Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to explore our Meet the LMD Board series. Today, we interviewed Leigh Milligan, Professional Development Committee Chair. Leigh is also a member of the LMD Communication Team where she runs the LMD Twitter account!
For her complete bio, please scroll to the end.
What is your current role in the workplace?
I am a librarian at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia in the patient resource center. The resource center is available to patients, their family and staff physical therapists, nurses and doctors. The resource center works like a public library, we have a small collection of books and DVDS that can be checked out. I maintain the collection and contribute to the collection development as well as manage the patron statistics, I also do research and pull journal articles for the physical therapists, nurses and doctors. My other job functions include program planning, as well as marketing our library services to the patients and building on our services.
I am also Team Lead at MedRisk a worker's compensation company. I am a manager of a team of a team of 8 employees. I manage their production statistics and assign out special projects as well as work on improving processes and client workflows.
Why or how did you become a librarian/info pro?
My degree as a undergrad was in English. I was looking up possible Master's programs and jobs for an English Major for my post graduate career and librarian stuck out to me. My parents always took me to the library since I was very young. They even made sure I got a card at two libraries to have access to multiple collections and information: one for the city and one for the suburbs. I was always interested in learning and passionate about the different ways to find and access information and how it all relates.
Tell us a little about your history with SLA and/or LMD and why you took a role on the LMD Board.
I have been a member of SLA since 2016. I joined and got involved with the Philadelphia Community when the conference was in Philadelphia in 2016. I served on a few committees and board positions with the Philadelphia Community and served as president in 2019 and 2020, I am currently serving as the Past President. I have been a member of the Professional Development Advisory Council for the last year. With LMD, I run the Twitter account and I am the Professional Development Chair. Many thanks to Janel Kinlaw and Dan Bostrom for encouraging me to get involved with LMD. I met both of them at the Leadership Symposium. SLA has really become my professional home for networking/meeting others in the field and I always look forward to seeing familiar faces at conferences and events. I had always enjoyed the programming LMD put on, I found it to be a great supplement to myself as a manager at my job and a leader and I wanted to learn more from others and get involved.
What do you see as a key professional or organization challenge that you hope to address in 2021?
My work switched completely to a virtual setting since March 2020. With managing employees, it;s really hard to motivate and engage with others. We do mostly everything over Zoom and the phone. So many meetings, Zoom fatigue is real! I hope to engage more with my employees this year and motivate them to be successful at achieving goals.
Do you have any plans or initiatives for LMD in 2021 you'd like to tell us about?
As professional development chair, I want to bring new and unique programming to LMD. I want to focus on topics that are trending especially with all the changes and challenges with virtual environments and the pandemic. Some things we have in the works include LMD Tech Tidbits webinar series for March on productivity and collaboration tools, more academic programming for our academic librarians and DEI and management related programming.
Finally, what's a little-known fact about you?
In 2020, I decided to take on a new activity/sport to keep me busy during the warmer months during the pandemic. I bought a stand-up paddleboard and I hit my local lakes, rivers and streams each week between June-October. I was standing up on my own on my second trip out! I have enjoyed doing this in my free time, it is relaxing a great workout and really makes for some cool pictures (see below)! Looking forward to warmer days again!
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Leigh Milligan is currently a librarian at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. She also works at a worker’s compensation company as a team lead. She is currently the past president of the SLA Philadelphia Community and the Professional Development Chair for LMD. Leigh is the founder of #LISprochat twitter chat providing a safe space for info pros to network for the last 5 years. She has a side business and podcast with her husband called 8BitFusion where she makes pop culture art. Leigh’s other hobbies include paddleboarding, reading, video games, running, exercising, and camping. She resides with her husband and black cat in Levittown, PA.