SLA Name Will Stay: Alignment of Association to Continue

Alexandria, Virginia, December 10, 2009- The Special Libraries Association (SLA) announced the results of its association-wide vote on a new name today. Voting in record numbers, SLA members failed to approve a proposal to change the organization’s name to the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals. 50 percent of those members eligible to vote participated in the referendum, with 2071 voting yes and 3225 voting no.

“The active discussions, online and in local meetings, are a testament to the passion and commitment that knowledge and information professionals feel towards their association and their profession,” said Gloria Zamora, SLA 2009 President. “This level of engagement will help make SLA and its members more effective advocates for the information profession in the years ahead.”

The name change proposal stemmed from the findings of the Alignment Project, an intensive two-year research effort aimed at understanding the value of the information and knowledge professional in today’s marketplace and how to best communicate that value. “Our name will remain,” Zamora continued, “but we will go forward with developing opportunities for our members to use the Alignment findings to demonstrate their contributions to the organizations that employ them.”

“Information and knowledge professionals are critical assets to the organizations that employ them, yet their contributions and capabilities are too often underestimated,” said SLA CEO Janice R. Lachance. “The findings of the Alignment Project research will guide SLA in developing services and programs that will more successfully position these professionals in the marketplace and attract the recognition and compensation they deserve.”

About SLA
The Special Libraries Association (SLA) is a nonprofit global organization for innovative information professionals and their strategic partners. SLA serves about 11,000 members in 75 countries in the information profession, including corporate, academic, and government information specialists. SLA promotes and strengthens its members through learning, advocacy, and networking initiatives. For more information, visit us on the Web at www.sla.org.

Podcasts from SLA 2008

Here are podcasts of a few sessions from the SLA 2008 Annual Conference. Speakers and facilitators volunteered to have their remarks recorded. While questions were not included in the recording, you will hear the answers to queries from the audience.

Please note: These podcasts are MP3 files; you must have an MP3 player program installed on your machine to hear the recordings. The sound quality varies from one recording to another. In some cases, sound quality varies within a recording. It may take longer than you are used to to load.

Podcasts from SLA 2007

Here are podcasts of a few sessions from the SLA 2007 Annual Conference. Speakers and facilitators volunteered to have their remarks recorded. While questions were not included in the recording, you will hear the answers to queries from the audience.

Please note that the sound quality varies from one recording to another. In some cases, sound quality varies within a recording.

Print presentations have been included if provided.

The Embedded Librarian

We often think of libraries as the primary task of an entity. Often, however, there are librarians embedded within larger organizations. Actually, that's true of my library colleagues and me within the New York State Small Business Development Center.

David Shumaker, Clinical Associate Professor at the School of Library and Information Science at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, submitted a paper about embedded librarians to the Special Libraries Association. It is now available on its website here.