SIERRA NEVADA CHAPTER
SPECIAL LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION
SURVEY RESULTS
Thanks to all the librarians of the Sacramento County Public
Library System who participated in the survey of the Sierra Nevada Chapter of
the Special Libraries Association.
We had 42 responses (40 full-time permanent and 2 part-time
permanent librarians)
2 respondents had less than a year’s experience
10 respondents had 1-5 years’ experience
10 respondents had 6-10 years’ experience
5 respondents had 11-15 years’ experience
15 respondents had 16+ years’ experience
20 respondents WERE aware of our local chapter of the Special Libraries Association
22 respondents were NOT aware of our chapter
32 respondents asked that we add their names and email addresses to our email list so that we might notify them
of the programs we have during the year.
In our survey we asked for people to express their level of interest in various programs.
| Would Definitely Attend | May attend | Probably Would NOT Attend | Definitely Would Not Attend | |
| Tours of local libraries & archives | 7 | 28 | 6 | 0 |
| Workshop and/or lecture on Cataloging & Classification |
1 | 7 | 19 | 14 |
| Workshop and/or lecture: Social Media | 4 | 27 | 10 | 1 |
| Workshop and/or lecture: Copyright | 5 | 14 | 17 | 5 |
| Workshop and/or lecture: Current Topics of Interest | 3 | 35 | 4 | |
| Lectures and presentations by Library Leaders | 7 | 25 | 8 | 1 |
| Lectures and presentations by Local Authors | 3 | 26 | 11 | 1 |
| Lectures & presentations by Notable Community Figures | 4 | 24 | 11 | 2 |
| Social and Networking opportunities | 5 | 17 | 18 | 1 |
In our survey we asked for people to express their level of interest in various programs formats.
| Would definitely attend | May attend | Probably would not attend | Definitely would not attend | |
| Virtual Presentations | 8 | 23 | 9 | 0 |
| In person with Guest Speakers | 9 | 28 | 3 | 0 |
| In person Workshop | 7 | 32 | 3 | 0 |
| Roundtable / Panel Discussion | 4 | 20 | 13 | 2 |
WRITTEN COMMENTS ADDED TO THE SURVEY:
- Cost and transportation are important factors for me.
- I’m a public librarian so it wouldn’t occur to me to pay attention to special library assoc.
- I have attended at least 3 meetings. The last one I went to, Stacy Aldrich [the CA State Librarian] gave a speech.
- I was a special librarian for 25 years and have now been a public librarian for six years. Please keep us public librarians in mind for your events.
- Your events are excellent. I loved the tours and the presentations with Stacey Aldrich and Rivkah Sass. Attending these events ultimately led me to a professional position as a Librarian in Sacramento, so thank you kindly! I’m already subscribed to the list-serv, but you can add my work email to your list-serv, see above. I appreciate Phoebe Ayers as a leader in the library community.
- I am a Youth Services librarian with Sacramento Public Library, and am very busy, but I would like to connect with colleagues in other libraries. Thanks for opportunity.
- Can’t just take off work willy-nilly; would have to have plenty of warning. Would pretty much have to be job-related.
Again, thanks to all who responded. We will be adding the names and emails of those interested in our programs to our email list. We are grateful for the thoughtful feedback you have provided and look forward to seeing many of you at our programs in the future.
A special thanks goes to Rivkah Sass who enthusiastically supported us in preparing this survey and getting the word out to the Sacramento County Library staff to participate in it.
One last thought – All librarians are special – whether public, school, academic, legal, medical, corporate or any of the many unique information fields where librarians make a significant contributions to acquiring and disseminating information to their patrons.
Best wishes to all,
B. J. Combs
President
Sierra Nevada Chapter
Special Libraries Association
