Why Don’t You Have One Yet? Creating and Using Your Elevator Speech
11:25 AM - 11:50 AM
Description: Elevator speeches are a tool used in the business world for years. Some librarians have been hesitant to adapt the technique, expressing concerns that they will do something wrong or look foolish or unprofessional. The first obstacle many librarians face in using an elevator speech is in building a useful and winning one. Using an easy four-step worksheet, participants will be coached through the process of developing a concise, professional message that can be delivered in ten to thirty seconds to communicate their value. Discussion of obstacles and fears about using elevator speeches in any setting will be followed by presentation of a worksheet on the process and time to practice.
Author: Lisa K. Traditi, AHIP, Department Head and Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Health Sciences Library, University of Colorado-Denver Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO
Why Are You Here? Using an Elevator Speech to Achieve Integration into a Clinical Team
10:35 AM - 11:00 AM
Description: When librarians, informationists, or information specialists are invited to join clinical teams, it is useful to develop a consistent message on their role in the team as clinical personnel often changes. By using an elevator speech to achieve this consistent message, clinical team acceptance is achieved. Deciding what is most important to emphasize in an elevator speech can be hard because, at most, an individual has twenty to thirty seconds to communicate their value. A description of the elevator speech used in two different environments will show the thought that needs to go into the creation of this dynamic marketing tool.
Author: Julia Esparza, AHIP, Clinical Medical Librarian, Department of Medical Library Science, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, LA
Now That They Are Here: Equipping New Librarians to Deliver Their Elevator Speech!
11:00 AM - 11:25 AM
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the training program that our library developed to prepare newly hired librarians to become liaisons.
Setting: An urban academic health sciences library serving the schools of allied health professions, dentistry, medicine, nursing, and pharmacy.
Description: The literature suggests that it takes six to twelve months for a new employee to learn an organization’s culture and their role in that organization. In the fast-paced health sciences environment, new librarians do not always have the luxury of an extended orientation period. Our constituents do not differentiate between “seasoned” and new librarians; they just want information quickly, to the point, and at the point of need. They expect us to know the answers they need. Embracing the idea that one must possess the ability to promote the library at a moment’s notice, librarians must always be prepared to deliver an elevator speech regardless of the time, location, or target audience. This task is especially hard when you are still learning your job, the organization, and its people. In late 2010, we hired several new librarians within months of each other. Due to staffing shortages and competing priorities, we needed these individuals to be ready to assume liaison responsibilities in a relatively short amount of time. To shorten their orientation period, “seasoned” librarians developed a formal training program to bring these new librarians on board quickly. Our goal for the training was that our new staff members learn as much about our library’s collections, its services, and their assigned liaison school as quickly as possible. This training emphasized the need to gain an understanding of the library’s mission, the schools, and the programs we serve, and in-depth information about the individual schools the liaisons serve including curricula expectations, identification of the school’s key players, faculty research interests, and how well the library’s collection supports the discipline.
Author: Shannon D. Jones, AHIP, Associate Director, Research and Education, Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
