Shaking Hands
A Personal Reflection on Personaland Professional Connections
By Steve Kochoff,SLA NY Chapter President-elect
W
hile reading
Brigitte Hamann
and
Alan Bance’s
book
Winifred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler’s Bayreuth
, I realized that I was one hand-shake away from shaking Hitler’s hand. Of course I wasn’ttoo happy about that dare I say, epiphany — I have shakenthe hand of
Wolfgang Wagner
, one of Winifred’s childrenand the current manager of the annual Wagner Festivalin Bayreuth. Yet this example demonstrated again to me what I would posit are “no-degrees” of separation, nevermind six degrees! My point in sharing this vivid “discovery” is that in thepush-pull of our daily work lives I think we sometimesdon’t distance ourselves enough to consciously recognize whose hands we are “shaking” both literally and figura-tively. My advice would be that in our work lives we“map” the hands that we shake, either directly or indi-rectly. We need to consider where we sit in the reportingstructure of our organizations, both for profit and not-for-profit. Any number of special libraries and informa-tion centers might not report directly to top manage-ment, although some do. Nonetheless all are a “hand-shake” or two away from their top management andtheir boards.Do we maximize that “closeness?” — Do we study theorganization in which we sit, whose mission is supportedby special libraries? Do we “map” the organization andcharacterize various “hands”that is, those who are avidlibrary supporters, (for example, those the info centerhelped close a deal for the firm?) or, the passive support-ers (“I always get what I need from the info center”);enemies (“that library is an expense and what does it doto contribute to the bottom line?” — or, “why do weneed the expense of an info center for we can get all theinfo we need on the Internet?”)SLA President
Rebecca Vargha
has asked us to share our“sticky” stories. As a corollary, I’d add to that importantcampaign: continue to “consciously shake hands” in yourorganizations. It might sound a bit Machiavellian butsurvival of libraries and information centers is surely enhanced by helping all key players in an organizationunderstand the value and the contributions that speciallibraries make to their organizations. Shaking hands, lit-erally and metaphorically, should be as routine as turningon your computer. Our task is to continue our stories,lobbying and reminding our communities what we do forthem so that we can help them overcome the “taking usfor granted syndrome.” Perhaps a “sticky story” willdevelop out of your newfound awareness of those whosehands you shake. So my challenge to all of our SLA NY Chapter members is: step outside yourselves, analyze andmap the hands you have shaken and continue to shake,develop and share good elevator stories of how your work has helped the person or department, and makesure to tell your story to the people in your organizationregularly.
Steve Kochoff,
SLA NY Chapter President-elect and RegionalSales Director, Basch Subscriptions, Inc. He can be reached at stkockoff@hotmail.com.
ChapterNews
3
Vol. 79, #1 Spring 2007
SLA-NY
SNAP-SHOT
Summit on the Future of Special Libraries, hosted by EOS International, March 30, 2007, San Diego California.
Right to left,
Kevin Manion
(SLA New York Chapter Presi-dent);
Rebecca Vargha
(President Special Libraries Associa-tion);
Linda Counts
(SLA San Diego Chapter President);
Guy St-Clair
(Consulting Specialist for Knowledge Services,SMR International);
Karen Kreizman Reczek
(SLA Knowledge Management Division Chair);
GeorgiaScura
(SLA Connecticut Valley Chapter President);
Janice Lachance
(Chief Executive Officer, Special Libraries Associa-tion);
David Cappoli
(SLA Southern California Chapter President-Elect).
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