Editor of this issue:

William Self, The Medical Library Center of New York, 5 East 102nd St., 7th Floor, New York, NY 10029 S-1, Phone: 212-427-1630, Fax: 212-860-3496, E-mail: wself@mlcny.org.

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The New York-New Jersey MLA Chapter offered a Mini Scholarship to enable chapter member to attend the meeting symposium "Leadership Reconsidered: Developing a Strategic Agenda for Leadership in Health Sciences Libraries" during the MLA Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas this year. Violet Evans, Head, Technical Services, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Medical Research Library, Brooklyn, NY was selected as the recipient of this scholarship and her experiences are summarized below.

Q: Did you get a chance to network?

A: Yes, there was great opportunity for networking. During the symposium there were break out sessions and we were assigned to work in groups with colleagues sharing interests in the areas of:

• Qualities, skills, and competencies for leadership
• Unique aspects of health science libraries leaders
• Challenges and obstacles to leadership
• Leadership roles and career paths

The group that I worked in (Qualities, skills and competencies for Leadership) had participants in a variety of different levels of library leadership roles extending from directors to heads of departments to librarians who play no formal role in regard to the managerial aspects. Because of this diversity suggestions were taken as to how one could handle situations that may arise within their institution. As a result of this sharing we all look forward to possibly meeting at next year's meeting in San Diego and bringing each other up to date with how we have implemented the knowledge that we took away from the symposium.

Q: Any leadership issues and/or programs you became more aware of?

A:I learned several valuable lessons, most of which came from Maureen Sullivan's (Faculty, ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute) discussion in regards to leadership where she defines it as The process of influence; inspiring others to accomplish/achieve results. Other points that I have found to be helpful to become an effective leader include:

• self awareness (know who we are and where we want to be in the profession);
• self management (how we manage our time and develop a program to enhance our individual leadership/management skills);
• social awareness (become well informed about the political matters that are occurring within our institutions); and
• social skills (interact with individual outside of our libraries, thus establishing relationship).

In addition, it is important to incorporate everyone's viewpoint without letting people feel as if the past is being discarded, or that they are being left out of important decisions, thus making them afraid of implementing change or planning ahead for the future.

Programs which I have become more aware of are as follows:

• Frye Institute - consists of an intense 2 week program that is focused towards faculty, academic administrators, information technologists, and librarians who will take on future leadership roles. For more information visit www.fryeinstitute.org
• ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute - to enhance leadership management skills of individuals who make management decisions. The 5 day program covers skills of leadership, organizational strategy, transformational learning and planning. For more information visit www.gse.harvard.edu/~ppe/
• ARL/Office of Leadership and Management Services - focuses on identifying and developing skilled library staff and leadership talent that will prepare for future roles by empowering behavioral change, practices and organizational cultures. For more information visit http://www.arl.org/olms/
• NLM Training Programs (NLM & NN/LM "CE" Courses, Associate Fellowship Program, Woods Hole Medical Informatics Course) - the purpose of these programs is prepare new librarians and those who have been in the profession for a while for leadership roles in the health sciences libraries. More information may be found at www.nlm.nih.gov/about/training/associate/index.html

Q: Did you get a chance to learn how our library profession responds to leadership challenges regarding critical issues?

A: Yes, regarding leadership challenges to critical issues it is important to have knowledge about the political situations that occur within our institutions and use this knowledge to enhance our social skills, thus building partnerships. The partnerships that we do embrace should include the attributes of being change agents and conducting our partnerships with honesty and integrity, which will be a benefit to all who are connected to the organization as a whole. Overall, to become effective leaders who are able to address challenges of critical issues we must take the time and opportunity to invest in programs that will groom us to become better leaders, give us the ability to handle challenges and implement change.

Q: Any ideas come out of it that may be applied to your particular institution?

A: Ideas presented during the symposium that can be applied to my institution, other library organizations and to my personal life as well are as follows:

• Realize who I am in the profession and where I want to be
• Develop my agenda for learning
• Work with effective mentors recognizing my strengths but improving my areas of weakness
• Encourage self leadership and encourage to make an ongoing process thus building opportunities for coaching/mentoring
• Share the information that I have gained with others in hopes of making them aware of the leadership knowledge that exists

Finally I will remember what Maureen Sullivan encouraged us to do: