Once again, the specter of "what does that name mean anyway? Maybe if we change it to something else things will be better" rears its head. SLA - the Special Libraries Association - is proposing a name change, this time to "the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals".
To say the discussions are running hot would be an understatement. Even the quieter listservs I belong to had over a dozen postings since yesterday, and the larger ones had many more. A glimpse at the Twitter feed for #slaname will give a decent overview of the hullabaloo. I won't even go into the details of what folks have been saying about the acronym, "ASKPro" - I bet you can figure that out by yourself.
How do I feel? I'm - baffled. If the whole point was to find a name that expressed our profession better, I don't think this one is it. I also have never felt the way to solve the problem with the image of librarians is to remove the word "librarian" from the discussion (but, that's just me, and I admit it). Many of the discussions I've seen include some variation on "What does that mean, anyway?" and to paraphrase a post in one of my listservs, having to define what your name means to your membership = FAIL. I just don't think this is the right choice for us.
It does seem an opportune time to mention a new discussion group called "Libraries Need Librarians", where this topic has been one of the most discussed to date. It's a new discussion group, based on the need to support the role and necessity of librarians. Take a look.
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