Insights from the SLA Fellows – Tom Rink

SLA Europe DigiComms

New SLA Fellow Dennie Heye has started to interview other SLA Fellows to find out what we can learn from them. The sixth in this series of SLA Fellow interviews is with Tom Rink, currently employed by Northeastern State University on the Broken Arrow Campus.

As fellow, you have been recognized for your work to enhance SLA and the profession. I always feel that as fellows, we are standing on shoulders of giants. Who within the profession was the first to inspire you?

I have been fortunate to have had many mentors throughout the course of my career. When thinking back on who in the profession first inspired me I would have to say my parents. My father was the library director at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, Michigan, and my mother had been a children’s librarian at Traverse City Public. Libraries have always been a part of my life.

If you think about the future of our profession – what keeps you awake at night and why?

Tom RinckNothing really keeps me awake at night, but staying relevant and the ability to keep pace with change (especially technology) causes me some unease. Librarians and information professionals are in demand more than ever. With the advent of the information age (and the growth of the internet and online resources) accessing information is as easy as ever. The critical need now is the ability to sift through or refine that information into knowledge and insight. As described by Seth Godin, librarians “can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear,” and our future is bright. Conceptually, we need to shift our focus away from libraries (the buildings and the collections) and toward ourselves (our own skills and what we can provide) – we are information concierges.

When it comes to innovation, a lot of companies are trying to stay ahead of the competition by disrupting themselves from the inside out. For example, Netflix disrupted their profitable DVD mail order business by starting a movie streaming service via the Internet. Do you have ideas how information professionals could start disruptive innovation in their organizations?

The definition of disruptive would vary from organization to organization (as well as by type of library: public, academic, special, school) based upon their existing operational realities. The best idea I have on how an IP could start disruptive innovation in their organization would be to allow, stimulate, or encourage out-of-the-box thinking and to remove the word “no” from their vocabulary, at least initially (the idea may have to wait for funding, but don’t let the lack of funding stifle a good idea). Become early-adopters of technology and look for ways to improve workflow or processes using this new technology. Never settle for the status quo. Don’t become complacent. And, let’s not forget to ask our users what they are wanting or hoping from us and then work on making it happen.

If you were given a chance to go 10 years back in time, what would you do differently in your job and professional development?

They say that hindsight is 20/20, so if we were to rewind the clock ten years or so, I would definitely seek out more opportunities to promote and/or gain supervisory and/or management experience. Supervising and managing people is not something that I enjoy doing, but having more well-developed managerial skills in your toolbox would definitely hold you in good stead. But aside from that, I’m not sure there is much else from my job or my professional development that I would change. My career has been very rewarding and I have been provided numerous opportunities to stretch, grow, and develop (which will continue, I’m sure).

In order to remain relevant in the future, what should SLA start doing? Stop doing? Do more of?

Since I am a huge fan of SLA, I’m not sure how objective I can be on this topic. But I think SLA is already evaluating these very questions. From the Alignment Project a few years ago, to the current Strategic Agenda, SLA has spent the last several years looking for ways to remain relevant into the future. So, rather than the words “start,” “stop,” and “do more of,” I would say that SLA should “continue” moving forward on these types of initiatives. Also, as members of this Association, it is also our responsibility to assist in this endeavour by remaining engaged and by opening up or maintaining a dialogue with our unit leaders as well as the Association toward that end. We are all in this together. If our chosen Association fails to stay relevant, what does that say about us, its members? To stay relevant we must continue to question, we must continue to remain strategic in our thinking, and we must envision (and take steps to accomplish) what we want our future to be.

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