Dear CALL Colleagues:
Happy 2016! It’s that time again when we set goals and ponder about the changes we want to make this new year in our personal and professional life. For me, I am planning on making my Fitbit buzz at 10,000 steps every day. Is anyone interested in a CALL Fitbit Challenge? Professionally, one of my goals is not to procrastinate on getting my timesheets done (anyone else have this goal?). It’s definitely going to take a village or a possible CALL program to help me with my goals.
What professional goals are you setting for 2016? Is it to enhance your skills in a certain area so that you can do your job more effectively? Is it to take on a leadership role or find solutions to a challenge that you are facing?
Whatever your goals are, CALL is here to help you. As a CALL member, you have access to an amazing network of colleagues who can be great resources to help you achieve your goals. CALL committees are also working hard to offer education programs to help give you the skillset and opportunities to collaborate with each other on ideas and solutions. I hope that you take advantage of all that CALL offers.
Watch out for upcoming programs from the Continuing Education and Mentorship and Leadership Development committees that will help members enhance their skills and highlight what it takes to be a leader.
The mentoring program partners you with a mentor who can be a good resource at all stages in your career. The form to be a mentor/mentee can be found on the CALL website.
If there are issues and challenges that you would like to talk about with colleagues and brainstorm ideas on how to address them, suggest it as a What’s Buzzin’? program. Contact the Continuing Education Committee Chairs to suggest a topic.
2016 will be a busy year but an exciting one for CALL. CALL will also be making some changes in this new year that I hope will be positive changes for our members.
Wild Apricot will soon be rolled out to handle our membership renewals and maintain the membership directory. It will also handle credit card payments for registration to business meetings and continuing education programs.
CALL will soon be offering education programs as webinars. This will give members who are not located in downtown Chicago or may have a difficult time leaving the office the chance to attend these programs.
We are making connections with various associations including APRA-IL, SLA, ILTA, and LMA and discussing possible collaboration opportunities. These connections will give our members exposure to these associations and how they relate to what we do in our own jobs. At the same time, it will give us the chance to promote our skills and share what we can do.
Don’t forget to vote for the next leaders of CALL starting on February 15. The slate of candidates is featured in this issue of the CALL Bulletin. I would like to thank all of these candidates for stepping up to the opportunity to lead this chapter and be able to help make a change for our members and profession.
AALL members will soon be voting on whether to rebrand the association and be known as the Association for Legal Information (ALI). I encourage everyone to take the time to review the Rebranding Initiative page on AALLNET to learn more about the initiative and to see what members are saying about it. It is time to really look at our profession and determine what this rebranding means, especially when many of our colleagues do not work in a traditional library setting or have librarian in their job title. I hope anyone who is an AALL member takes the time to vote on this important issue.
CALL will be busy getting ready to welcome our colleagues from around the globe when they come to Chicago in July for the AALL or ALI Annual Meeting and Conference. It is great to see CALL members involved with the education programs that will be presented and working with the Local Arrangements Committee to promote and highlight the amazing things that our city offers. I know that this will be a great conference. CALL will be planning an event so stay tuned for more details.
I hope that 2016 is a good year for all of you. If there is anything CALL can do to help you make that step to achieving a goal or change, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
Julie Pabarja