignore it, either. :)
• I’m a member of PNLA. And LITA–the Library Information Technology Association. I do no committee work through those associations, though. Also, ALA, for which I do roundtable-level work.
• Finally, there’s the ALA New Members Roundtable, for which I’ve worked on various committees and am now serving as Member Services Director, which is easily the most intimidating role I’ve ever held. (The most intimidating before that was President of AkLA-Anchorage. Which maybe only feels not-intimidating in hindsight, because I have have a really helpful Board and a friendly membership. :)) It’s an Executive Board position, and it’s at the national level, neither of which is entirely new to me, though the combination is. But the main intimidation factor, for me, is that so many of the people I’ve looked up to since joining ALA have been NMRT Executive Board members. I mean, everybody’s very nice and super helpful–I actually think we have a fantastically strong Board this year–so I’m sure it will go well and will look less frightening in hindsight. It’s just hard not to be a little nervous, here at the outset, you know?

But, as I alluded to in the bulleted list above, I don’t currently do much with LITA, certainly not as much as I want to, or with PNLA. I pay my dues, and I follow their blogs and listservs–and help when I can–but there’s no official involvement, on my end. I really want to join committees and do work for both, but my hands are too full right now. I have to keep reminding myself, “Professional involvement is a marathon, not a sprint!” I will definitely get my chance to be uber-involved in LITA–if nothing else, ALA NMRT will boot me out in 6 years. :) And I will also get my chance to be involved in PNLA (assuming it doesn’t go bankrupt before my AkLA commitments die down :/).

So, I guess what I’m saying is, I totally get the value of professional organizations. If I had to add one to the queue, that I was thinking of joining but hadn’t, I’d have to pick ASIS&T – the American Society for Information Science & Technology. Their conferences always sound very exciting!