by Suzanne Arist, North Suburban Public Library

LAURA BARNES, CHAIR OF SLA- IL GOVERNMENT RELATIONS COMMMITTEE

Laura Barnes is the Librarian/Clearinghouse Specialist at the Illinois Waste Management and Research Center. She is a solo librarian with a ten hour per week student assistant. She runs the library, maintains the content on the library’s website (including an environmental news web log). Also, she manages publications distribution, which has become less time consuming because all of the Center’s publications are now available on the web. Laura is a consultant to several Environmental Protection Agency information sharing contracts that the Center is involved with.

The Illinois Waste Management and Research Center is a state non-regulatory environmental agency. WMRC provides technical assistance to Illinois companies to help them solve their environmental problems. In addition, the Center funds research dealing with Illinois environmental issues.

Chemists on the staff provide analytical support to the pollution prevention technical assistance engineers and work on other environmental chemistry projects. One of their major interests right now is eco-toxicology. They’re also doing analytical support for the WMRC’s Pollution Prevention Program’s bio-diesel program.

WMRC also has a relatively new environmental education program called Greening Schools. The focus of the program is to educate K-12 teachers and administrators about environmental issues and help them incorporate environmentally friendly practices into their curricula and their buildings.

The library’s primary clients are WMRC’s staff of engineers, chemists, and educators. Laura also runs a help desk librarian service for the Greening Schools project and the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable. Secondary clients include anyone who finds the web site and asks a question.

Her expertise with environmental information was gained completely on the job. She received her B.A. in History from The University of Illinois in 1989. While she was an undergraduate, she worked in the circulation department at the Champaign Public Library. Her experience at Champaign Public is what led her to library school, although she worked in a local bookstore for a year and a half before starting graduate school.

Laura was originally hired as the graduate assistant at the WMRC Library in 1991 (at that time, the agency was the Hazardous Waste Research and Information Center). Although she wanted to be a children’s librarian, she was happy to accept the GA position until she graduated in 1993.

After that, Laura applied for available library jobs in Champaign-Urbana (there weren’t too many;), while continuing to work as an hourly on a pollution prevention information grant that her manager had received about the time Laura finished her degree. She managed to find Laura funding until she left in late 1994. At that time, Laura applied for her supervisor’s position, which had been rewritten to exclude departmental management responsibilities, and was hired in early 1995. She says that she was in the right place at the right time.

Laura has had several turning points during her career. The first came during a practicum at the Rantoul Public Library. That experience helped her realize that, although she loves children’s books, she is not particularly creative when it comes to programming and it’s not something she likes to do. At the same time, she also realized that she is good at digging for information and pointing people toward resources. That’s something she wouldn’t have had the time to do as a reference librarian in a busy public library. It is something that she does every day in her current job.

The second turning point in Laura’s career was being asked to speak at the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference about environmental information on the Internet. As she hadn’t yet had a lot of experience as an environmental librarian, this was a big confidence booster.

According to Laura, participating in Synergy was certainly another turning point in the best way possible. Synergy is the Illinois library community’s leadership initiative. It’s sponsored by the Illinois State Library and the Illinois Library Association. Her experience made her look at her career and life in completely different ways. She established a bond with other participants.

Laura found Sara Tompson, the librarian who hired her as graduate assistant in 1991 to have been particularly inspiring. Sara was extremely generous with her time and wisdom. She was an excellent mentor to Laura when Laura was a student and now a wonderful friend.

Laura also admires the tremendous energy and talent of people she has worked with on the SLA – Illinois Chapter’s Board. Veronda Pitchford and Jan Chinlund, are two board members with whom she has enjoyed working.

In addition, Laura appreciates the expertise of the members of the SLA Environment and Resources Management Division. Whenever she has been stumped by a reference question or unable to find an article, they have always come through for her.

Laura is the chair of the SLA IL Chapter’s Government Relations Committee. Previously, she was the Member and Library News Editor for the Informant, and served on the Board of Directors.

At the national level, Laura is an active participant in the Environment and
Resources Management Division of SLA, particularly on the division e-mail list.
She was formerly the Membership Chair.

In addition to SLA, Laura serves on the Illinois Library Association Executive Board, the Lincoln Trail Libraries (LTLS) Board of Directors, and the University of Illinois at Champaign’s Library School Alumni Association Board. She serves on the LTLS Strategic Planning Committee.

When not at work, Laura and her husband spend much time with their seven year old daughter, Tessa. Laura is active in the PTA, reads to her daughter’s class once a week, and serves as a room parent. Laura and her husband enjoy chaperoning occasional field trips.

Laura is a co-mom (with Tessa) to an eight year old New Zealand White rabbit named Rosie. In her role as a bunny parent, Laura administers several Yahoo groups for the House Rabbit Society, a national rescue and education group focused on pet rabbits.

Laura is an avid reader with a wide range of interests. She is a fan of the television programs: West Wing, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, and Boston Legal. She enjoys Dish Network’s DVR and the movies. Fortunately Tessa is as big a movie addict as her mother and is getting old enough to by interested in movies that aren’t targeted at children.

The advice Laura would give to a beginning librarian who would like to work for the government, is advice she says she would give to any beginning librarian.1. Be prepared for politics to effect your job in one way or another. She says that she is fortunate to work in Champaign instead of Springfield so her library is somewhat distanced from daily political pressures. 2. Be able to sell yourself and your services to everyone in your organization. Marketing your value and the value of your library is critical to your survival as a professional. Make yourself the go-to person for information. 3. Get involved in professional organizations, particularly if you are in a one or two person library. SLA is a good choice but you should expand your horizons a little. Try getting involved with your local library system or the Illinois Library Association. You can learn a lot from public and school librarians. All librarians deal with many of the same issues. For instance, school librarian have many of the marketing pressures that special librarians do.

Laura encourages all librarians to attend the next Illinois Library Association Conference. She attended her first this year and was very favorably impressed. Stephen Abrams, Vice President of Innovation for Sirsi/Dynix (and SLA fellow) gave an inspiring keynote address. She also enjoyed sessions on change management and freedom of the press in the age of media consolidation. Next year’s ILA conference will be at Navy Pier.

Laura’s dedication to her career and family make her an exemplary librarian.