Feedback on SLA name change

[msmemory_archive]

The Alignment Committee asked on my division list what we thought about the new name. Here are my points, in sum, showing my sincerely mixed feelings. (Thanks, yakshaver, for prompting me about the domain.)

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I like the fact that the name makes clear we are an association of people, rather than a confederation of institutions.

I like the fact that this gives me another way to add some buzzwords to my resume. “knowledge professional”

As I slide sideways from librarian (reference and cataloging) to knowledge manager/records manager (archives, competitive intelligence, some reference), I become less attached to being in a “library” association.

I don’t like the fact that we are giving up our simple, easy to remember, domain name sla.org, especially since askp.org and askpro.org are both already claimed/squatted. If SLA sincerely means to adopt the new identity, we should already have registered both the relevant new domain names.

I dislike that ASKPro sounds like a software package from 1986. I don’t think it sounds like the name of an elite professional organization, and I don’t look forward to telling my manager I want to go to the ASKPro convention (instead of the library association) in a couple years.

And this is a big one:
I don’t think Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals differentiates us enough from the SCIP, Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals. To me, it sounds like you were trying to recall one of the associations’ names and remembered it imperfectly.
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ETA: I got an email from the SLA President letting me know that those two domains are already Association property, under the hood. Whew!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The initials SLA made me cringe. I couldn't remember why, it was a knee jerk response, and I finally looked it up.

The problem with getting old is few people still have your cultural references.

SLA = Symbionese Liberation Army (1973-75)

Hope you have a laugh over this, their too old to have a web presence for people to be misdirected to.

Dorigen of Lewes

[ilaine-dcmrn.livejournal.com]

around here it is 'Service Level Agreement' an object normally referenced only in the breach

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

This caused much nervous snickering and reminders when we had a pile of librarians going through immigration when SLA was in Toronto a few years ago: "Remember to say the FULL NAME of the organization, NOT the abbreviation!"

So yeah, uh, to us young librarians that's always been a running joke... but we're well-read for youngsters.

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Montreal in '95 too.

[vynehorn.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on all counts, especially the last two.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Strategic Knowledge Professionals? Gack...I hate that PC reworking of professional titles. I mean, c'mon, I know what a librarian is, and I can accept that a librarian's role has expanded since the days of cuneiform tablet-stacking. What the hell is a Strategic Knowledge Professional? It's semantically void.

'Course, my particular cadre has been struggling with the incorporation of [ahem] pharmacotherapeutic cognitive services management along with the [ahem] legacy tasks of [ahem] distributive operations (as in, "You mean you still handle...pills?"). But thank God we still (mostly) call ourselves "pharmacists".

Okay, enough of that rant, I'm going to read my email from the SCA's forum on Pure and Applied Paleo-Onomastics and Graphical Semiotics now....