My only comment as we consider a new name for this organization is that I feel it's very important the words "information professional" is included as part of it. I feel this is the only way to adequately describe all the sorts of people who might have an interest in participating in this organization. We don't want to unecessarily narrow our scope.
I also think "information professional" serves to emphasize that we are professionals and that special skills are required to do the jobs we do. We have a professor at the Harvard Business School, Rakesh Khurana who has recently written a book examining the development of the idea of the "business professional" and thus the need for the creation of MBA programs. I think there's something we could learn from this history. For me, reading it only reinforced my strong belief that the best way to describe to the world all the things we do is by referring to ourselves as a group as information professionals.
If you would like to read an interview with Rakesh where he discusses his book, please see - http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5735.html.
Comments (3)
Jul 29
Barbara Wheeler says:
I agree. I like "Association of Specialist Librarians and Information Prof...I agree. I like "Association of Specialist Librarians and Information Professionals", a name that emphasizes the specialist nature of the niches in which we work and applies dually to those who consider themselves to be Librarians and those who prefer the Information Professional term. I also think there is no mistaking who the members are with this name.
Sep 18
Sharon Roney says:
This is the only suggestion I have ever seen that makes any sense to me....This is the only suggestion I have ever seen that makes any sense to me. I absoutely refuse to drop librarian from my title (it took me a long time to get here) but I do like specialized instead of special and the opportunity to be inclusive of all of those professionals that do not do traditional library services or have that title. I am a librarian specialist! ASLIP it is!
Sep 26
Karen Huffman says:
I like the inclusion of "information professional," too, since I've never consid...I like the inclusion of "information professional," too, since I've never considered myself a librarian but also think dropping the word "librarian" off would be a mistake. This seems to work for both groups.