ACRL New England Chapter News Online Fall, 2001, No. 94

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President's Letter: A Community of Practice

Dawn Thistle
Assumption College

Last year ACRL/NEC's fall conference was titled "Opening the Gates: Developing our Information Communities," and several of its sessions related to ways that technology can be used to build community. As we planned that conference, several of us were thinking about the book, The Social Life of Information, by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. In this book the authors talk a lot about "communities of practice" and even suggest that technology may serve us best when it is used to enhance the communities that are already in place.

I think that may be true. In libraries we have all seen how technology has integrated our services--both on the local level of our own libraries and on the professional level--knitting them together with shared bibliographic records, shared databases, shared systems and shared expertise. Here at Assumption we are looking forward to migrating from one library system to another. One of the major reasons for our switch is that we will be joining a larger local community of users. We know that when we have questions, we can quickly ask our colleagues down the road or across Worcester, and, if we still need assistance, we can reach out to the larger regional or national users group.

This is something that I love about librarianship--that we are a community of practice, of learners, of users, of colleagues. Regardless of the technology being used, we always end up going to other people for support and encouragement. ACRL/NEC is a perfect example of this, and I have come to appreciate all of you for everything that you have given to the organization through sharing with each other. We share just about anything that is share-able and all our libraries benefit!

I believe that we also share core values, as hard to define as they may be. The program of the ACRL/NEC 2001 fall conference (November 9 at UMASS Boston) will center on our core values. Come join us as we explore and share those ideas, practices, and values that are the foundations of what we do, and that are the glue that holds our community of practice together.