This post was written by Brandy King, DSOC Chair and Melissa Gustafson, DSOC Webmaster and Chair of the Communications Committee

We were so excited to have 38% of DSOC members participate in our Communications Survey last month! That is an incredible response rate, and it gave the board a great basis on which we could make decisions that will help us communicate more effectively with you.   Below is a summary of results:

Respondents

• There were 94 responses to the survey
• Respondents were evenly spread out in terms of number of years of membership.
• 66% of respondents were on Eastern Standard Time, 13% on Pacific Standard Time and 12% on Central Standard Time

DSOC Online Presence

• Most respondents did not know about the DSOC social media outlets on Facebook & Twitter, but many signed up as a result of the survey.
• Email (traditional listserv or newsletter) was the most preferred mode of communication.
• Many noted a strong demarcation between those social media tools used for personal  communication (Facebook & Twitter) and the one that maybe considered appropriate for SLA (LinkedIn)

Social Media Use

• 61% use Facebook either daily or at least once a week
• 30% use Twitter either daily or at least once a week
• 41% use LinkedIn either daily or at least once a week

Connecting with other DSOC members

• Asynchronous LinkedIn group discussions (50.5%) were favored over traditional conference calls (35.2%) or Twitter chats
• 14  respondents offered to help with DSOC communications in some way (THANK YOU!)

Moving Forward

This survey data helped the board decide which communication outlets to focus on and how to make those communications most effective. We have created a DSOC Communication Plan and are at the beginning stages of implementing it.  In the coming weeks we will be contacting those who volunteered to help and figuring out how best to use their talents and available time.  If you have any questions or comments about the Communication Plan or would like to volunteer, please contact DSOC Chair Brandy King at brandy[AT]knowledge-linking.com

Continuing my series of introductions to your 2011 DSOC board members, I’d like to introduce Matt Von Hendy, Chair of the Public Policy Section.

Matt is a Research Librarian at the National Academies of Science in Washington, DC. He has been an SLA member for 5 years and a DSOC member for 3 years.

Although he currently lives in the Washington, DC area, Matt is a native Bostonian. He is also an avid runner, baseball fan, and birder.

Matt will be moderating the Public Policy Section program at SLA 2011 in Philadelphia, “Tracking Public Opinion in the US and Abroad.”

Matt says, “I look forward to seeing many of you at the session!”

I've already introduced several of our Social Science Division board members. Today I'd like to introduce Vanette Schwartz, chair of our Geography & Map Section. Vanette is the social sciences and maps librarian at Illinois State University.

Vanette joined DSOC when the Geography & Map Division of SLA beame a section of DSOC in 2003. She's been an SLA member since 1989. "My predecessor as map librarian at ISU had been a long time member of SLA and encouraged me to join. I found a very welcoming and helpful group of colleagues and friends in the G&M Division and that trend has continued within DSOC," Vanette told me.

Vanette served in various capacities in the G & M Division including division conference planner in 2002 and division chair.

Vanette has a BA from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, an MALS from the University of Michigan, and an MA in history from the University of Illinois. In addition to being maps librarian at ISU, Vanette is also the library liaison for the departments of history, sociology, and social work, as well as the women's and gender studies program.

When I asked her about G&M Section activities for 2011, Vanette said, "I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in Philadelphia for another great SLA conference. Please join your DSOC and G&M colleagues on Wednesday, June 15 for a tour of the cartographic treasures at the Map Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia." The tour is free, but please register by emailing Vanette.

Last week, you met our Past Chair, Marilyn Bromley. Today, I'd like to introduce Ann Sweeney, our International Relations Section Chair.

If you've been at an SLA conference or leadership summit recently, you've probably seen and heard Ann. In addition to chairing the DSOC International Relations Section and organizing the always-popular International Reception at the annual conference for more than a decade, she is currently Past Division Cabinet Chair.

Within DSOC, Ann has previously served as Chair, PR Chair, and Global Strategies Task Force Chair. In 2006, she received the SLA Member Achievement Award, and in 2009 she received the DSOC Gale Group Murray Wortzel Award.

At the European Union’s European Commission Delegation, Ann has served for 18 years as Librarian, Webmaster, and now Senior Information & Communication Officer: Electronic Publications. Ann’s 30+ years’ career as a librarian spans positions at the Columbia University Graduate Business Library, the US Defense Intelligence Agency, the Port Authority of NY & NJ, Information for Business, the National Academy of Sciences – Transportation Research Board (TRB), and public libraries.

In addition to all of that, she somehow finds time to volunteer with the Lubuto Library Project and attended the Lusaka, Zambia, September 2007 opening of the first Lubuto Library for street children.

Ann’s undergraduate degree is in Romance Languages and Political Science; her Master of Science in Library Service is from Columbia University.

Ann encourages all SLA 2011 attendees to come to the International Reception sponsored by Dow Jones on Monday evening, June 13. Not only is it THE networking event of the conference, you will see the DSOC Gale Cengage Murray Wortzel Award and the SLA Europe Information Professional 2011 Award bestowed.

Over the next couple of weeks, I would like to introduce you to the Social Science Division board and committee members. This blog has already introduced you to me, your 2011 chair, and Brandy King, chair-elect. Next up is our past chair, Marilyn Bromley.

Marilyn is Library Director of the BNA Library. She joined DSOC when the Labor Caucus became a section of DSOC and has been active in the division ever since. She was still a new member in 2008 when Greta Ober called to ask her to accept a nomination for chair-elect, but quickly said "yes."

"As a member of the DC chapter, I knew lots of DSOC members and without exception, they were great people! It was one of the easiest SLA decisions I've ever made," she said.

Marilyn has BA from Randolph-Macon Woman's College (now Randolph College) and a MSLS from Catholic University. She's worked at the BNA Library since 1983 and became Library Director in 1994. In addition to managing the Library, she's responsible for our competitve intelligence service, and is involved with other Library staff in copyright and permissions services, the BNA intranet, publishing a directory of federal and state courts for BNA Books, serving as an in-house consultant on the information professional market, and traditional reference and research for employees. She is also active in the SLA Legal Division, and was DC/SLA president in the 1990s.

As past-chair, Marilyn is responsible for fundraising for the Philadelphia conference, nominations for board positions, and is chair of the awards committee, which is currently accepting nominations for the Murray Wortzel award, generously funded by Gale Cengage.

When Marilyn sent me her bio, she closed with the following message to members: "I hope to see many of you in Philadelphia, just a short train ride for many of us.  And if I call to ask you to run for DSOC office, say yes – you won't regret it!"

During the SLA Leadership Summit in January, members of the Social Science Division board met for dinner, and Marilyn Bromley presented me with the gavel. My employer, the American Philatelic Society, issued a press release announcing the beginning of my term as chair.

I've gained so much, both professionally and personally, from my involvement with DSOC and I'm honored to be able to give back by serving as your chair. From my very first SLA conference as a new librarian (NYC in 2002), DSOC has made me feel welcome and provided me with excellent and diverse programming. I hope that DSOC provides the same experience for you – and if you have suggestions for things we can do to better serve you, please don't hesitate to contact me by phone at 814-933-3816 or email.

During her year as chair, Marilyn oversaw the introduction of many new ideas to DSOC, including the use of Twitter to communicate during conferences (hashtag #dsoc), a DSOC Facebook page, and bimonthly board meetings by conference call. In her new role as past chair, she continues to push for innovation.

I'm excited to be working with Marilyn and our new chair-elect, Brandy King, during the coming year. I've been impressed by Brandy's enthusiasm and knowledge since I first met her at an SLA conference.

I'm also working closely with our 2011 program planning team, Lyle MInter and Laura Leavitt, and our 2012 team of Laura and Terry Hill. Lyle and Laura have put together a great group of programs for the SLA 2011 conference in Philadelphia and I look forward to seeing many DSOC members there.

While the SLA annual conference continues to be a major focus for divisions, and an event well worth attending if at all possible, I recognize that it is not possible for every member. One of the things I hope to address during 2011 is the ability to provide quality programming for DSOC members who are not able to attend the conference in person.

Starting this week, I will introduce the other members of the 2011 DSOC board and committees on our blog. If you have ideas or questions, please contact me or any other board member.

From Marilyn Bromley, DSOC President:

Paul Nelson, chief architect at Search Technologies has written an interesting post on the meaning of search relevancy and how it's changed over the years.

End of summer greetings to all of you!  It’s hard for me to believe that our centennial annual conference took place over two months ago, but what a great conference it was! Thankfully, here in Washington, DC, temperatures were delightful this June and the conference itself proceeded flawlessly.  For highlights of our conference offerings take a look at our blog postings and check out our website.  We have posted as many of the slide presentations as possible and continue to add them.  If you have a summary of a favorite session or conference experience to share, please post it to the blog.  We all know that it takes an inordinate amount of teamwork and sustained effort to produce successful program sessions and exciting social and educational events year after year. Therefore, I would be remiss if I did not mention a few division members to thank for the success of this year’s conference.

To our program planner(s):  Thank you Tara Murray, our indefatigable and innovative program planner for your work throughout the year. You leave us all in awe. Thanks also for another fantastic Poster Session and Open House!  Also, thanks to Lyle Minter for serving as “apprentice” to Tara and for being our program planner for next year’s conference in New Orleans.  I know that Lyle has lots of exciting ideas for 2010 which he will be sharing with you in the coming weeks. For those of you who represented the Social Science Division as planners, speakers, panelists, organizers, moderators and evaluators, I send my deepest thanks and appreciation.  You know who you are!  I hope that all attendees enjoyed the conference and found it to be worthwhile. I include Tara’s brief listing of our conference programs (pdf),  http://sla.dsoc.googlepages.com/SLA2009DSOCScheduleJune10.pdf

To our tour organizers: Thanks go to Elana Broch for arranging an unforgettable tour of the U.S. Holocaust Museum and Memorial.  The librarians and archivists there left attendees speechless in amazement. To Vanette Schwartz and members of the Geography and Map Section, thank you for the multiple tours at National Geographic and the Library of Congress.  All were well attended and received.

To our fundraising chairs and committee members:  Linda Richer, Nancy Minter, and Greta Ober-Beauchesne, we are most grateful to the three of you because funding is critical to our success and 2009 was a particularly challenging year in which to get financial support! To Ann Sweeney, thanks once more for securing funds for another fabulous International Reception which this time took us literally out of the country, well to the Zambian Embassy in DC, that is! A list of all our generous vendor sponsors is posted on our website, http://sla.dsoc.googlepages.com/home2  , and we are very grateful to all of them!

To our nominating committee: Chaired by Heidi Yacker, with Nancy Minter and Linda Richer. Thank you for a terrific job.  The outstanding nominee for DSOC’s 2010 Chair-Elect is Tara Murray.  Tara is the Information Core Director of the Population Research Center at Pennsylvania State University. She has been an indispensable member of our division for several years.  As part of her work as program planner, she created a detailed wiki to help us track session details including speaker information, projected costs, funding and sponsorships. This tool has been extremely helpful to the Board for budgeting and planning purposes. Tara has been tireless in organizing, moderating, and evaluating programs for DSOC and has networked extensively with other divisions and several chapters to develop shared sessions and coordinate efforts.  Tara also serves as DSOC’s contributor to SLA’s divisional wiki, and was instrumental in the development of our blog and website.  Congratulations, Tara! We look forward to working with you in your new role!

To our awards committee: Chaired by Heidi Yacker, the team included Jan Watterworth and Greta Ober-Beauchesne. Thank you all.  See our outstanding award winners below.

To our award winners: Congratulations go to Ann Sweeney on being the fifth recipient of the Gale Group Murray Wortzel Award. The award is named in honor of Mr. Murray Wortzel, a distinguished member of DSOC who set the standard for exemplary service to the division and to SLA.  The award is presented biennially to a member of the division who has made similar notable contributions. It includes a stipend of $1,000 from the sponsor.  Ann has served us as Chair (2002-2003), International Relations Section Chair, Public Relations Committee Chair, organizer/presenter/moderator at numerous conference programs, and organizer of the always popular International Reception since 1999. For the Association, Ann currently serves as Division Cabinet Chair-elect (2009), Chair of the Annual Conference Advisory Council, member of the Leadership Summit Planning Team, and member of the Committee on Divisional Structure. She has also been active with the Legal and the Transportation Divisions, the International Information Exchange Caucus, and the Washington, DC Chapter of SLA. I cannot think of anyone more deserving of this award than Ann. Thank you and congratulations from all of us!

From our Poster Session and Open House, the winners are:

1^st place to Jane Kinney Meyers for Lubuto: Excellent Special Libraries for African Street Children. The Lubuto Library project is an initiative, in cooperation with local governments, which provides library services, literacy skills, targeted programs and educational growth opportunities for vulnerable sub-Saharan African children.

Runners up are:

Jacy Bell for Information Accessibility and the Disability Community

Cheryl Klimaszewski for Putting a Face on the Information Divide: A Look at Two Romanian Villages

Congratulations to all three of you! We are grateful to everyone who submitted a poster this year. The winner receives a one-year membership to SLA.

SLA Fellows: Over the years our division has had the honor of having several members named as Fellows of SLA. Fellowship is bestowed on mid-career SLA members in recognition of past, present and future service to the association and profession. This year is no exception. Nancy Minter has been named a Fellow for her outstanding and longstanding contributions including serving as DSOC chair, fundraiser extraordinaire, program planner, program moderator, program speaker, Washington, DC Chapter President, member of SLA’s Public Relations Committee, and winner of the 2007 Murray Wortzel Award. Note: this is a partial list of her accomplishments. Congratulations, Nancy! We are all very thankful to you and proud that you are being recognized as a Fellow.

To DSOC Board Members:  Of course, as Chair, I cannot lead without the Board and it has been a privilege to work with such dedicated people.  For starters, I wish to thank our Past Chair, Heidi Yacker, for her advice and support throughout the year.  I especially want to thank her for organizing the new members’ reception at the conference this year.  She chose the lovely, historic Henley Park Hotel for a beautifully catered afternoon tea and wine reception.  Heidi also served us as Nominating Committee Chair and as Awards Chair this year and did a splendid job at both! Thank you for everything.

Also, I am very happy to be working with Marilyn Bromley, our Chair-elect.  She has been instrumental in helping us hold our first two group telephone meetings this spring: on April 9, the Strategic Planning Committee had a tele- meeting to work on our division’s strategic plan draft and on April 23^rdwe were able to bring the Board into our strategic planning discussions. These meeting were productive and fun. Thank you, Marilyn! Also as our current Membership Chair, Marilyn is welcoming new members and finding ways to get them hooked on DSOC including plans to better promote our sections.  Also, you may know Marilyn from her conference tweets on Twitter.  Actually, she began tweeting during the Leadership Summit in January and continued at Annual Conference. DSOC tweets are linked on our website’s home page, if you are not a subscriber.

To our Secretary and Treasurer: I thank you, Jan Watterworth, for keeping the division in the black. You are a most excellent financial watchdog. And you are fun to work with. I will try to keep us within our budget for the rest of the year! And yes, I will send you the reports from our business and board meetings soon. There are details and more details to share and report!

To our Section Chairs:  You all deserve a round of applause!  Here are the names of these hardworking members:

Geography and Map section – Vanette Schwartz

International Relations – Ann Sweeney

Non-profits – Nancy Minter

Public Policy – Elana Broch

Labor Issues – Larry Guthrie

And last, but not least, where would we be without our Archivist, Beth Hansen and our Communications Coordinators? Lost, that is for sure.  First, Beth, we missed you in DC but hope you will be back to join us in New Orleans. Thank you for taking care of our records and our history!

For communications, I wish to thank Elaine Lasda-Bergman, our Blog Coordinator, for her tireless work in managing our beautiful Blog. Since its debut in January, it has become a vital tool for all of us. As months pass it becomes more evident how useful the blog is for tracking our accomplishments and news. I encourage all of you to send your posts and comments to the blog. Elaine manages and classifies the postings for us.

I thank our Webmaster, Brandy King, for her ongoing work on our website. Brandy has done an excellent job in keeping it up to date which is no small feat. She has worked closely with Tara and Marilyn to enhance the site by adding a Twitter feed which is mostly active during conferences.  By the way, Cameron (Brandy’s baby son) is adorable and I think he quite enjoyed his first DSOC annual meeting. We certainly enjoyed meeting him!

I also thank Tara, again, for taking on a new role as Wiki Coordinator this year. She has added DSOC activities to SLA’s divisional wiki.

Finally, to Kadri Kallikorm-Rhodes, our stalwart Discussion List Owner, thank you for keeping us all up-to-date on the bigger SLA picture via email. It continues to be relevant and convenient.

As they say, it takes a village.

What’s coming for the remainder of 2009 and beyond:  We are finishing our Strategic Plan for 2009 – 2011 and I will share it with you soon. We will hold at least one more tele-meeting for the Board. 

We are planning another fantastic annual conference for 2010 in New Orleans. By the way, it is not too early to register, believe it or not! There is even an early bird discount already in place:

http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2010/registration/index.cfm

We are participating in SLA’s Alignment Project with guidance from our two ambassadors, Brandy King and Kadri Kallikorm-Rhodes.  To learn more about the Alignment Project, check out their fantastic wiki:

http://wiki.sla.org/display/align/SLA+Alignment+Wiki

SLA Board elections are being held September  9  – October 1, 2009. Be sure to vote.

http://slablogger.typepad.com/sla_blog/board-candidates-corner/

We will stay involved and committed to the division, to SLA and to the profession.

Cheers!

P.S. I am always happy to hear from you personally by email or phone.

Iris W. Anderson

2009 Chair

Social Science Division

iris.anderson@comcast.net

301-598-0392

Hello and welcome to our BRAND NEW BLOG! Huge thanks to the wonderful team who created this great communication channel for us. The team is led by Elaine Bergman and includes our Chair Iris Anderson, our listserv owner Kadri Kallikorm-Rhodes, Melanie Schiochetti, and Brandy King. To get us started, here is the newsletterI put together in early December.

Please send your blog posts to Iris (IRIS.ANDERSON@comcast.net)and let's start talking!

Heidi Yacker
Past-Chair