Professional Associations - Do You Belong?

Do you work in the info biz? Do you belong to an appropriate professional association? If not, why not? Your comments are welcome and encouraged.

I belong to the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) and to Special Libraries Association (SLA). There are many, many reasons why I belong to these two associations, but the reason du jour is professional development. Today, without leaving my office, I had the opportunity to watch a web based, information packed training session delivered by Ed Vawter, AIIP President and founder of QD Information Services. Ed discussed using podcasts as a source of information for research. Since the vendor was experiencing audio trouble, Ed is going to offer a encore presentation next month, so those who missed it today will get a second chance.

SLA is offering a program called 23 Things. Participants become familiar with wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, picture sharing, podcasting, tagging, RSS feeds and much, much more through actual hands on practice. When proprietary software is required SLA makes it available, so everyone can participate. And, it's free with the SLA membership.

We info pros need to stay a step or two ahead of our clients, and associations such as AIIP and SLA make that possible. Do you belong?