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Reference Section Annual Report

Submitted by tagostinelli on Tue, 05/31/2016 - 3:51pm

The Reference Section organized the 2015 Adult Services Forum - Librarians: Agents of Positive Community Change

  • 140+ attendees
  • Erica Freudenberger, director of the Red Hook Public Library in NY gave a terrific keynote titled "Engaged: Transformation, Change, and Future of Libraries"
  • 8 different sessions on topics including on Reference, Marketing, Readers Advisoryand others were offered to attendees

The section also organized: 

  • A day of touring at the NJ State Library and NJ State Archives provied by State Librarians who also gave us information on resources available to library patrons
  • A workshop at the NJ Family History Center in Eatontown, NJ
  • The Library Makers Toolkit held at the South Brunswick Public Library

Since many of us in the Section are based in central NJ, we made it a point to hold meetings in northern and southern NJ to network with colleagues who can't easily travel to central NJ.  Meetings were held at the Mullica Hills Branch, Gloucester County Library System, Elizabeth Public Library and the Pequannock Public Library. As a result, several of our GCLS colleagues will be serving on the 2016-2017 Reference Section Leadership panel.

At the 2016 NJLA Conference, the Reference Section sponsored four programs and co-sponsored seven programs. We also had a table where we were able to reach out and attract new members to join our Section. 

Section/Committee/Taskforce: 
Reference
Goals for Next Year: 
The 2016/2017 goals were created by incoming co-presidents Louisa Bann and Cassidy Charles. *Hosting another great adult services forum *Reaching out to more sections and professionals across the state *Changing the name of the section to be more inclusive of the profession!! Our goal is also to further energize the section and get people out to attend meetings since our section has been losing steam over the years. Let's recognize the hardship most of us have to get a day out of the office/library (staffing...). We want to ensure that our meetings offer adult service librarians an opportunity to learn from each other's collections and organizations. We also want to offer meeting hosts an incentive to show off: a "new collection" or a "new room" in your library or a "new system" rolled out. Lets look at our roles and re-frame our name! We hardly do just basic reference work these days, yet we are still extremely vital to each library --lets look at our specific jobs. We're all generalists and do everything, whether it's a little genealogy research, a little outreach, a little legal and medical assistance, or a little youth services. Lets come up with a more real and suitable name for our section. We also think it would be great if we could have joint meetings -the reference section meeting combined with diversity & outreach or readership and get some cross-section unity as well. Let's unite the sections!
Reporting Year: 
2015/2016
Report Submitted By:: 
Jill Stafford