Communication And Committees
(Bear with me here: this rant/post isn’t as “off topic” as it may seem. Many news librarians have to serve on committees.)
I’ve been tossing what SJ wrote about committee work and news distribution in my mind and suddenly found myself combining the two. I think some of the problem with communication is that some people and groups are just not good at communicating to begin with. And this lack of communication can pose problems for people on those committees, as well as people who may be tangentially effected by the work of the committees. I think some people don’t understand the value of communicating.
Communication can be very basic. A quick conversation at a meeting establishing what the committee is doing and when it will be done can let people get a good sense of the purpose and timeframe. Distributing meeting notes (especially soon after a meeting) can inform committee members not at the meeting, remind them about what they’re supposed to be doing, and keep people focused on what the committee is and supposed to be doing. The chair can contact members who haven’t been at a meeting for a while to find out whether they’re still interested and let them know about upcoming events. Committees are a great venue for practicing communication. Once people get in the habit of communicating better, some of the problems with news distribution to a wider audience may become much simpler because people will already want to get the word out about what’s happening and have some ideas about how to do it.
I find it ironic when I reflect back on how many group projects we had in library school to prepare us for committee work in our careers. In the midst of all that preparation, I can’t remember any of our professors taking time to teach us about how to run effective meetings and committees. Come to think of it, we didn’t learn that much about communicating and public relations in any formal manner, either.
