8th Anniversary of Stephen’s Lighthouse and an update on me.

So today I celebrate the 8th anniversary of this blog.  The first posting was on July 8, 2005.  Lots has changed in this time.  I’ve was employed at Sirsi (eventually to be SirsiDynix) at that time and followed my CEO to Cengage Learning and Gale and brought my blog with me.  I left Gale on January 8th – exactly 6 months ago today.

Today I consult through my new (2013!) consultancy, Lighthouse Consulting (wonder where I got that name!) and I am associated with the esteemed Dysart & Jones Associates.  I am also engaged as the CEO/Executive Director of the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries where I advocate on behalf of the value and impact of public libraries and their staff in Ontario.  It’s an exciting, and terrifying, life. The stakes are so high but we’re committed to make a difference and make it happen.

My consulting work has been quite varied and very interesting this year.  I am learning a lot while practicing the skills I’ve developed over 35 years as a librarian.  2013 has been very interesting and has been teaching this old dog a few new tricks as I follow my own advice and take more risks.  I’ve successfully worked on a strategic plan for a major iSchool.  I’ve sat on a number of academic advisory boards of LIS schools and enjoy contributing to the education and professional development of our future colleagues.  With my colleagues, I am working on the strategic plan update for a major library association as well as a couple of library reviews and strategic planning processes.  We are helping with the strategic planning process for a few public libraries as well as a few university and college libraries.  I especially enjoy the development of targeted environmental scans and the reports and presentations that emerge from them.  I’ve assisted with the strategy work of a major state-wide K-12 consortia.  I have worked on some change management training for libraries and that was fun.  And the facilitation of the wealth of ideas amongst library teams has been gratifying while working on setting priorities that have impact on their commnuities and users.  We also engage in third party interviews and surveys of clients and peers of libraries to create idea banks and benchmarks for those libraries.  I am loving the development of personas to drive strategic plan implementation and focus our clients on supporting the real user/client and keep the end-user at the top of the priority list for programs and products.  Jane Dysart and I are developing a series of symposia for the iSchool @ Toronto on hot opportunities in the library space.  The first one is on Makerspaces, and we have plans for more in the Autumn on topics like MOOCs and libraries.  We’re also hoping to offer a series of webinars on key strategic opportunities in the library sector.   I continue to write and have 3-4 books coming out this year and more than a few articles – as usual.  I’m keeping busy and there’s always room for more.  Life is never boring.

I continue to speak at conferences and loved some recent trips to Cambridge UK, Northern Ireland and Brazil.  I am looking forward to speeches in the the US, Prague, and Mexico.  In the past I had an employer sponsor for my speeches so I am cutting back and charging (a reasonable) fee.  If you’re from a place I’ve never been you have a good chance of a discount.  I’m look at you West Virginia (the only state I’ve never been to)!  😉

Anyway, today is the anniversary of Stephen’s Lighthouse.  I see, in hindsight, that this blog was transformational for me in finding my voice as a librarian.   I had no idea how long this blog would last but I feel deeply the need to write, pontificate, question and point, and this is where I find an outlet.  I appreciate all of you who visit, comment, add me to your RSS feeds, like my postings on Facebook or re-tweet them to your tweeps.  Thank you.

Here is what I wrote for the first blog posting on July 8, 2005.  It still stands up as my mission for my blog, and it helps me follow my passion for libraries and librarianship in all sectors.

“Well here’s my first formal blog posting. Welcome to Stephen’s Lighthouse where I’ll muse about things library and librarianesque.

The lighthouse theme is based on what lighthouses do – shine a light on the waters and/or sound a horn to help ships navigate the course.  They don’t always stop the ships from crashing onto the rocks but they help most of the time.
So, arrogant or not, I hope that this blog contributes in some small way to helping the good ship Library World navigate to their vision of the future.

It also helps me keep all the things I find that I want to remember in one place!”

So, it’s like an 8th birthday party for a 59-year-old.  Still fun and full of potential and a long adventure still ahead.

Cheers,

Stephen