The Corporate Librarian

The Corporate Librarian is feeling uninspired, so he played some with the design of his blog. Thus, you will now see Recent Comments and Top Posts listed in the frighteningly-long right sidebar.

Some day, when his ambition returns, he will not only have a post of substance, but move some of his widgets over to the left side, if he can. Then, and only then, will he stop talking in the third person.

This year, after swallowing nervously, the Corporate Librarian used his blog in his performance review. He forwarded on an e-mail giving a review of his blog in a professional newsletter and another one asking for performance to quote his blog in an upcoming article.

Do any of you include your blog in your performance review processes as an achievement to be noted?

The way research works at the Corporate Librarian’s company, researchers are given target recoverability rates. This means that, say, at least 65% of my time must be allocated to helping clients. Projects or business groups have charge codes set up by finance which we charge our time back to.

As far as sources go, some are paid for flat-out by the company (with usage being tracked) and others have a cost-recovery scheme (a document from a given source is charged back at a rate of $X).

I wonder, though - instead of viewing research activities as a cost center or a service center, is it possible to position research as a profit center? It might be tricky, given that contracts for sources usually have usage and distribution restrictions. That means one source of revenue, doing work for the company’s clients, is extremely difficult to work out. But it would seem to encourage efficiency and provide a possible defense when layoffs come around.

I’ve found a 1997 survey on news libraries as profit centers (through CD-ROM subscriptions, microfilm sales and inclusion of archives in commercial databases, fee-based reference services) and various articles on marketing libraries or making business cases for libraries, but I wonder what thoughts my readers might have.

The Corporate Librarian has been interested in corporate library/research business models, ever since a colleague at his previous job told him how KM and research had been referred to as “bloodsucking overhead.”

Periodically, I use WordPress.com’s Blog Stats feature to track page views over the past month or so. Here’s the latest.

Getting corporate library jobs 96
Cataloging in corporate libraries 74
The role of technology in corporate libr 40
Results of the corporate library blog su 34
Marketing your library 34
On using other libraries as resources 29
Outsourcing and corporate libraries 25
Knowledge management and corporate libra 19
You like me! 5
Budgeting practices 4
Corporate libraries and Library 2.0 3
A poll! 2
Virtual corporate librarians 2

I had no idea cataloging was such a volatile topic in corporate libraries - most of the blog commentary I’ve seen has been from academic and public librarians.

One thing which frustrates me somewhat is the relative paucity of comments on most entries. Not solely for the sake of boosting my ego - that’s already the size of a planet - but because I had hopes of colleagues coming together to share their experiences. Is it that the topics aren’t of interest, with a few exceptions? If so, what would you like to see discussed? Is it that there’s a reluctance to submit long comments - and if so, should I look into setting up another forum or utilizing existing resources such as Library Success? Is my basic assumption wrong, in that law libraries, medical libraries and other types of corporate libraries don’t have much in common?

Apologies for the late post this week, the Corporate Librarian’s been feeling out of sorts.

Along with planning a budget, vendor relations is a topic I wish we’d learned something of in library school. At least the principles of developing a budget are fairly straight-forward: prioritizing must-have sources vs. nice-to-have, never asking for less than the previous year unless you’re forced to, making sure to plan and submit your budget several months early to account for any delays with accounting and/or legal.

Negotiating with vendors, not as straightforward. When do you push back on price increases? When do you go for flat pricing for a source, versus usage-based pricing? How much can one save by agreeing to limited distribution (fixed number of users, or internal distribution only)? How does one negotiate trials?

I’ve got a few tips off the bat. There’s a mailing list which looks as though it could be useful, though it’s oriented towards academic and research libraries: LIBLICENSE-L. If it’s not already the case, you could work with your company’s legal department to review and revise contracts. Jobbers or subscription agents can help with savings on periodicals, and I’ve used them in the past.

Any more useful tips?