April 5, 2011 (REVISED April 7, 2011) New Professional Development Group for Federal Librarians

To drive innovations in succession planning and knowledge management in the federal information community, the Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC) has formed a New Librarians Working Group (NewFeds). NewFeds will support the development and advancement of early career professionals with less than five years of federal service.

“NewFeds will accomplish two critical goals for the federal libraries: enhancing the visibility of their interagency collaboration and bringing new ideas and energy to the community,” said Blane K. Dessy, executive director of FLICC. “NewFeds will offer an opportunity for these new librarians to build their leadership capacity, create targeted professional development and training programs and keep the entire community current with the latest competencies, best practices and developing issues within the federal library and information center field,” Dessy said.

NewFeds is also concerned with building a sense of community among new FLICC members, advocating for new professionals, promoting careers in federal libraries and developing partnerships with other FLICC working groups and library professional associations. “We hope to build a broad partnership base and look forward to collaborating with librarians throughout the federal government,” according to Jessica Hernandez, a librarian at the Food and Drug Administration’s Biosciences Library and co-chair of NewFeds.

NewFeds will also build a sense of community among new FLICC members and facilitate participation in the greater federal and library communities. Aimee Babcock-Ellis, a librarian at the Drug Enforcement Administration and co-chair of NewFeds, said, “I am new to the federal government and wanted a community I could share my experiences with as well as find out about other people’s experiences. I wanted to set something up for future NewFeds so they would have an outlet and community for support with their new positions.'

The working group is formalizing its committee infrastructure and setting an agenda for fiscal year 2012. Amanda Wilson, director of the Department of Transportation Library, will serve as the group’s FLICC Executive Board liaison. Interested professionals who wish to participate in the group should contact FLICC for more information.

Since its founding in 1965, FLICC, headquartered at the Library of Congress, has fostered excellence in federal library and information services through interagency cooperation. For more than 30 years, its FEDLINK network has helped federal library and information centers and other federal offices nationally and internationally save effort, time and money when buying and using commercial information services while consolidating the considerable buying power of federal agencies.