The Corporate Librarian

This is going to be pretty general on the work end of things, since I prefer to err on the side of not saying too much rather than saying too much about work.

I’ve been to two industry conferences, co-written a research report (and I’m helping gather data for another one), helped build and maintain some online databases and now I’m catching up on contact and document management activities as well. I’ve also done ad hoc research for colleagues for articles, on behalf of clients, etc..

We’re tech-friendly, within the limits of a parent company IT department that’s (rightly) concerned about security. I try to keep an eye out for new information sources.

One thing I wrestle with is the extent to which formal processes and task-specific software is required for document management for companies of 10 people or less. I’ll have to see if anyone in SLA’s KM division has thoughts on that.

SLA – some progress on the blog – we’ve got a lot of people reading, mainly because their email addresses are signed up to read blog updates. I may have gotten an advertiser for the blog, we’ll see.

Other than that, constant process issues with the blog and the perennial joys of travel in the Bay Area without a car mean I participate very little in local SLA Chapter activities and don’t have much ability to change that. Which is a shame, as we’ve had (and will have) some great programs.

I was also infuriated (not an exaggeration – I left the meeting as soon as was politic after that) by one person at a joint chapter meeting who felt the need to lecture my generation on ethics. Our president and others are working on student outreach, so hopefully that was an isolated crank.

So late 2009-2010 may be the year I drop some of my associations, we’ll see. I feel more connection to and interest in national SLA and divisions. I’m years behind on the SLA IT Blogging Division blog, local Solo Librarians meetings run up against the travel issue and AIIP I only kept membership because I was nervous about how my job was going.

Despite the fact that most people seem to be working in different types of libraries from me and it seems like people have Google and Twitter fetishes at times, LSW is probably the ‘association’ I feel closest to.

Jorie Porter asked me to pass on this call for papers on corporate library-related topics, and honestly I’d like to see some of this stuff. So:

(call for papers below)

We are seeking chapter proposals for a new edited collection on corporate libraries. This book will be an edited collection of chapters describing best practices in a variety of corporate libraries worldwide, providing both a foundation of knowledge for scholars in library and information science areas and information and ideas for practicing corporate librarians. The editors have obtained an interest from the publisher, and a contract is pending a list of potential chapters and contributors.

Please submit a proposal of 250 words, or a full chapter, for consideration.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

Planning a Corporate Library, including chapters on topics such as design, architecture, and facility planning, budget and staffing, long range planning, technology planning, hiring, recruiting, and training for a new library.

Collaborations, including chapters on interlibrary lending and borrowing, joint libraries, consortia and other types of collaborations and organizations.

Technology, including chapters on best practices, discussions of the use of technology, and the scope of a corporate librarian’s job such as what technological support they offer, web sites and internet databases in relations to corporate librarianship, electronic services.

Staffing, including human resources, continuing education, professional networking, core competencies, management, routines Communications, including articles regarding communications; for example, with satellite offices, with overseas branches, interdepartmental, computer mediated communication, and more.

Knowledge Management/ Organization, including topics covering how Corporate Libraries manage data and knowledge and organize it, and share it.

Special Issues This section will include articles about any special issues pertaining to Corporate Librarianship, such as current challenges, copyright and other legal topics, especially those that are unique to corporate librarianship.

Please send chapters or chapter proposals by July 28, 2009, through email to:

Sigrid Kelsey and Jorie Porter, editors

sigridkelsey@gmail.com

I  caught Ross Housewright’s article “Themes of Change in Corporate Libraries: Considerations for Academic Librarians” from a link posted on FriendFeed (hat tip to Peter Murray-Rust) and braced myself. Would it be yet another commenter looking lovingly over the fence at corporate libraries, imagining that they face none of the problems academic and public libraries face? Would it be yet another prescription for applying a one-size-fits all poorly-understood trendy business methodology to the academic library setting?

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Housewright addressed both the commonalities and the differences between academic and corporate libraries. He cites some of the sources you might expect – James Matarazzo’s work, Laurence Davenport and Thomas Prusak’s “Blow Up the Corporate Library,” but doesn’t stop with the 1990s and the outsourcing of corporate library functions.

Some tidbits:

• It’s not enough to establish measures and track them, the measures have to actually have something to do with value provided by the library. Telling me you had X number of transactions says nothing about whether the library should be handling all of those transactions, or what value those transactions bring to the library’s sponsor(s).
• It’s OK – no, it’s more than OK, it’s vital – to identify services that don’t make sense and to change them or stop offering them.
• Communicate with your sponsors and end users (and where Housewright shines is in stressing it’s not enough to market what you are doing, you have to actually listen to your sponsors and end users).

For people who wonder why I object to the notion of librarians as people who connect users with information:

In the traditional model described above, librarians acted mechanically and broadly, accepting simple requests and returning simple answers in high volumes, but this sort of activity was easily replaced by end-user research or simple outsourcing.

Housewright is honest enough to point out that a library can do all the right things and still close – these aren’t magic bullets. Some libraries were aware they needed to change, but couldn’t free up their resources or staff. Some libraries were and are not positioned effectively in their corporate hierarchies. And some solutions for corporate libraries may not fit academic and public libraries – the “let’s make  Walt happy” sentence here is

The experiences of the corporate library demonstrate that there is no ‘one size fits all’ model for the successful library; a library is successful if it serves the needs and priorities of its host institution, whatever those may be.

but in general I applaud the notion of libraries constantly assessing the services they provide in collaboration with other groups. I’m somewhat wary of the assumption that LibQUAL+ and the Balanced Scorecard methodology are necessarily value-driven metrics – I can’t speak to LibQUAL+, but Balanced Scorecard is easy to apply in a haphazard fashion.  Or such was the case when I last used it.

Housewright does recognize that academic libraries may have other concerns beyond immediate provision of value – he cites preservation as an example of this – but argues that libraries need to be willing to re-examine their missions and how their values play out in terms of services offered and roles played. Housewright also notes that some end-users may be quite vocal against a given change. Some of those users can be led to different behaviors, some may need specialized services.

I’m curious what academic librarians, as well as readers of this blog, think of the article. Is it an exercise in teaching one’s grandmother to suck eggs? Is it something to be printed out and shared with one’s peers?