Part of my degree program includes creating an e-portfolio showcasing my accomplishments in different aspects of librarianship. Two of them are advocacy and collaboration. I think I will use my work with New Hampshire Library Association as part of my portfolio.

In case you are not familiar with NHLA, they are a wonderful group comprised of librarians and paraprofessionals engaged in a number of activities. I work with the Reference and Adult Services (READS) committee. We host an annual conference and a series of roundtables throughout the state.

I was asked to create a brochure for the 2014 conference “Reference and Relevance in the 21st Century“ and was thrilled when I was asked to create a web page for the 2015 Roundtable Series “The Community Driven Library: Understanding your Community.”

One of the things I did in recent weeks was set up a Google group for our committee to collaborate. As one of the newer members, I was having a hard time keeping track of everyone who I wanted to communicate with. Having a single point of contact has been helpful to me for other groups. We’ll see how it works for READS. So far, so good.

Since we are spread out across the state, we do most of our work through email and sometimes by phone. We meet occasionally, and I last week I was surprised how much we got done in a face to face meeting.