One of the many positive aspects of solo librarianship is the diversity of the practitioners. Among them are law librarians, medical librarians, corporate/special librarians and archivists, to name just a few. This diversity helps solo librarians to better help one another, solving common problems and sharing/implementing best practices.

We recently offered a webinar presented by museum evangelist and strategist Nina Simon, where she drew upon research for her book, The Art of Relevance, and offered substantive, creative, inspiring and practical advice on how to increase your organization’s relevance to the communities you hope to engage. Interestingly, in Nina’s role as speaker, she offers advice that applies whether you work in a library, a museum, a theater, a park, an academic institution or a corporation. It’s all relevant.

The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) is a national professional organization with a $45.5 million budget representing more than 95,000 members. Its goal is to foster advancements in physical therapy practice, research, and education. APTA is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, with more than 180 employees serving APTA members, and has a small library staff that delivers large library results, with Inmagic Presto.

Baylor University is a private Christian university and nationally ranked research institution in Texas with more than 16,000 students, and multiple libraries and archives maintained by approximately 30 staff members. They have achieved significant impact using Star Knowledge Center for Archives (SKCA) to manage their collections.

Earlier this year, we presented a “KM Conversation” with knowledge management evangelist and expert Stan Garfield. “Gamification Accelerates KM Adoption” focused on using proven gamification techniques to encourage active participation in KM initiatives and venues. Earning membership in a “Circle of Excellence” can be a powerful knowledge exchange incentive.

Many librarians choose to work on their own, inside many different types of organizations. All library skills—whether reference, cataloging, or collection development—are useful and valuable to both solo librarians and their users. However, there are challenges (both budgetary and organizational) to going it alone which require one-person library managers to seek out both a network and a professional development “support system.”

Earlier this year, we presented a “KM Conversation” with knowledge management evangelist and expert Stan Garfield. “Gamification Accelerates KM Adoption” focused on using gamification techniques—including awarding points and point scoring—to help build user engagement and ensure your KM platform is vibrant and widely leveraged within your organization.

We will be offering a free webinar on November 15th that promises a substantive and thoughtful discussion full of creative, inspiring and practical advice on how to increase your organization’s relevance to the communities you hope to engage.

Earlier this year, we presented a “KM Conversation” with knowledge management evangelist and expert Stan Garfield. “Gamification Accelerates KM Adoption” focused on using gamification techniques to crack the challenging problem of building user engagement and ensuring that your KM platform is vibrant and widely leveraged within your organization.

Earlier this year, we presented a second “KM Conversation” with experienced library and information industry leader Stephen Abram, titled “Using Metrics and Stories: What Does Success Really Look Like?” During the session Stephen shared the real purpose of storytelling in a professional context.

Earlier this year, we presented a second "KM Conversation" with experienced library and information industry leader Stephen Abram, titled "Using Metrics and Stories: What Does Success Really Look Like?" During the session Stephen and Phil Green, Lucidea’s COO, shared their thoughts on the most powerful presentation of measurements.

Earlier this year, we presented a second “KM Conversation” with experienced library and information industry leader Stephen Abram. “Using Metrics and Stories: What Does Success Really Look Like?” was a lively discussion between Mr. Abram and Phil Green, Lucidea’s COO, focused on best practices in collecting and using metrics to build stories that demonstrate what success looks like for your special library or information center.

Earlier this year, we presented a “KM Conversation” with well-known enterprise social network expert, author and consultant Euan Semple. During our session “The New Knowledge Ecosystem: Content and Connection,” Euan shared his thoughts on what it takes to build advocacy, engagement and adoption of enterprise social networks, and why it’s important.

Special librarians achieve sustainability by understanding that evolving end user requirements demand new services, innovative solutions, information discovery on-the-go and the most effective channels for knowledge exchange—even (perhaps especially) in these days of diminishing resources.

Originally Posted 1/12/2016

Benjamin Franklin, the founder of America’s first lending library, wrote: “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.” We think Mr. Franklin would likely agree that discount ILS platforms often don’t provide the long term quality (i.e. value) that financially savvy and strategic library leaders must require.

Earlier this year, we presented a “KM Conversation” with well-known enterprise social network expert and consultant Euan Semple. During our session “The New Knowledge Ecosystem: Content and Connection,” Lucidea’s COO Phil Green discussed with Euan the imperative for librarians and other knowledge professionals to participate in enterprise social networks.

Earlier this year, we presented a “KM Conversation” with well-known enterprise social network expert and consultant Euan Semple. During our session “The New Knowledge Ecosystem: Content and Connection,” Lucidea’s COO Phil Green engaged Euan in a discussion of how social sharing and the wisdom of the crowd enable meaningful and necessary participation in professional digital networks.

Special librarians are continually asked to do more, even in the face of diminishing resources. Many special librarians are all too aware of this, and hearing about effective ways to thrive nonetheless is one of the reasons that information professionals attend the SLA annual conference.