The SLA Dissolution

Last week, the Special Libraries Association (SLA) announced its dissolution, effective this year. It’s apparently happening quickly based on the number of broken links already on the organization’s site.

SLA was founded in 1909 for librarians working in special settings — corporations, law firms, news organizations, medical centers, and so forth.

I always think of Molly Doran in the great show Slow Horses, a character who should be a hero in the specialist library world.

The definition of what represented a “special” library was always a little contentious. The Association of Medical Librarians had been founded in 1898, and renamed itself the Medical Library Association (MLA) in 1908. This demonstrated there were carve-outs of the SLA defined category that could thrive on their own.

The SLA appears to have suffered a death by a thousand cuts leading to its dissolution:

1. A declining membership this century, especially in the last decade
   1. This made their chapters program less viable, and chapters contributed a nice chunk of revenue
2. Some expensive revisions of corporate management structures around 2015-16, as the organization shed executives (triggering payouts) and added an outside management firm
   1. Possibly overpaying this outside management firm, which racked up $1.3M or so per year until last year, when SLA switched to a far less expensive option (saving ~$1.1M)
      1. They even had to pay them during the pandemic, when revenues really shrunk
3. Seemingly expensive overheads for a number of years
   1. That said, the organization had no executive salaries from 2017 on, a remarkable thing to see
4. Covid-19 work from home, stay at home may have delivered the final blows as workers and companies realized their librarians weren’t around, yet they could function well enough

The pandemic hurt a lot of organizations, but SLA members were probably particularly susceptible. When people aren’t in law offices, medical centers, or newsrooms, and downsizing is the name of the game, and librarians can seem superfluous when there are apparently viable search options on every laptop. It all adds up in a bad way.

A broader problem that may never be tied back to these trends is that SLA members may have been really critical to these specialized knowledge workers and their ability to access interesting, wide-ranging information sources. Over the years, studies have suggested that search engines narrow options for searchers, driving a wide range of people to a small set of common results. Human information experts who are in touch with local users and understand the personalities, priorities, and preferences of a core group of specialized professionals may do a better job of surfacing information from diverse and relevant sources, possibly even anticipating needs or scouting independently.

Overall, the dissolution of the SLA feels like a loss, the measure of which we may never appreciate. The organization is looking to find another home for some of its members and activities, and I hope it does.