Good Karma—Christina Stoll

While participating in Synergy, the Illinois Library Leadership Initiative (2002–03), Christina Stoll helped create a vision statement that committed to recruiting promising people to the profession. She’s never stopped recruiting since.

In March 2005, as knowledge manager at North Suburban Library System (NSLS), IL, she helped organize a Librarian Recruitment Conference that grew into an ongoing New Librarians Networking Group. She serves on the rural public library panel for the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ two-year study The Future of Librarians in the Workforce and has worked with Dominican’s LIS student association.

Stoll remains committed once librarians are in the door. At NSLS, she annually coordinated over 200 professional development courses. She introduced over 20 Communities of Practice (CoP)—sneaking in some unintimidating knowledge management by “not using the 'KM' word.” The CoPs now aid in collecting member knowledge about classes, leading to better continuing education that really meets librarians’ needs. NSLS chief Sarah Ann Long says it’s Stoll’s “fearlessness, this talent for figuring out what’s new and helping the organization move in new directions, that I prize above all in her work.”

Not one to sit still, Stoll has recently moved on to an assistant director position, where she intends to continue mentoring new librarians. “It’s all about creating good karma and passing it on,” she says.