It is interesting time to be a member of a professional organization (and probably more interesting to be leading/working for one. There seems to be a lot of shake up in the vertical and different organizations are trying to find new ways to stay relevant and solvent.

In this instance, I speaking specifically about the Special Libraries Association(SLA), which I have been a member of since being a student member in in library school. I am thankful that my MPOW supports my membership these days though there were years where I paid for the membership myself.

The current membership costs is $220 per year as a full member and that includes access to the community forums, job line, and directory information for other members as well as discounts on attending the annual conference and also on webinars.

Over the last week or so as I have been catching up on my email and recovering from a busy start of the year at MPOW the SLA forums have been in a furor over the announced changes to the organization to streamline the organization by eliminating the different divisions and units in favor of communities. Their have been several posts on the boards about members not renewing their memberships and the organizations downfall.

I’ve posted on the organization forums though I wanted to blog here as well as I wanted to say that I don’t plan on stopping my membership and frankly look forward to the organization becoming more nimble and spending less focus on administrative activities. I respect the views of those who feel the organization is fundamentally changing from the SLA they knew and loved.

I look forward to the future and I would encourage any/all SLA members to attend the webinar being hosted about the upcoming changes. I look forward to learning more about the process.