{"id":355,"date":"2014-09-19T14:54:53","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T19:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/?p=355"},"modified":"2014-09-19T14:54:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-19T19:54:53","slug":"guest-post-nmrt-past-president-emily-prather-rodgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/guest-post-nmrt-past-president-emily-prather-rodgers\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: NMRT Past-President Emily Prather-Rodgers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Our NMRT Past-President, Emily Prather-Rodgers, shares her thoughts on the true value of a NMRT membership and makes a call to action for new (and &#8220;new-ish&#8221;) librarians everywhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s be honest. At this point, I can only call myself \u201cnew-ish\u201d at best. I joined ALA as a student member way back in 2005. I gladly accepted my free Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) membership (still available to students and the unemployed, by the way), and I hesitated only momentarily before spending the extra $10 on NMRT. When I attended my first Annual Conference later that same year, I attended a wide variety of programs and events, but NMRT\u2019s conference orientation was the thing that made me feel like I belonged. NMRT quickly became my home within \u201cbig ALA,\u201d and I\u2019ve happily clicked the renew box every year since. The cost of the membership is nothing compared to all of the benefits I\u2019ve received.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Mandi, NMRT\u2019s Secretary, posted a Top 10 List of NMRT Resources here on this blog (<a title=\"http:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/?p=329\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/?p=329\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/?p=329<\/a>). I want to add #11: people. NMRT provided me with opportunities to serve on committees, attend events, publish my writing, etc.. And, yes, each of those things has helped me throughout my career. But it is the people that I have met while taking advantages of those membership perks and the resulting conversations that I\u2019ve had in person, by phone and e-mail, and through social media that I will continue to rely on and benefit from as I near the end of my first ten years in ALA.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly ten years in, I\u2019m still new-ish in many ways, but I\u2019m comfortable offering this advice: sign up for one (or more!) of the NMRT Top 10, talk to everyone you meet as a result of your participation, and say yes to any of the opportunities and\/or friendships that they offer. Do these things over and over again for 10 years, and I guarantee that you\u2019ll be a better librarian and, more importantly, a better colleague by the time your \u201cnewness\u201d begins to wear thin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our NMRT Past-President, Emily Prather-Rodgers, shares her thoughts on the true value of a NMRT membership and makes a call to action for new (and &#8220;new-ish&#8221;) librarians everywhere. Let\u2019s be honest. At this point, I can only call myself \u201cnew-ish\u201d &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/guest-post-nmrt-past-president-emily-prather-rodgers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbhMj7-5J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nmrt.ala.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}