Commitment

by Dan Trefethen

I posted something to the Solo Librarians discussion list that got me thinking about commitment.

It is true what they say, until you have made a commitment to something, you will remain troubled in your mind, vacillating over the decision and not wanting to settle down.

On the Solo list, I made the glib connection between the Board of Directors committing to the evidence-based name that tested best, Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals, and my decision to marry the woman I did.  At least I thought it was a bit glib, then I thought "wait a minute.  There's truth here."

In both cases, we used the best evidence there was at the time.  We didn't know if somewhere, somehow, there might be a more perfect choice than the one before us.  But based on what was before us, we had to decide to commit - or not to commit. 

Once we committed, our minds became clear.  We grew more confident in our choice.  The confidence grew from living with the result (in my case, literally) and realizing that once you make the commitment, you are ready to make your new reality.

My friends, the evidence is before us.  The SLA Board of Directors committed to presenting you with the name that tested best following two years of research.  This name is a bold choice, and (like love) can be startling when you come to realize that you are considering spending your life with it.  But the evidence is firm.  It is a name that resonates with our values, and if we commit to it and make it our own, we will be prepared to make our new reality in the 21st century. 

As time goes by, you will say as I do now about my 1977 wedding - "there really wasn't any other choice for me to make.  This was clearly the direction I had to go."

Just don't show this to my wife.  She'll get all mushy on me.

Comments

[Your friendly neighborhood LIBRARIAN]

I think the only thing worse than having a generic name where people say "What does that mean?" is making a new generic name where people say "So what does that mean?" At least the SLA name has history behind it so more people are likely to know what we LIBRARIANS do compared to "Strategic Knowledge Professionals." There's no way people are going to know what that is! I'm all for a name change but we shouldn't make a name change simply to make a change. Make the change when you can come up with the RIGHT change! Just my 2 bits...

[Dorene Smith]

So.... SLA is threatening to break up with us unless we "do the right thing" and agree to a name change?

Sorry, I detest ultimatums.

There are plenty of Professional Organizations in the sea.

[David Hook]

@Your friendly neighbourhood Librarian:
The proposed name change does not mean that you have to stop calling yourself a librarian. The idea here is not to come up with a collective job title that we all have to start using. The idea is to come up with a name that is more inclusive to all members regardless of what their job title or what they call themselves. Members of SPIE (which no longer stands for anything) don't call themselves SPIE professionals or optical
professionals; the association name is only a collective name to encompass a wide audience of professionals who work with optics. Similarly, this is intended to be a collective name to encompass an audience of professionals who work with strategic knowledge.

As for explaining what you do, if it is easier to explain your job by calling yourself a librarian, then do so.

[kclibn]

"Strategic Knowledge" - a little abstract to people who may not have an idea what we are talking about. It is a combination of words that more people will even ask 'what is that?' or so what do you do?

Do we really need to change our name to change how others see us? We call ourselves librarians or information professionals. I believe having SLA as our name will be sufficient.

I am for change, although with this name change it is not significant in my opinion. What happens when the terms 'strategic knowledge' lose their high spots in the graph of trendy language, are we going to change again? Alignment should not really be affected by a name change. To me, alignment should be visible in what we as librarians or information professionals could do for our organizations and to the profession as a whole.

Thoughts this afternoon.
kclibn

[Another Friendly Neighborhood Librarian]

I think the proposed new name sounds pretentious and seems counterproductive. It's like calling babysitters "child care professionals", sure it makes the workers feel better about themselves, but also, who are they kidding. We all know they are babysitters and the phrasing just sounds ridiculous and overly PC. Who even uses the phrase "strategic knowledge professional"? I guess I am one and I have never heard that before.

[vyt]

I will admit to not having read the research on the alignment, and my opinion on the new name is slightly negative, but knowing that two years of work have gone into this by people that we have voted into office, I'm voting "yes". Sometimes we have to realize that our personal preferences don't deserve 100% of the weight in decisions that we make.

[David Hook]

@ Another Friendly Neighborhood Librarian:

'pretentious' implies that with the new name we are pretending to be what we are not. Are we not strategic? Are we not professionals? Do we not work with knowledge? I don't see anything pretentious with the proposed name.

I have seen a number of members opposed to the name change because they don't feel that what we do is strategic, or that "we work with information....others work with knowledge". This really worries me. Is this really how the profession views itself? That we're only clerks or 'information butlers' and it is the rest of the organization that adds the value? If that's how we truly perceive ourselves, then we have no right as a profession to claim that we're underpaid or undervalued.