ALA Emerging Leaders American Library Association A More Interesting Than It Looks Guide To Mentorship

This is a quick guide to learning about the role of Emerging Leader mentors. Your tasks and role are outlined here.

The Emerging Leaders program began in 2007 as one ALA immediate past president Leslie Burger’s six key initiatives.

If you’d like to learn more, you should check out the wiki… Click Here! (

Your role as mentor can be summarized with the four C’s …

Communicate Coordinate Catapult Communicate

After you receive your team member list… give them a call. (or send them an intro )

Make sure you have voice contact with at least one team member.

Three things you can do that will correlate highly with the success of the project and the quality of experience for you and the Emerging Leaders Team...

Verify that the team understands their project and what their deliverables are. 1 Presentation?Report? Database? Website? Something else?

2 Let them know that you are their primary contact. If they need anything they should contact you (and you will contact the ALA Staff Liaison for support if needed)

Reconfirm phone numbers and addresses for all team members. Make sure they have your contact information. 3

Let them know you’ll be in touch on a regular basis to check in and answer questions. This may be monthly or weekly. Whatever is best for you and your team.

Coordinate (lightly)

Coordinate with your team and the ALA program/organization liaison. (But coordinate lightly. Offer support, but let the team be creative in achieving the goal.)

Coordinate with the ALA Staff liaison to secure necessary materials and resources for the team. Make sure your team has the knowledge, guidance, and support they need for a successful project.

Coordinate a meeting at annual conference. If you can’t attend the poster session or your team’s presentations, try to coordinate a meeting at another time.

Catapult

Okay, catapult might be a strong term…

As a mentor, we hope that you’ll introduce your mentees to your peers and help them to interact at conference.

Here are some ideas…

“Harry, meet Sally. Sally, meet Harry. Sally is my team B mentee and is just starting out in cataloging. Harry, tell her about your life as a rock star cataloger”

“I’m co-chair of the Awesome Librarians Roundtable, would you like to come and sit in on the meeting?”

“If you ever need an advisor or an answer to a question, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’m happy to help if I can.”

In helping your team and their members, you’ll find that you’ll learn a lot too… and you’ll both grow from the experience.

And the fourth “C”….

Communicate “Mentors cannot over-communicate” - comment from Emerging Leader 2010

Thank you for participating. If you have any questions, please contact: Peter Bromberg, Emerging Leaders Program Chair x223

Thank you to Christine Ayar Illichmann for developing this Mentor Orientation