On the second day of Facing the Challenges of an Aging Population: Succession Planning Strategies for Libraries and Information Management Organizations, the delegates to the conference met as a group to identifying the key issues around attracting and retaining young professionals to the library community. Here's what they had to say:

Our concerns are:

• We believe that we do not have enough qualified people to fill future vacancies, but we need more data on the staffing situation in terms of retirement eligibility, retention rates, etc. to substantiate this. We know that people will leave, but we need to know when. Once we determine the variables we can consider how to respond
• This is an problem that will last for the next eight to ten years
• We do not know who will lead our organizations in the future: many young people are not interested in taking on leadership roles
• This problem has happened before, in the early 1960s
• Libraries are not marketing what we do well in order to make the profession of interest to students
• We are concerned that some professional library jobs are being filled by non-librarians
• We need to find ways to identify the changing needs of our users and how to meet these needs. This may require a different set of skills among our staff than currently exists.

• people with information technology and project management skills
• more flexible terms and conditions of employment to attract and retain employees
• more skills to deal with unions and a way to communicate better with them, seeking mutual best interests for everyone
• to change our organizations to make them less bureaucratic, to encourage the development of and experience in more broad ranges of skills (broadbanding) and the use of management models that will bring younger people into management
• people with fundraising skills
• to consider how we are supporting qualified immigrants to work in our organizations
• to find funds to support succession planning
• to look broadly and be flexible
• to use job ads as marketing tools
• increased salaries
• to find ways to promote good people within our organizations
• to base our strategic plans on what will be in the future, not on what has happened in the past
• to stop placing barriers (real and artificial) in our way
• to support professional development within our organizations.

• Librarians must become actively involved in the recruitment of people to the profession and must work together
• The development of more joint master degree programs in the library programs, i.e. MLIS/MBA/LLB, and more post-master's degrees, allowing students to take courses outside the library and information science faculties.
• Our society needs to consider removal of the mandatory retirement age
• Our associations must find ways to partner with other groups. e.g. UK national association model
• The development of a national training programs for the profession
• The creation of an exciting vision of where libraries and the profession are going and telling others about it through a national marketing campaign
• Training of our older workers on how to work with middle managers and the younger generation
• Individual institutions must conduct analysis' of their human resource needs, find champions, conduct research and tell others what they are doing.

There was a recognition by those attending the conference that they had to take these concerns, needs and solutions back to their organizations and their associations to begin discussion and take action.