Although SLA is headquartered in the United States and most of our membership is from the U.S. and Canada, the Association and its members have maintained a global focus since our inception. Today, five of our 56 regional chapters represent non-North American areas, including the Arabian Gulf, Australia/New Zealand, Asia, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. These chapters have over 600 members combined, plus members from Central American, South American and the Caribbean who typically affiliate with U.S.-based chapters.
SLA joined the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) in 1946 and has played an active role within IFLA. Three SLA members, Barbara Ford, Steve Witt and Jesus Lau, currently serve on IFLA's governing board. [Note: IFLA holds its annual conference on 23 -27 August so this is likely to change.] Jesus, a former SLA Board member, was just a nominee for IFLA President-Elect, although he was unsuccessful. Other SLA members who currently hold leadership positions on various IFLA divisions, section, and the like include Jane Dysart, Judy Field, Susan Fingerman, Sue Henczel, Cindy Hill, Janice Lachance, Jerry Mansfield, Dorothy McGarry, David McQuillan, Wilda Newman, Marydee Ojala and Donna Scheeder.
SLA's public policy efforts try to reflect our global interests, so we provide information to a variety of government and regulatory agencies on proposed legislation and regulations that might impact the flow of information within and across a country's borders. We have obtained observer status with WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, which is an important step for SLA to represent the interests of its members in the public policy arena. Some of our more recent activities in this area can be found on Public Policy Connections, our public policy blog.
In 1979, SLA sponsored its first global conference. Held in Honolulu, the conference was a joint venture of SLA, the Special Libraries Division of IFLA and Sentokyo - Japan's SLA. It took another 20 years for SLA to really go global with its conference planning when we sponsored the Global 2000 Conference held in Brighton, England. To show support for this endeavor, SLA units and individual members raised over $80,000 (US) to help bring 25 special librarians from developing countries to Brighton.
In 1991, SLA announced sponsorship of International Special Librarians Day (ISLD), which was observed in April until 2006. Designed to help raise awareness of the existence of special libraries and the role they play across the globe, we wanted to determine the effectiveness of this effort, especially outside North America. After a thorough review of the program, the decision was made to change focus somewhat and ISLD has been replaced with Global Information Ethics Day - the first being held this past April, 2009.
SLA chapters and divisions were encouraged to think globally and most have an International Relations Committee or similar body to help them in that effort. SLA members have also made use of our caucus structure and in 1993, the International Information Exchange Caucus was formed to help facilitate communication and collaboration at an international level for things that might fall outside the formal communication structure.
Perhaps the best demonstration of SLA's global awareness is the work of our individual units and members. While we highlight just a few of those below, there are many, many more examples like these.
The Washington DC chapter created its "twinning program" to subsidize the cost of membership for members from non-North American countries. Other units were supportive of the idea and have adopted the "twinning" model to help recruit new members into SLA. A number of chapters and divisions also help our non-North America members attend the annual conference with grants, scholarships and other funding to help pay for transportation and accommodations.
The Minnesota chapter's International Relations Committee adopts at least one major project each year and over the past few years has collected books, journals and other material to be sent to libraries in the Ukraine, the University Teaching Hospital in Zambia, the Lubuto Library Project in Zambia and Room to Read, an organization similar to the Lubuto Project helping to build schools and libraries in Asia.
On an individual basis, Jane Kinney Meyer of the DC chapter is the founder and President of the Lubuto Library Project designed to create positive learning environments for street children in Zambia. A number of SLA members also serve on their advisory council. Further information about the Lubuto Library Project may be found at www.lubuto.org.
Theresa Connaughton of the Rio Grande chapter spent a number of years in Rome working as the chief of library research for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.
Dennie Heye of the Europe chapter serves on a number of boards/councils for journals published in a variety of countries in addition to traveling in Europe making presentations.
Sylvia Piggott of the Eastern Canada chapter and Barbara Semonche of the North Carolina chapter have both conducted workshops and training sessions for the Freedom Forum; Sylvia in South Africa and Barbara in Romania and Poland on one fellowship and in Hungary on a second fellowship.
Mary Ellen Bates, Cindy Hill and Guy St. Clair have each received the John Jacob Astor Award, presented by the Checkpoint Charlie Foundation in Berlin. The award recognizes a German or American each year for making a special contribution to transatlantic knowledge transfer.
Kimiz Dalkir of the Eastern Canada chapter is the conference chair for the 6th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning to be held in October, 2009 in Montreal.
Barbie Keiser of the DC chapter had a Fulbright Specialist grant in 2007 which took her to the Vilnius University Library. In 2008, working for UNESCO, Barbie conducted information literacy workshops in Jamaica, Canada and Egypt in addition to other presentations/workshops in Estonia, Germany, Denmark, Bulgaria and Singapore.
Again, this is just a sampling of what SLA members and units have done recently. Many of our members travel internationally for both business and pleasure getting exposure to other people and cultures as they do. We also have members living and working outside the borders of their home country on behalf of a company, government agency or the military. As we reflect on where we've been as an association over the past 100 years, we need to be aware of the examples mentioned above as well as those not cited to get the full picture of SLA as a global organization.
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