From the President, November 2008: The Value of SSP Membership

By October Ivins, SSP President

Whether we view it from a personal, professional, or organizational perspective, we are experiencing a challenging economic climate that many expect to get worse before it gets better. Fortunately, members of the SSP community have rich membership benefits to draw on during this challenging period. We continually strive to enhance benefits and offerings, so please help us understand what you find valuable or would like to improve by responding to the Member Survey coming out November 10, 2008.

Membership renewal season is under way, so in this article I want to explore tangible and intangible membership benefits for individual members. (Next month, I’ll address organizational membership benefits.) Our tagline – Innovative People Advancing Scholarly Communication – highlights our core values, which are described in more detail in our mission statement:

The mission of SSP is to advance scholarly publishing and communication and the professional development of its members through education, collaboration, and networking among individuals in the field.

SSP is not a trade association and doesn’t lobby or take positions on issues. Perhaps 70% of our members work for nonprofit or commercial publishers. As the society "for" scholarly publishing and not "of" scholarly publishers, SSP welcomes librarians, authors, editors, and people who work for vendors that support publishing either with services or products – anyone involved or interested in scholarly publishing. Your individual membership moves with you from position to position. Our diversity provides many opportunities to examine ideas from multiple vantage points so we can better understand the complexities of the scholarly communications environment and anticipate new developments. The respectful dialogue SSP supports helps our community of professionals advance scholarly communication.

Education and communication are significant aspects of our mission, and SSP offers programming with a substantial discount for members throughout the year: face-to-face educational seminars, Web seminars, the Librarian Focus Group, the annual meeting, and the fall IN – Innovate, Interact, Inspire meeting. Our programming addresses professional development needs throughout your career as you take on new and more complex responsibilities. We also focus on attracting new members and promoting scholarly communication career opportunities. These options include the student and early career travel grant program, online job listings, the member directory, and the services directory. At our annual meeting in May, we had 770 attendees – a number equal to 77% of our membership. We are developing new benefits to offer remote programming and are exploring additional Web 2.0 functionality. SSP even has a group in LinkedIn.

This is my twentieth year of membership in SSP, and I’ve been reflecting on the many ways SSP membership has helped me in my career as I've moved from librarian to service provider to consultant. The industry knowledge I’ve gained has been substantial, but what I’ve learned through volunteer service is invaluable.

Committee service in SSP provides rich opportunities for collaboration – to learn new skills, stretch your abilities, and make professional friends who will become part of your community. Generally, new members are recruited in the spring, but vacancies do occur. Please fill out the volunteer form if you are interested in serving now or next year. And watch for other opportunities for service and engagement as new SSP initiatives now in the planning stages are announced.

Each of us has a unique set of job responsibilities, which seem to be evolving and expanding more and more rapidly. In SSP, you can find peers to help you handle these new responsibilities, and you have advice to offer members. SSP values your support and involvement. Although our tangible benefits are substantial, I can assure you that the sense of accomplishment and community that is a byproduct of SSP service is well worth the time invested. Please respond to our member survey and help SSP continue to serve as your community of innovative people advancing scholarly communication.