SMR Knowledge

Building the Knowledge Culture

Specialized Librarianship: Thinking About the Future

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Guy St. Clair, SMR International’s 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. John Cotton Dana was creating what we now think of as “KM/knowledge services” when SLA was born
2. Is specialized librarianship a branch of librarianship?
3. When did the President of the United States recognized the professional skills of specialist librarians
4. In SLA’s history, specialized librarianship had three opportunities to make history and advance the profession but stepped aside
5. Specialist librarians have been combining ICT management, KM, and strategic learning for 101 years – they are the natural “knowledge thought leaders” for their employers.
6. Find out why other knowledge workers are moving ahead of specialist librarians – and fast
7. Managing strategic knowledge is the future of specialized librarianship – specialist librarians can’t go back
8. The mission of specialized librarianship (whatever it’s called and however it’s structured within the organizations that employ specialist librarians) – it’s not about membership in any professional association
9. Specialist librarians must get comfortable with their role in “building the knowledge culture,” and
10. If their professional lives are going to be professionally satisfying, specialist librarians must “make no small plans.”

About Guy St. Clair

Guy St. Clair is the Series Editor for Knowledge Services, from Verlag Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin, the scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. The series subject is knowledge services, the approach to managing intellectual capital that merges information management, knowledge management (KM), and strategic learning, presenting and discussing new and innovative approaches to knowledge sharing in all fields of work.

With Barrie Levy, Guy  is the author of The Knowledge Services Handbook: A Guide for the Knowledge Strategist (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020). He is also the author of Knowledge Services: A Strategic Framework for the 21st Century Organization (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016). [Note: Go here for the free PDF version of this book: https://bit.ly/3msI27V. ]

Guy is also the author of Knowledge Services: Five Free Webinars from Guy St. Clair, available to anyone who wants to learn more about knowledge services. The webinars are offered at no charge.

Guy’s other professional writings are listed in SMR International’s corporate website, at SMRShare. 

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