In the news release, Hildy Dworkin, SLA’s president, said, “As SLA and ASIS&T move forward as one association, I know our combined strengths and dedicated members will have a greater impact on the library and information community for years to come.”

Ian Ruthven, ASIS&T’s president, added, “I am delighted that both ASIS&T and SLA memberships have voted overwhelmingly in favour of joining forces to create a united association. This is a significant development for library and information science and its future. In creating a global community of research and practitioners, this merger will provide a home for both internationally excellent research and its impact in practice. I look forward to working with all members of this new community.”

A Beginning, Not the End

Although the vote is in, that is not the end of the merger process. The work to effect the merger is just beginning, and many details remain to be resolved, some of them legal and some logistical. SLA is involved in an archival exercise to identify which records that Iron Mountain has stored for the association should be preserved and which can be discarded. A transfer of assets needs to go through. This is not simply financial assets, but also intellectual property. Guidelines are in progress regarding how SLA Communities will align with ASIS&T SIGs. 

SLA plans to elect a board of directors for 2026, strange as that may seem. The current and future boards will act as ambassadors to ASIS&T while the finishing touches of the merger are put in place.

The ASIS&T Framework for Merger spells out what it intends to do to facilitate the integration of SLA into ASIS&T. Preserving the SLA brand is a priority of the merger and includes ASIS&T retaining funds earmarked for scholarships by SLA as donor-designated funds, keeping the intention of the donor. SLA’s two association-wide publications (Information Insights weekly newsletter and Information Outlook quarterly magazine) will continue, although down the road, they could be merged into existing ASIS&T publications. SLA’s oral history project complements ASIS&T’s, although SLA only has 11, while ASIS&T currently holds or has access to 72 recorded and transcribed oral histories, a few of which duplicate the people in SLA’s collection.

Dancing at Annual

ASIS&T intends to host SLA’s annual conference in the late spring/early summer of each year (including the ever-popular IT Dance Party). SLA annual conferences have always been held in North America, and I would expect that to continue, particularly as ASIS&T annual conferences are scheduled for more global destinations, at least for 2026 (Thailand is the location). Going forward, ASIS&T conferences are scheduled for Vancouver, Canada, in 2027, the U.S. in 2028, and Europe in 2029.

Where will SLA members fit? Geographically, SLA members can choses the appropriate ASIS&T regional chapter. Beyond that, it’s a bit more complicated. Existing SIGs may be relevant to some SLA members but not all. ASIS&T may create new SIGs specifically for SLA members. These decisions will be made at a board level and will take some time to establish.

The 2025 ASIS&T annual conference will be held in Crystal City, Virginia (that’s in the Washington, D.C., area), Nov. 14–18, and its 2026 annual conference, as previously mentioned, will be in Bangkok, Thailand, Oct. 16–20. I’ll be at the ASIS&T conference this November for a few days before heading downtown to the KMWorld conference at the JW Marriott hotel in D.C. I hope to see you at one (or both) of those events!