Centennial Reflections on a Name

摘要

Only a few years ago, SLA members came very close to abandoning the title special librarian and the name of their association. Why did this happen? Was it because we had finally tired of explaining a term that has built-in 'vagueness and lack of agreement? Or was it because the times had changed even more radically than ever before, particularly for a community that strongly identifies with business, science, technology, and digital information services—a community that has serious competition fromthe even more specialized information entrepreneurs within these fields? Were the words library and librarian too old fashioned for this brave new century? Had special finally become just too vague to be useful? To some extent, the answer to all of these questions is yes.