Take advantage of the upcoming 2011 SLA Annual Conference in Philadelphia to brush up on your skills! You can enroll in the Continuing Education courses even if you don’t register for the full conference.

This year the Business & Finance Division of SLA is offering two new courses as well as essential courses focusing on business and industry research and contract management. Register for these and other courses on the SLA Annual Conference Registration page.

The B&F Division courses at this year’s conference include:

Identifying and Creating New Services
12 June 2011 (Sunday) — 1:00PM – 5:00PM
Expanding or creating new services in any information organization can be difficult. The instructor, an experienced librarian and sales professional will teach strategies and techniques to cultivate key relationships, identify needs and turn those opportunities into new and innovative services.
Instructor: Gayle Gossen, Dow Jones & Co.
Cost: USD $265 Member/Student — USD $365 Non-Member

Your Virtual Research Library: Providing More with Less
12 June 2011 (Sunday) — 8:00AM – 12:00PM
This course will provide research managers and/or Intranet administrators with a foundation to design and implement a virtual research center that users can access 24/7. This course emphasizes an understanding of users’ information needs and their adeptness at leveraging information. Course content will explore several strategies for determining the most efficient way to virtually present available content — such as requirements gathering, surveys, focus groups, and working with IT departments or outside vendors.
Instructors: Stephanie Gnesin Schubert & Andrew Beldowicz, Pricewaterhouse Coopers
Cost: USD $265 Member/Student — USD $365 Non-Member

Advanced Contract Management
12 June 2011 (Sunday) — 8:00AM – 12:00PM
This course is designed to help information professionals who have five years or more of experience in supplier management and contract negotiations at a material level. The course content will focus on the details of contracts, usage requirement and rules, contract models, client/vendor relationships and potential opportunities to reopen previously negotiated contracts. There will be a concentration on contract models and negotiation strategy.
Instructors: Carol Ginsburg and Bill Noorlander, BST America LLC
Cost: USD $265 Member/Student — USD $365 Non-Member

Where’s the Data? A Survey of Business and Economic
Data Analysis Resources and Tools
12 June 2011 (Sunday) — 1:00PM – 5:00PM
Raw social science and economic data is relied upon in much business analysis, yet information professionals are often not well versed in this type of research expertise. This course will review the social science data environment and the sources and services economists and business analysts working in a corporate or academic setting commonly rely on. It will introduce you to sources for domestic and international data for everything from banking statistics to census data to public opinion polls to business surveys. The course will cover social science data collections, data tools (i.e. SAS, STATA) and key data support organizations (i.e. ICPSR and IASSIST).
Instructors: Bobray Bodelon, Princeton University & Meghan Dolan, Harvard Business School
Cost: USD $265 Member/Student — USD $365 Non-Member

Transitioning from Research to Analysis:
How Information Pros Can Move Up the Value Chain
11 June 2011 (Saturday) — 8:00AM – 5:00PM
Business information professionals need to move beyond basic information retrieval to provide presentations that offer deeper insight and analysis. This course will demonstrate how information professionals can leverage their strong research skills and combine them with a working knowledge of business strategy and analysis to create value-added deliverables. Through concepts, case studies, and customized templates, attendees can expect to gain practical advice on delivering packaged insights to today’s executive decision makers.
Instructors: Bill Patterson & Sean Gaffney, Pricewaterhouse Coopers
Cost: USD $350 Member/Student — USD $450 Non-Member

Industry Research: Tools, Frameworks and Understanding
11 June 2011 (Saturday) — 8:00AM – 12:00PM
COURSE CANCELED
To understand an industry is to understand the context in which your company operates or wishes to operate. This course will review commercial and free sources that could help you get an overview, find specific data, create an industry profile, define competition, monitor the business environment, or understand frameworks to present industries.
Instructor: Jennifer Boettcher, Georgetown University
Cost: USD $265 Member/Student — USD $365 Non-Member