flickr photo shared by brizzle born and bred under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-SA ) license
I feel bad about using a pic of Teddies when I have always leant to the Mods, but I think this is a good pic of group cohesion and defiance.
This week the results of the SLA elections were announced this week; Dee Magnoni will be SLA President in 2017. Congratulations to Dee and all the other winners. Commiserations and thanks to all the also rans. Tucked at the end of the official announcement of the election results was a restructuring of the dues structure. The synopsis is that student member dues increase from $40 to $50, retired member dues increase from $40 to $100 (unless you’ve been a continuous member for 45 years), and the new rate of $100 for unemployed members will only be for a year. Members can read a more detailed explanation.
People have reached out to me over email and Twitter to express their concern about the new dues structure, the process, and the future of SLA. I kind of have that feeling of inevitability about it all. We knew dues had to increase because we’re broke, we just didn’t know what it would look like. Now we do. I’m not going to nitpick the changes because I’m not qualified to really speak on association finances and that ship has sailed. These are part of the approved roadmap, so the process has already been set. If anything, I expect more changes like this down the pike. Bitter pills to swallow as we have to adapt to get through this really hard time or fall apart.
One of my good SLA chums who’s still a member (not one of of my good SLA chums who already jumped ship) asked me why I’m still involved with SLA. I’ll admit it’s hard to answer when I don’t agree with the board or many other members of the association. Honestly, in many ways the situation reminds me of Social Security – we pay into it, and try to support it, but those ahead of us in power are making it go bust and there’s not much we can do about it. It is frustrating that many members who likely had the best of intentions couldn’t give up notions of 1995 quickly enough and now SLA is deep in a hole and the path out sucks. Whatever, it’s happened.
So why am I still a member today? The same reason John Cotton Dana organized a group of special librarians – this is the group where I can meet and work with librarians in similar positions and organizations. As a soon-to-be solo librarian in a research library who has to do everything, it’s an obvious fit. I think the reason I still see the value is that I ascribe to a very big tent idea of the profession. You work with information and metadata? DAMS? Whatever you call yourself, you’re probably librarian enough for SLA. I try to look beyond the specifics of my particular situation to learn from everybody, and SLA is the best group I know of for that. It’s the wisdom of the hive mind.
That’s just me though.
To people dropping out, I understand. The value is hard to justify and it does take effort to engage with members (inside or outside your units). I really want to make more ad hoc groups within SLA, but that takes energy and is hard to organize. I do think we, SLA members, can do some great stuff organically. We don’t need to wait for the Board of Directors or HQ to bless it. Members working with members. That’s networking and that’s relatively cheap.
The other thing that concerns me about this is egos. Like the Beach Boys sang on Pet Sounds, “Hang on to your ego.” What do I mean by that? Let stuff go. I think lots of people want similar things for SLA, but we’re focused on details which often sound like another song, Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings.” We need to innovate, try things, break things, experiment! That means we need to get over ourselves and any feelings of ownership that are throwing up barriers.
So people who want to change stuff, let’s try and fail and try again and eventually succeed. I know that’s valuable professional development right there.
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