Training for Librarians - Professional Associations

[Fred Stoss <fstoss@acsu.buffalo.edu>]

The American Library Association's Task Force on the Environment
and more recently ALA's Libraries Build Sustainable Communities
initiaitve and the Special Libraries Association's Environment 
and Resource Management Division hold technical programs, 
discussion groups, panel presentations, and workshops at their 
respective annual meetings. They attract 20-200 people at any 
given event. Open-house visits and library tours of EPA Libraries
have been common place with both ALA and SLA.

These opportunities provide one level of training, and I know 
first hand as a participant and as planner of these events for
both associations, that ALA and SLA preach to the same choir over 
and over. We new faces appearing not as frequently as we would
like or hope.

Low numbers of people attending these programs (relative to the
thousands of persons attending an ALA or SLA Annaul meeting)is
NOT due to a lack of promotion. Librarians place priorities on 
their time at Annual meetings.

What is needed is a means to take these programs held at annual
meetings of ALA and SLA and package them so they can be more 
widely shared by librarians not able to attend. That takes time,
time that unfortunately too many librarians just do not have.

The EPA Regional Library Network is one of the largest 
environmental information infrastructures  that there is. Our
county and city library systems are the most effective 
information infrastructures that exist, yet there is little
interaction between the two.

There is work to be done by EPA, ALA, and SLA!!!

Fred Stoss
University at Buffalo