Together with four other panelists, I presented my experience starting the Rochester Early-Career Information Professionals (for more information about the group, you can refer to this previous post here)
The groups discussed during this session include:
A division of ACRL, SNAP a roundtable in SAA and REPS as part of the new England Archivists and the Archives and Records Administration group in the UK.
Take-aways from the discussion include:
Ensuring sustainability by remaining true to the mission of the group and a strong leadership base.
Maintain documentation of activities and founding decisions.
Make sure to meet the needs of your demographic or targeted audience.
Issues that arose during our open forum was an incredibly valuable part of the session:
How can those in their first job and still developing their skill set feel supported through their professional organizations, especially as those first jobs can take on a lot of different shapes?
Should MARAC develop a formal mentoring program to support students and new professionals?
What kinds of needs do new professionals or post new professionals have?
One question I have, is once the needs of a particular group have been heard by the larger organization, does the group still need to function independently?