ASIS&T/SLA Merger Comments & FAQ

The following questions have been posed by ASIS&T members and joint members about the ASIS&T/SLA merger framework. Answers follow each question.

What are the relative membership numbers?
ASIS&T currently has approximately 2,100 members and SLA has approximately 1,100 members.

What does SLA provide that is genuinely unique and would be considered a value by most ASIST members?
The answer to this may be different depending on the circumtance of any given ASIS&T member, but there are various unique contributions that SLA members will bring to ASIS&T. SLA is widely considered to be excellent at local networking, creating opportuntiies for students to meet practicing information professionals and for information professionals to connect locally. This is not something ASIS&T has done well in many years. Our regional chapters are excellent at virtual events but have had less success in creating local gatherings. From a broader perspective, SLA members will bring the practitioner perspective. ASIS&T membership is currently approximately 80% academic and 20% practitioner. The addition of SLA members will balance this disparity and enable ASIS&T to fulfill its promise of bridging research and practice more effectively.

Is a name change being considered?
We will be engaging a branding consultant to examine how best a newly merged ASIS&T can brand itself. This may involve a name change but that will require study and discussion before a decision is reached.

What are the cost implications if we retain conferences, etc?
The ASIS&T Strategic Plan 2025-28 was already drafted when the discussios of merger began, and one of the tactics in that plan was to launch a new practitioner-facing meeting that would attract exhibitors and sponsors. By assuming the SLA meeting, ASIS&T will have the opportunity to take a popular and successful meeting and build off of it to expand the appeal of the meeting to a broader global practitioner community.

While I sympathize with SLA's plight, am not seeing any argument here for how access to their online resources or members serves ASIST's mission.
The value of access to SLA online resources and members will be as valuable as any one member wishes to make it. The leadership of ASIS&T believes that an active dialog between those doing research in information science and those applying that research on a daily basis will be valuable to all involved. It can sprark new research areas, provide a reality check for the applicability of theoretical research, and enrich dialog within interest groups from individuals interested in the discipline-specific application of ASIS&T member research. ASIS&T members that don't see a value in this can choose not to engage in those opportunities. The merger will not take anything away from current ASIS&T members.

The claim that we will have a stronger or unified voice on information issues is simplistic. As presented, any merger seems a better option for SLA than for ASIST. But what actually is being proposed in this merger? Please, let's have some details. Has anyone considered that some ASIST members might feel less connected rather than more by association with SLA?
The ASIS&T leadership believes the framework as presented provides substantial detail about how the merger will work and what is being propose. Members concerned that this merger will loosen their connection to ASIS&T are invited to reach out directly to Lydia to discuss this so that we can better understand that concern and take steps to ensure a continued connection of our current membership.

How can we ensure the valuable work of SLA for supporting practitioners and industry professionals is not lost through a merger with ASIS&T? SLA has provided invaluable opportunities for networking and career development during my library career. As an ASIS&T member I am aware that the association aims to bridge a gap between research and practice however in my country I think information professionals perceive ASIS&T to be a space for academia rather than industry.
Making space for practitioners and information professionals in ASIS&T has been a priority since the 2015 strategic plan was developed. This has been challenging because ASIS&T has lacked a critical mass of practitioners to help us develop the resources and programming for information professionals. Merger with SLA will provide the critical mass to build and sustain programming and content of interest and relevance to the practitioner/information professional community.

I appreciate the efforts that have gone into developing the merger framework to date. However, the framework does not sufficiently address the financial impact of the merger on ASIS&T and how the proposed benefits to current ASIS&T members will be achieved. SLA’s pending bankruptcy indicates that its current practices are not sustainable. Under the proposed framework the ASIS&T membership fees that SLA members will pay to ASIS&T range from 20% to almost 90% less than what those members currently pay SLA. Yet, ASIS&T is planning to provide SLA members with the full range of their current benefits plus all ASIS&T benefits. Note, one benefit, ASIS&T joining IFLA, would cost ASIS&T over $12,000 per year. What will be the costs of supporting two SLA publications? And the SLA conference?  Including the Annual Dance Party? (Did you know that ASIS&T used to have a dance party as well but stopped holding it about 3 decades ago as it was considered inappropriate. #MeToo)
ASIS&T staff have done a thorough vetting of SLA financial documents and ASIS&T is currently engaging an external auditor to do a full review of SLA finances to ensure there are no unknown financial obligations outstanding ahead of a merger. The review of finances conducted to date reveals that SLA’s three primary sources of annual revenue (member dues, the conference, and royalties from publications/affinity programs) currently totals roughly $600,000. Their expenses are budgeted at roughly $1,000,000 for FY25, the lion’s share of which is for the management fee paid to their management company. ASIS&T recognizes that member dues revenue from members coming from SLA for our FY26, which begins July 1, 2025, will be modest given that we will not be able to begin converting SLA members to paid ASIS&T members until December or January. Therefore, we have budgeted for modest member dues revenue from SLA members for FY26. However, the SLA conference, which attracts 40-50 industry partners who sponsor and exhibit there, operates at a profit and work is already underway to build relationships with those industry partners who are eager to continue serving the community. The cost to ASIS&T of absorbing SLA’s members and very limited programmatic offerings into our existing staffing structure will likely increase our own management fee by roughly 40-50% (considerably less than the anticipated revenue).   Our research indicates the cost of membership in IFLA would be €694. Some of the content for Information Outlook will find a home in Information Matters and some in Inside ASIS&T, neither of which would add to the expense budget. Any ongoing SLA community publications would be managed on a cost-neutral basis.

Since SLA membership fees can’t support their current membership benefits financially, how can SLA members paying lower fees to ASIS&T cover the costs of both SLA and ASIS&T benefits?  Especially considering that ASIS&T’s 2024 IRS 990 filing indicates that ASIS&T operated at a loss.
In 2024, ASIS&T put in excess of $70,000 towards our reserve balance which currently sits at $2.378M. Absorbing the workload of providing SLA’s existing member benefits (which are limited) into our existing staffing structure will realize significant economies of scale vs. fully staffing the association alone. Many of the benefits currently provided to SLA members are duplicative of those provided to ASIS&T members (community support, meetings and events, etc) so again, economies of scale will allow ASIS&T to support those services at a considerably lower cost.

The costs of SLA membership benefits should be fully accounted for before the merger and this information should be shared with the ASIS&T membership before a vote about the merger occurs. Also, the current and expected financial contributions from the SLA intellectual assets should be identified. (E.g., how much did those intellectual assets cost each year for the past 5 years, and how much revenue did they bring in?)
The Board will vote on an FY26 budget that accounts for assuming all SLA responsibilities in the next two weeks. The majority of SLA’s intellectual assets have been unavailable to SLA members since their transition between management companies 2+ years ago. They were developed by SLA communities largely through sponsored activities. Some still produce modest royalty revenue. There are very strong community/industry relationships which have provided significant sponsorship for the development of resources over the years. There will be no additional cost to ASIS&T to house and make these assets available to ASIS&T and SLA members again. The development of new intellectual assets would be approached in the same way we would approach any such initiative with an existing ASIS&T community, weighing the cost/benefit and long-term return on the investment. We are continuing our due diligence to identify what intellectual assets exist and how we might be able to continue to utilize and monetize them.

Another issue is the potential damage to ASIS&T’s reputation by joining IFLA and adopting SLA branding. Has the board addressed how joining IFLA may impact its relationships with the iSchool organization and current academic members? As you may know, IFLA is not generally well respected as a scholarly organization. iSchool members’ institutional libraries belong to IFLA but the iSchools themselves typically do not. I know academics who stopped being IFLA members after attending an IFLA conference, and they joined ASIS&T instead. I fear that joining IFLA and adopting SLA branding will hurt ASIS&T’s scholarly reputation.
The ASIS&T Executive Committee discussed this question after receiving it and agreed that IFLA membership as an association member would not have a negative impact on any of ASIS&T’s current scholarly pursuits, most specifically the Annual Meeting and JASIST. Many current ASIS&T members are actively engaged with IFLA and affiliation with a truly global organization such as IFLA helps enhance the global influence of ASIS&T. As to incorporating SLA branding, this is something ASIS&T would do judiciously and where appropriate to denote programs or groups that are unique to SLA’s legacy that we wish to maintain as such. For example, individuals awarded SLA Fellowship will continue to be referred to as SLA Fellows and ASIS&T Fellows as such.

The merger framework provides no solid information, or plan, how the proposed increased advocacy and influence will be achieved. If advocacy and influence are benefits from the merger, there should be plans to achieve these before the merger occurs or else these benefits appear to be only wishful thinking.
Increasing ASIS&T advocacy efforts is part of the Draft 2025-28 ASIS&T strategic plan which will be shared with members in the next few weeks. There you will find more information on what is meant and how we hope to achievee it. Having access to voices from both research and practice will enable ASIS&T to form a stronger message and speaking on behalf of 3,500 information professionals will have more impact than speaking on behalf of 2,100.

For example, why would former SLA members start attending an ASIS&T annual meeting when they can attend an SLA conference? Why would ASIS&T members start attending an SLA conference when their institutions and employers do not perceive that it adds value to their faculty or staff. If SLA and ASIS&T members do not attend the same conference, how can future collaboration and cross-fertilization actually occur? How will “stronger member value” emerge? Will only attending the same webinars or accessing the same web pages and ASIS&T messages lead to ASIS&T researchers collaborating with SLA members? Research on collaboration suggests not. However, having an SLA stream within the ASIS&T annual meeting (and no SLA conference) and joint activities during the ASIS&T conference could be a step in this direction.
The initial conversations and cross-fertilization is expected to happen at the SIG and Chapter level which is realistically where most engagement in ASIS&T takes place. Only a small fraction of the ASIS&T membership ever attends our Annual Meeting. SLA brings a strong track record of executing excellent local networking events, something which has not been effectively done in ASIS&T for some time. We have already heard from students and faculty that those kinds of events would be highly beneficial to them. SLA members will re-energize existing SIGs and form new ones that may engage members that had not previously found an intellectual home in ASIS&T. Over time, it may make sense to have an ASSI&T day at an SLA Conference and vice versa. And one day a joint meeting make the most sense for the community. However, our expectation is that for the immediate future, focusing on finding common ground at the local, regional, and subject-matter/discipline level will be most fruitful.

In sum, the merger framework proposes to provide benefits to SLA members just as if they were SLA members – except ASIS&T will become responsible operationally and financially for these benefits. The benefits to ASIS&T members are presented vaguely with no plan regarding how these benefits will be achieved.  I would encourage the ASIS&T Board to conduct a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis before proceeding further.
The 2015-20 ASIS&T strategic plan emphasized the value of bringing more practicing information professionals into ASIS&T membership. There were two goals specific to this emphasis: Goal 2.1: Realign existing conferences, meetings, webinars, workshops, and other programs and services to meet more closely the needs of both academics and professionals; and Goal 2.2: Provide a more effective conduit between academics and professionals. So, bringing the practice community back into ASIS&T has been a priority for many years. While efforts have been made to attract more practitioners to ASIS&T events, we increasingly hear from our current practitioner members that there is less and less for them in ASIS&T. This is because the loudest voices are from the academic community and we lack a critical mass of practitioner membes who can help us develop . Increasing the practitioner member base in the association will enable us to grow more programs and services of relevance to our existing and new practitioner members while providing more job opportunities for our student members, more venues for applied research and impact for our academic community, and a richer dialog on how to advance the information sciences globally. And carefully managed, the merger will ultimately yield revenue opportunities for ASIS&T that will enable us to grown and expand member benefits for all.