November meeting: CoP's at NSLS

Community of Practices at the North Suburban Library System

As always, the meeting will be from 5-7 pm on the 2nd Tuesday (Nov 8th)
The speakers will be at the Allstate location in Northbrook, and we will have our normal webcast to FActiva in the Loop.

Abstract: The North Suburban Library System (NSLS) is a multi-type consortium serving more than 650 member libraries in the northwest suburbs of Illinois. NSLS needed a way for its members to enhance their face-to-face networking meetings and communicate more effectively in an electronic environment. This presentation will give an overview of NSLS’s KM initiative with an in-depth look at the implementation of Community of Practices (CoPs) among our membership. We'll explore how we went about creating the CoPs in-house, gathering feedback, and making enhancements. We'll discuss internal and external marketing of the CoPs as well as the lessons learned throughout. Finally, we'll talk about our success with the CoPs and our KM initiative and what's planned for the future.

Speakers
Christina Stoll is the Knowledge Manager and Special Library Liaison for the North Suburban Library System, spear heading their Knowledge Management Initiative. Her work in libraries began in 1995 and she has been working for NSLS for the past four years, have recently taken over as Member Liaison to the Special Libraries. Christina’s expertise is with project management of the KM Initiative, taxonomies, organizational development and staff training. She earned her Masters in Library and Information Science degree from Dominican University in 2001. Christina has presented on NSLS’s KM Initiative several times, most recently at APQC’s annual conference in May 2005, and will be speaking at the 8^th Annual Braintrust International 2006 in February.

Debbie Baaske is the Special Projects Coordinator and Academic Library Liaison for the North Suburban Library System. She has over six years experience training and presenting on library related issues. Recently she presented at Infotoday, LITA (Libraries in Technology) and APQC on Knowledge Management and will present at the 8^th Annual Braintrust International 2006 in February. Debbie's expertise is with CoPs as the leader of the team that has created over 19 CoPs for NSLS' member libraries. Debbie earned her Masters in Library Science from Long Island University and her Bachelors in Business Administration from St. Joseph's College. Prior to working as a consultant at NSLS, Debbie worked as a trainer/customer support specialist for a software company.