Chair Column, June 1999

"Term, holidays, term, holidays, til we leave school, then work, work, work, til we die" – C.S. Lewis.

C.S. Lewis's schoolboy outlook on life from his autobiography Surprised by Joy is funny if you are not trapped in its definition and awful in its accuracy if you are. Most of us in the library profession are in it by choice, and so we don't have the need to be so cynical about our work lives. I think it is safe to say that people who are smart enough to be librarians are smart enough to engage in more lucrative pursuits, but that there is something about the nature of our occupation that keeps us in it.

Perhaps it is a more humane way to get through life than pure money-getting. Perhaps it is the satisfaction that comes from serving the intellectual needs of our patrons. Those of us in Technical Services are attracted by these and other pleasures: the privilege of putting knowledge to use by ordering it, the ability to master a complex universe of rules and systems, and the chance to master new technologies. It's when we turn to the less enjoyable elements in our work – a recalcitrant employee, the lack of appreciation for our accomplishments, mega-vendors with no customer service – that C.S. Lewis seems to be onto something. It's at those times especially that the Technical Services Special Interest Section is there to help. Our bylaws state that the "object of the Technical Services Special Interest Section shall be:"

1. To promote the communication of ideas, interests, and research which concern acquisitions, cataloging and classification, preservation of library materials, serials control, exchange of duplicates and other traditional areas of technical services;
2. And, which lead to the development and coordination of the country's law library resources, in all types and sizes of libraries.

"Promote the communication" is the phrase that more than any other defines the purpose of the SIS and gives an indication of how the SIS best serves its members. When you attend a good program at the annual meeting, find some great piece of advice on the TS listserv, or read a particularly helpful column in TSLL, most of the good that you receive has come from an individual making the effort to be helpful. That's what the SIS is – those individual people who provide those services. The SIS is the umbrella under which all of those helpful Technical Services people can gather. We promote the communication of all those ideas, interests, and research by somehow gathering a critical mass of people who are interested in the issues of our work; but it is those individuals who provide the real meat, the thing you can actually use in your job. The SIS is there to connect helper and helpee.

So now you should be asking yourself whether you are part of the SIS in that sense. Are you a member who benefits from the help provided in the SIS but who doesn't give anything back? It is a cliche to say that an organization is only as good as its members, but with a wholly voluntary group like this, it cannot be denied. All of us are "consumers" of the help provided by our membership in TS-SIS; all of us should also be "manufacturers" as well.

I think one of our great challenges is to think of new ways to contribute help. While we will always need people to volunteer for committee work or to be on the board, we also need to be creative in thinking of new ways to help out our fellow Technical Services librarians in the legal field. That is, we need to "promote the communication" of any useful ideas to the membership of our SIS. For example, when you scour your favorite specialized listserv archives to decipher some problem you are having with your home operation, and you piece together the solution after sorting out the information dispersed through 8 months of postings, summarize your problem and the solution and post it to the TS listserv – you will be surprised how appreciative at least a handful of people in the same position will be. We must also remember that something as "consumer" oriented as asking a question can be a great contribution. It is often the best way to get a conversation rolling. And, as our survey results indicated, most people who attend the annual meetings prefer the roundtable discussions above any other format. Perhaps we should be better about mimicking roundtables in our online conversations.

Speaking of those who are "manufacturers" of help within the SIS, I would like to thank all of the members who helped us on the board by filling out and sending in your surveys this year. Everyone enjoys finding out what you think, and we certainly take the results seriously. To those returning to their work on the board – incoming Chair Janet McKinney, Treasurer Linda Tesar, and Member-at-Large JoAnn Hounshell – I thank you for your continuing service. To our new Member-at-Large, Cindy May, and our new Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, Alva Stone, I wish the best of luck and feel confident that the SIS is being left in very good hands. To Mary Burgos, finishing up her term as Member-atLarge, I am grateful for all her help and support. To the Committee Chairs I am very grateful for your work and for much helpful advice. I would like especially to thank Linda Tesar and Anna Belle Leiserson, editors of Technical Services Law Librarian, for making our association so pleasant, and for bringing the work of the two SISes together so attractively and professionally.

Whether your attitude toward your job is "work, work, work, til you die" or something more positive depends at least partly on your attitude toward your profession. It is one of the purposes of the Technical Services Special Interest Section to keep your professional life positive. Please help us to accomplish that.