Special Libraries Association
Special Libraries Association, operating as ASIS&T, is a nonprofit global professional association serving information scientists, students, and institutions through membership, peer-reviewed publications, conferences, mentoring, and awards.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded1909
- HeadquartersAlexandria, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What Special Libraries Association does
Special Libraries Association, operating under the brand Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), is a nonprofit global professional association serving information science practitioners, researchers, students, and institutional members. Founded in 1909 as a membership organization for 'innovative information professionals and their strategic partners' and restructured around 1935 (originally as the American Documentation Institute), it now sits in Alexandria, Virginia with operational offices in Roseville, Minnesota and Leesburg, Virginia, and operates with 11-50 staff. The Special Libraries Association (SLA) brand was integrated under ASIS&T, with continued outputs such as 'Fellows of SLA' and the '2021 SLA Salary Survey' evidencing the consolidation of a previously separate special-librarians association.
ASIS&T's core product surface centers on scholarly publishing and member community services. The ASIS&T Digital Library is hosted on Wiley InterScience and provides electronic access to JASIST (the peer-reviewed Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology), ARIST (Annual Review of Information Science & Technology), proceedings, and the ASIS&T Thesaurus. Member-facing surfaces include iConnect (a member-only online community), Member Match (a structured mentor/mentee program), the Doctoral Colloquium, the IDEA Institute, and a portfolio of awards (New Leaders, Award of Merit, Lois Lunin, Best JASIST Paper, Doctoral Dissertation, etc.). Annual meetings rotate across North American and international venues, with 2025 in Chicago and 2026 scheduled for Bangkok; complementary formats include the Info Science Summit & Special Libraries Conference, regional chapter meetings, the 24-Hour Global Conference, and webinars. The association also hosts the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative as a standards-setting activity.
ASIS&T's revenue model is membership-dues-led, supplemented by publication royalties and distribution through Wiley, event and webinar registration fees, advertising and sponsorship (including dedicated IM Sponsorship Opportunities for Information Matters), and donations. Customer segments are split between individual information-science professionals (primary), students and early-career members (primary, supported by discounted student memberships and scholarships), and institutional/academic members (secondary). The go-to-market is community-led and event-driven: regional chapters and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) drive grassroots engagement, while annual meetings, the IDEA Institute, webinars, and the President's Lecture series provide concentrated mid-funnel touchpoints. ASIS&T complements this with self-serve digital distribution through its website, the Digital Library, and iConnect, plus field-driven enterprise sales of conference registrations and sponsorship packages. No public financials are disclosed.
Special Libraries Association firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Special Libraries Association
- Legal name
- Association for Information Science and Technology
- Website
- https://www.sla.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 1909
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Special Libraries Association, operating as ASIS&T, is a nonprofit global professional association serving information scientists, students, and institutions through membership, peer-reviewed publications, conferences, mentoring, and awards.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Special Libraries Association industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Professional Association Services
- NAICS
- Professional Organizations (81392), Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations (813), Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (519)
- SIC
- Services-Membership Organizations (8600), Services-Educational Services (8200)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Libraries, Archives & Special Collections (BPAGAHAF)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Special Libraries (Law, Medical, Corporate, Government) Operations (EDAEAGAD), Library User Services & Information Support (Reference, Research Help, Instruction Support) (EDAEAGAL)
Keywords
Where Special Libraries Association is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Alexandria
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
Special Libraries Association business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others
Revenue model
- Membership Dues: Annual membership subscriptions with different categories including individual, institutional, and student memberships providing access to member-only resources, community platforms, and discounts on events and publications
- Publications Revenue: Revenue from journal subscriptions (JASIST), sale of proceedings, and potentially open access fees through Wiley publishing partnership
- Event Registration Fees: Conference and webinar registration fees from annual meetings, regional conferences, IDEA Institute, and professional development events
- Advertising and Sponsorship: Marketing and sponsorship opportunities including IM Sponsorship Opportunities, marketing opportunities with ASIS&T, and advertising in publications
- Donations: Donations to support the association's mission, scholarships, and awards programs
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Student Membership - reduced rate for enrolled students |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels8 records
Special Libraries Association product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Special Libraries Association (now operating under ASIS&T) is a nonprofit global professional membership association that sells individual and institutional memberships, scholarly publications (JASIST, ARIST, Information Matters, proceedings), and access to a digital library hosted on Wiley InterScience. It also delivers professional development through the Annual Meeting, IDEA Institute, regional conferences, Member Match mentoring, Doctoral Colloquium, and awards/recognition programs for information professionals worldwide.
Product overview
ASIS&T operates as a professional membership association offering a portfolio of publications, member resources, and professional development services. The core offerings include the ASIS&T Digital Library (accessing JASIST, ARIST, and proceedings via Wiley InterScience), member community platform (iConnect), the ASIS&T Thesaurus for terminology, and annual conferences. Additional services encompass the Member Match mentorship program, awards and honors recognition, doctoral colloquium, and regional chapters/SIGs for networking. The organization functions as an aggregator and publisher of information science research rather than a technology product company.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- ASIS&T Digital Library Online portal providing electronic access to ASIS&T publications including JASIST, the Bulletin, and the Annual Review of Information Science & Technology (ARIST) through the Wiley InterScience platform, sold as a subscription-based content access offering for members and institutional subscribers.
- JASIST (Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology) Peer-reviewed academic journal publishing research on information science and technology topics, available by subscription through the ASIS&T Digital Library.
- ARIST (Annual Review of Information Science & Technology) Annual publication providing comprehensive reviews of literature and developments in information science and technology, delivered through the Digital Library.
- Information Matters Online publication delivering news, insights, and developments in the information science field, with sponsorship opportunities for marketing partners.
- Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology Conference proceedings publication documenting research presented at the association's annual meetings, distributed via the ASIS&T Digital Library.
- ASIS&T Thesaurus Controlled vocabulary resource providing standardized information science terminology used in research, indexing, and documentation.
Quantifiable outcome
- 85+ years of history bridging information science research and practice
Companies that use Special Libraries Association
Customer profileSegments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Special Libraries Association technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed No
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature4 records
Special Libraries Association partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Two partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- Wiley (Wiley InterScience)corePublishing partnership for the ASIS&T Digital Library, providing electronic access to JASIST, ARIST, proceedings, and bulletins through Wiley InterScience platform. This partnership enables distribution of association publications to members and institutional subscribers.
- Dublin Core Metadata InitiativeminorASIS&T is home to the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, a key standards body developing metadata standards for resource discovery. ASIS&T maintains a leadership role in this initiative as part of its standards-setting activities.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Special Libraries Association competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- American Library Association: The American Library Association is the largest US library professional association with broad membership across all library types. It directly competes with ASIS&T/SLA for information professional mindshare, especially among academic and special librarians, and operates a similar model of membership dues, publications, conferences, and advocacy.
- Medical Library Association: MLA serves health-sciences information professionals and operates a directly comparable professional association model — membership dues, peer-reviewed journal (JMLA), annual meetings, and specialized CE programming. It overlaps with ASIS&T's special libraries base in medical and health information settings.
- American Association of Law Libraries: AALL is the primary professional association for legal information professionals and a direct competitor for special librarian mindshare in law firm, corporate, and government legal settings. It mirrors ASIS&T's structure with membership, publications, conferences, and SIG-based community engagement.
- International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions: IFLA is the global umbrella organization for library associations, operating a similar membership-association model with publications, annual congresses, and standards-setting activity. It overlaps with ASIS&T in serving information professionals worldwide and competing for institutional members with international scope.
- Society of American Archivists: SAA is the principal professional association for archivists in North America, with a directly analogous operating model of membership, peer-reviewed journal (American Archivist), annual meetings, and credentialing. It competes for adjacent information professionals and overlaps in special collections / institutional information management.
- International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers: STM is an international trade association for academic and professional publishers, directly comparable in operating model (membership, advocacy, industry events) and in its relationship to the scholarly publishing ecosystem that ASIS&T participates in via Wiley. STM membership represents publishers, but it competes for influence in the same scholarly communication space.
- ARMA International: ARMA International is the leading association for information governance, records, and information management professionals, operating a directly comparable professional association model. It competes with ASIS&T/SLA for information management practitioners in corporate settings and offers similar credentialing, publications, and conferences.
Broad incumbents
- Association for Computing Machinery: ACM is a much larger professional association for computing professionals, with a directly comparable model of membership, peer-reviewed publications (Communications, JACM, digital library), conferences (SIGCOMM, SIGIR, SIGMOD), and SIG-based community structure. It competes with ASIS&T for information science researchers, especially in information retrieval and data science.
- IEEE Computer Society: IEEE Computer Society operates the same professional association model — membership dues, peer-reviewed journals and conferences, standards committees, and chapters — but at larger scale and with broader computing focus. It overlaps with ASIS&T in serving information professionals working at the intersection of computing and information management.
Others
- Dublin Core Metadata Initiative: DCMI is the metadata standards organization that ASIS&T hosts and operates; while not a commercial peer, it shares a closely related ecosystem position and represents an adjacent asset that ASIS&T leverages for community authority and potential monetization.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Special Libraries Association social profiles
Digital presenceSpecial Libraries Association financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Special Libraries Association leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Special Libraries Association subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries1 record
Special Libraries Association funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Special Libraries Association M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Special Libraries Association
What does Special Libraries Association do?
Special Libraries Association (now operating under ASIS&T) is a nonprofit global professional membership association that sells individual and institutional memberships, scholarly publications (JASIST, ARIST, Information Matters, proceedings), and access to a digital library hosted on Wiley InterScience. It also delivers professional development through the Annual Meeting, IDEA Institute, regional conferences, Member Match mentoring, Doctoral Colloquium, and awards/recognition programs for information professionals worldwide.
Is Special Libraries Association a public or private company?
Special Libraries Association is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Special Libraries Association founded?
Special Libraries Association was founded in 1909. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Special Libraries Association based?
Special Libraries Association is headquartered in Alexandria, United States, in the North America region.
How does Special Libraries Association make money?
Five revenue lines are on record. Membership Dues are the primary driver. The others are publications Revenue, event Registration Fees, advertising and Sponsorship and donations.
Who are Special Libraries Association's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are American Library Association, Medical Library Association, American Association of Law Libraries, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Society of American Archivists, International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers and ARMA International. Broad incumbents are Association for Computing Machinery and IEEE Computer Society. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative is listed as an others.
Does Special Libraries Association have an API?
No public API is recorded for Special Libraries Association.
What industry is Special Libraries Association in?
Special Libraries Association's product category is Professional Association Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAGAHAF, Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, with a secondary code of EDAEAGAD, Special Libraries (Law, Medical, Corporate, Government) Operations. Its NAICS code is 81392 and its SIC code is 8600.