SLA 2005 Leadership Summit Candidate Speech
Roberto A. Sarmiento, Candidate for Director
I am here today because I believe in SLA: in what it represents, its mission, its message and its members.
When asked to run for the position of Director, I was elated, then confused and then scared. Was I worthy of aspiring to such an honor? After much thought, I realized that SLA and you, my fellow members, had prepared me to accept this challenge.
As a newly minted librarian, 20 years ago, working for the federal government in a developing country, I fashioned my career on what SLA stands for. I was a special librarian and my church was SLA… quite quaint, but true. This faith has served me well and I have been fortunate to have achieved great things. I attribute part of my success to what I gained from SLA.
When we returned to the U.S. seven years ago, I was eager to serve my Division, eager to get involved in the transportation information field and eager to give back…. and I did; coming up through the ranks in the Transportation Division and becoming chair, working to strengthen transportation information at the national and international levels and by volunteering in other organizations. And after a few years, just when I was ready to pull back and relax, they pulled me right in and here I am.
In the process of reviewing my life, before inviting you all to take a look at it, I realized that as a candidate, there were two possible negative things I needed to share with you. First, I have not been an active member in my chapter, I do not feel good about this, and perhaps, later in March I may have some time. I simply chose to be active somewhere else.
Second, I have not been a member for a long time. Yes, I mentioned, I worshiped at the altar, but while abroad I was active there.
Some may see these as disadvantages. I however, see them as assets. I feel I am still “new” to the Association, still learning and willing to ask the obvious questions. I do not belong to any particular faction and for the most part, I owe my allegiance to a small Division. I see myself as an independent candidate and hopefully an independent board member.
But please, do not confuse my “newness” to SLA with lack of experience. I have been a successful reference and head librarian, have had board experience, have represented the U. S. to international meetings, and have received many awards. I know I have the tools to be successful at this job.
However, I do not feel this election thing is all about me. It is about you, the leadership, the membership and the future of our association.
Like you, I am concerned with where SLA is going.
We need leadership to continue tackling how to expand our membership. We must continue working to attract related industry professionals to make SLA their full-time or part-time home, without driving away those of us who identify ourselves as librarians. We need a well thought out strategy that is deeper, more meaningful and productive than a name change.
This expansion must also include working with library schools at the national level to effectively “sell” special librarianship to library students. And, we must actively partner with other associations to bring a more racially diverse group of professionals into SLA.
SLA needs to come up with a fair, well thought out and equitable plan on how to become a truly international organization. Slapping the word “international” at the end of our name and providing the option of reading a poorly machine-translated document does not make us international and in fact, I feel, it embarrasses and diminishes ourselves and our foreign colleagues. We rejoice in the fact that foreign librarians want to be members, but we need to re-think our strategy in order to support growth overseas and south of the border, as well as, its impact on our dues.
Finally, I may be in a minority, but I feel that as an association, we need to become more active in the national information scene. I know that this is part of the executive director’s job and that of technical committees. But as members, collectively, what have we done to make our SLA the place to call for any and all question regarding information issues? As a whole, we need to start publishing our own position papers, address and take a stand on information related issues whether they are controversial or not, and become more active and vocal in order to be a more relevant organization.
As a member I would like to see progress on these issues. As a board candidate I would like to have the privilege of working on and advancing these and other issues.
Thank you and please remember to vote early and vote often.
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