Our History with the Special Libraries Association and Our Optimism for the Future

How many of you attended the 1986 SLA Conference in Boston: Excellence in the World of Information?  

It was my first SLA meeting! I was a software engineer at Sydney Development Corporation and I asked to attend the Sydney Library Automation System user group meeting in one of the conference hotels. Before going to SLA, my only exposure to library automation was behind the scenes, writing code. I wrote a module that imported MARC records, and another that managed the circulation of books to remote areas of Canada. 

In 1989, the library team at Sydney Development Corporation separated from our parent company to form International Library Systems. Shortly thereafter, we decided to focus on Special Libraries. For the next dozen years or so, I attended each SLA Annual Conference and Expo. The Special Libraries Association was instrumental in the growth and success of our business back then. As we became more established, we were able to contribute to conferences by hosting highly relevant hot topics sessions that were often the most popular event—after all the social and networking activities, of course! 

Almost 40 years later, we are still in the special libraries game! We have hundreds of library systems installed around the world. That could never have happened without SLA. 

The Special Libraries Association has been so important to us that, one year, every employee in the company went to the SLA conference in Seattle, including our receptionist. We wanted our behind-the-scenes staff (administrators, programmers, and technical support people) to meet our clients. We even had extra phone lines installed at our booth to handle reception and technical support calls live from the conference floor! 

Earlier in my career, I developed software for several industries, including banks, investment brokers, and real estate agencies. However, the special librarians I have met at SLA are by far my favorite clients. Your mission and values are compatible with what my mother taught me: be of service to others, be interested in anything and everything, set high standards, and do your best to live up to them.  

In the view of everyone here at Lucidea, librarians are:  

• Learned
• Intellectual
• Busy
• Resourceful
• Agile
• Rigorous
• Innovative
• Accessible
• Necessary
• Special

We at Lucidea are optimistic about the future of special librarianship and committed to supporting the profession through the coming years. 

Certainly, we will all miss SLA and the annual conference. We hope to find other ways to support and inspire the special librarian community. Please let us know how we can help. 

Sincerely,  

Ron Aspe 

P.S. I don’t have any photos from my first SLA in 1986, but enjoy these more recent shots of Lucidea at SLA over the past 10 years!