The Corporate Librarian

So the news about my position got announced via e-mail at work today, which cleared me to start networking in earnest. Would have done it earlier, but for some reason my boss got it in his head I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.

Some new job agencies for any readers on the West Coast:

• Advanced Information Management, which offers jobs in both Northern and Southern California
• Taylor & Associates, which focuses on the Bay Area, but offers jobs nationwide and in Canada

I also heard from someone about the possibility of a freelance knowledge management consulting gig, have to iron out the details on that (like what rate I should ask for, how to work the gig and moving) and get back to the person next week. I heard of that through posting to the alumni mailing list for a former employer. So see, networking is important!

My boss (well, one of my bosses, it’s complicated) also passed on some positions with another consulting firm, so I’ll submit my resume to them. I also have to catch up on updating my Excel spreadsheet I’m using to manage the job hunt.

I’m expecting to hear this week on final dates and a venue for the Library Camp NYC - our preferred dates would be August 7th-9th, with a fallback of August 14th-16th.

Posting on library20.ning.com has gotten interest from several more people, so I take back anything back I ever thought or said about YASNS. So far, I have 22 people who are or might be interested, and I’m sure we can do better than that. So please feel free to proselytize among your colleagues and peers, and if anyone would like to receive updates please e-mail me at box_nine@ix.netcom.com with your full name.

Once dates and a venue are confirmed, I’ll set up a wiki, likely at wikispaces.com, which will include:

• A signup page
• A page to propose discussion sessions
• Information on hotel deals
• Multimedia stuff - e.g., photos, MP3s of sessions if people care to bring podcasting gear

I’m really looking forward to meeting you and having some fun discussions!

Somehow I managed to completely miss Amanda’s survey of special libraries and their usage of Web 2.0 technologies. 68 respondents isn’t bad at all - I wonder if I should do one for corporate libraries specifically (I’m not sure why law firms are their own category).

Things which struck me:

• Widespread adoption of RSS frankly surprised me. Perhaps I’m a pessimist in such matters. I’m curious how much of this is usage of RSS aggregators by the staff, how much is syndicating feeds for the library, etc.. I’m also curious as to which types of libraries tend to use RSS - my impression is that law libraries lag, based on posts such as Steve Matthews’.
• I’m also curious how much 2.0 technologies are used for internal purposes by library staff (e.g., internal staff communications) versus usage by/in collaboration with the libraries’ customers

What say you lot - worth doing a follow-up survey? Any suggestions for publicizing the survey if I do go ahead with it (I’m thinking perhaps BUSLIB-L)?

One of the purposes of this blog is to encourage collaborative thinking on what model or models corporate libraries should move towards. For all the talk about Library 2.0, a lot of the examples seem to come from the academic or public library world. This seems odd to me, as corporate libraries are at least as challenged as our academic and public brethren when it comes to being required to provide the same or better service with flat or reduced budgets. In addition, we may face challenges unique to the corporate environment (I’m guessing), such as support for remote users. Frankly, it’s a sense of exclusion from the larger discussion that’s led me to starting this blog and to organizing Library Camp NYC.

Some sketches towards such a model:

• Experiment - my experience has been that vendors are quite willing to customize their products to simplify their interfaces and to add features. This can be a challenge in the corporate environment, where one needs authorization to get servers and IT supports the entire business, not just library staff. Still, on your own time you can certainly look into blogs, social bookmarking services (which are hosted elsewhere), wikis (some of which are hosted elsewhere) and other innovative technologies. I’d really like to hear how people have dealt with these challenges, in particular.
• Empower your users - the more your users can do with resources available to them, the more interesting your work will become (to lapse into consulting-speak, you’re “moving up the value chain”) and the more you’re demonstrating your value,
• Meet your users - this can mean mingling in another part of the office, or driving/flying to provide training, or using technologies such as Centra or WebEx (or others I’m not aware of). It can be as simple as arranging to be on conference calls, or interacting via IM. Not only does this remind the larger business that the library exists and provides useful services, it also allows you to get feedback from your users as to how you’re doing and what you could be doing better or differently.

I’m currently reading Michael Habib’s paper on Academic Library 2.0 to see if there are further elements which can be adapted or adopted - but what do you all think? I freely admit to having no knowledge what librarians do in a legal, medical or scientific library setting (for example), so speak up!

UPDATE: Because I’m an idiot, I missed this post from the Industrial Librarian. The money quote:

Recently, she asked for my opinion on what I thought were the three most important social software applications in corporate libraries.

So perhaps I will have to pick up Meredith Farkas‘ book after all.

UPDATE THE SECOND: March’s Information Outlook (which oddly requires one to download a piece of software they’ll never use again for anything else to read it online) has an article from Jill Konieczko, “Library 2.0 in the Corporate World: Marketing Becomes Collaboration.”

I haven’t been able to get into Second Life this week, as I’m staying with my broadband-challenged parents. Unfortunately, this meant I fell behind on renting virtual office space, as I found out when I checked my gmail:

The object ‘HTNRS Rental Box 3.0.1′ has sent you a message from Second Life:
My First Rental Box @ Da Boom 30, 152, 71 - You were 2 days behind on your rental payments. You have been evicted. Please come and remove your objects or they will auto-returned to you.

 What does this mean? Well, Rockwell Ginsberg, the guy who rented me the virtual space probably isn’t thrilled with me. And should I wish to post another classified ad, I’ll have to find another space to associate it with. Even if it’s the virtual equivalent of “Meet me behind the school at 3.” But as far as I know there’s no “virtual credit record.”

Anyone know of good classes in marketing one’s business in Second Life?

It’s really not much of a secret - I mean, I should have created a corporatelibrarian account on gmail if I truly wanted to maintain my anonymity. Or not posted my trading card on Flickr recently. And for those of you as addicted to Web 2.0 things as I am, here’s my profile-in-progress at Library 2.0 on Ning.

But for the 3 or 4 people who haven’t figured it out, hi. My name’s Steven Kaye. I work for Accenture, at least I do until April 30th. When I first set up this blog, the advice I got was to keep it anonymous until Accenture figured out its blogging policy. But it gets awkward writing about oneself in the third person, I was annoyed that I had to turn down an chance to be quoted by Judith Siess because I wasn’t sure what I could and couldn’t reveal about myself, and from what I can tell from Accenture’s blogging policy, as long as I follow common sense guidelines:

• Follow the company’s Business Code of Ethics
• Respect copyright and fair use policies
• Protect confidential and proprietary information
• Don’t comment on or disclose the company’s financial or operational performance
• Don’t reference company clients, business partners or suppliers without permission and don’t use their actual names
• Use a disclaimer

I’m kosher. I’d wondered about that last bit, since WordPress doesn’t seem to have an easy way to post a disclaimer so it’s always at the top of a blog. So for now, I’ve created a disclaimer page.

Got any questions, now that I no longer have a secret identity?