Specialized Librarianship - Thinking About the Future

Guy St. Clair, SMR International President and Consulting Specialist for Knowledge Services, has been named the Alice Rankin Distinguished Lecturer for 2010 by the New Jersey Chapter of the Special Libraries Association (SLA).

Speaking to the New Jersey Chapter at the Rutgers Club in New Brunswick on Wednesday, March 3, 2010, St. Clair discussed his recent work researching and writing SLA's 100-year history and used the lecture to bridge SLA's past with the future for specialized librarianship and the discipline's contribution to organizational effectiveness.

Asked to submit 10 reasons why "chapter members should hear him speak," St. Clair prepared his audience with the following, and during the presentation used these topics to stimulate discussion with chapter members and guests:

1. 1.    Learn how John Cotton Dana was creating what we now think of as "KM/knowledge services" when SLA was born
2. 2.    Why is specialized librarianship a distinctive branch of librarianship? Or more provocatively: is specialized librarianship a branch of librarianship?
3. 3.    Hear how the President of the United States recognized the professional skills of specialist librarians
4. 4.    Hear about the three times in SLA's history when specialized librarianship had the opportunity to make history and advance the profession but stepped aside
5. 5.    Since specialist librarians have been combining ICT management, KM, and strategic learning for 101 years, they are the natural “knowledge thought leaders” for their employers. Are they up to it? Are they brave enough?
6. 6.    Find out why other knowledge workers are moving ahead of specialist librarians – and fast
7. 7.    Find out why managing strategic knowledge is the future of specialized librarianship… and why specialist librarians can’t go back
8. 8.    Learn a clear, straight-forward statement of the mission of specialized librarianship (whatever it’s called and however it’s structured within the organizations that employ specialist librarians) – and how it’s not about membership in any professional association
9. 9.    Hear how specialist librarians can get comfortable with their role in “building the knowledge culture”
10. 10. Learn why – if their professional lives are going to be professionally satisfying – specialist librarians must “make no small plans.”