ITI Bloggers June 18th, 2009
People attend the SLA conference to learn from speakers at sessions, network with their peers and visit the exhibit booths in the INFO-EXPO. But there’s another side to any association meeting: Running the association as a business. For those unfamiliar with SLA governance, here it is in a nutshell. As a member you can join one chapter (a geographic designation) and one division (a topic designation). For a small additional fee, you can join additional chapters and divisions. I belong to the Indiana chapter and the Europe chapter, for example.
Each chapter and division has a president and president-elect, who attend the conference not just for the learning opportunities but also to fulfil some of their leadership responsibilities. There was a leadership training session on Sunday morning, Chapter Cabinet and Division Cabinet meetings on Tuesday, and the final business meeting of the entire association on Wednesday. I have belonged to SLA for many years and some years are more contentious than others when it comes to association business. This year was delightfully non-contentious, but it’s looking like fireworks are possible next year.
Let’s start with the easy stuff. At the chapter level, SLA has 56 chapters. A Task Force on Chapter Structure survey indicated that several in the US are considering merging, so the number of chapters may decrease. Chapters would like more telecommunications, web conferencing and virtual meetings, sponsored by SLA. At the division level, SLA added a new division last year, the Academic Division, and has a petition to start a new division, one for metadata and taxonomy, this year. Association-wide, SLA now offers Drupal as a content management tool for chapters and divisions that use the SLA server as their hosting site. We have a new membership director (again!), Paula Diaz, who reported that SLA has 10,588 members with a retention rate of 70%, lower than other associations, so some work needs to be done there. The news that SLA’s Communities of Practice were being discontinued met with applause from the leadership.
Now, about the fireworks. Research conducted for the Alignment Project clearly shows, according to SLA President Gloria Zamora, that the name Special Libraries does not align with the outside worlds’ perception of the value information professionals bring to their organizations. Thus, when SLA convenes in 2010 in New Orleans, there will probably be a vote on a name change. The last vote on a name change was, at times, acrimonious. It also failed. This time around, the grounds for the name change will be firmly established by the Alignment Project and its research.
After the business meeting, I asked Gloria what names were on the table. She indicated that potential candidate names couldn’t yet be disclosed. My guess is that, whatever names are selected, the word “information” will be in there. I’m also convinced that any name chosen will not be unaminously accepted by SLA’s 10,588 members.
Marydee Ojala, Editor, ONLINE: Exploring Technology & Resources for Information Professionals
Time to say goodbye to Washington and look forward to next year’s SLA conference in New Orleans. But the Information Today blogging team is trying something new this year. For the first time, we’ll also be blogging at the American Library Association annual conference in Chicago. So tune in here starting July 11th for our ALA coverage.
