The Corporate Librarian

As long-promised, my review of Mary Ellen Bates‘ Building & Running a Successful Research Business (Reva Basch edited it as part of a series, but Bates’ name is on the spine so I’m calling it hers). I recently completed a one-off consulting job as a step towards considering a freelance career, so I feel I can provide at least some “road testing.” Unlike books touting how to become an information broker from the early 90’s, Bates freely admits that the independent information professional may not be a career for everyone, and gives good advice on determining for oneself if that’s the case. This won her major points with me off the bat.

The first section is all about starting your business - do you even want to be an independent information professional, what sort of research will you do, how to find clients, what your competition is like, considerations for incorporation, work-life balance, etc.. Bates uses plenty of real-world examples, with important points called out in sidebars or endbars. The tone is helpful and fairly informal.

The second section is devoted to running your business once you’ve launched, and is invaluable. Everything from problem clients (and potential clients) and how to deal with them to financial issues (billing and collections, taxes, setting rates and fees), to subcontracting, to the ethics and legalities involved, to how to get yourself professional development and how to conduct strategic planning for your business. I put some of her guidance to use when writing and sending an invoice to my client, such as including a W-9 form and providing a Taxpayer Identification Number. Sadly, I set my rate for the job before reading her advice on the topic, and lowballed myself as a result.

The section on marketing is full of dos and don’ts - I have to admit to only skimming this section, as I was doing a one-off job to see how I might like freelancing. However, the piece on marketing by writing and speaking should be taught in library schools as a core class, to my mind.

The final section is dedicated to research - how to conduct different types (online, phone, public records, etc.), how to approach online research, how to structure your deliverables and other services you can offer. Again, plenty of advice and real-world examples, in the text as well as sidebars and endbars. Appendices offer information on the Association of Independent Information Professionals, how to stay up-to-date, useful tools (associations, books, government agencies, Web sites, etc.) for independent information professionals and contact information for people quoted in the book.

I would urge anyone considering a career as an independent information professional to read through this book first, as essential preparation, as well as to anyone curious what non-traditional career options are available to librarians.

Questions, comments, peasants with torches?

I’ve been taking all manner of webinars offered by the outplacement firm my former employer uses on resume-writing and identifying my career assets and interview tips and whatnot. Last Friday, I met with an outplacement counselor who’s going to be offering advice on content and format for my resume, Monday I’m signing up for an interview lab and Tuesday I’m meeting with someone from one of the library placement agencies I’m signed up with to:

• Try and understand what I’m doing wrong in interviews
• Discuss if I should change the focus of my job search

Then I’m off to California, to meet with library placement agency people out there, try and line up some interviews, and see if I can live with a potential long-term roommate for 2 weeks without us killing each other. I’ll also be talking with that counselor about networking and coming up with a target set of industries and companies.

Later this week or next I hope to have completed the consulting job I’m working on and post lessons learned for anyone considering freelance consulting.

One advantage about working for 14 years, you’ve got a big network to look to in addition to job placement agencies.

Since I got back from South Africa, I’ve had one interview (through an agency), sent my resume to a few former colleagues and I’ve got a conference call next week to start talking about a company’s knowledge management/research needs (again, through a former employer’s alumni network). Another agency is sending my resume on to a potential employer and wants to know when I’ll be in the state.

I’ll likely be spending the rest of this week doing various unemployment-related things (following up on benefits, outplacement, unemployment insurance) and research on different ways firms organize their research functions.

Anyone have experience with the AIIP? Is it worth joining if my long-term goal is to find work with a firm?

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.

A belated but nonetheless sincere thanks to Alexandra at Sandia for the article she forwarded on collecting job listings in one’s RSS aggregator. The Corporate Librarian wants to note for the impressionable fledgling librarians out there that Monster.com is practically useless for finding jobs, as is Careerbuilder. He’s so annoyed with the sites he’s not even linking to them, not even with a nofollow.

Anyway, the Corporate Librarian made it back from Vermont (despite being deluged with 41 inches of snow, or 1.04 meters for the more cosmopolitan of you), and has begun following up on his job leads. He’s also ordered two books on information brokering, as we used to call it back in the day:

• Building & Running a Successful Research Business: A Guide for the Independent Information Professional
• Super Searchers Make It On Their Own: Top Independent Information Professionals Share Their Secrets for Starting and Running a Research Business

Perhaps reviews are in order once the Corporate Librarian gets them. Any information brokers/independent information professionals following the blog with advice for people wanting to go the independent route?

Job-seekers (who hit my blog with gay abandon) might want to check out the first brief post I did on how I got my job, mainly for the comments to the entry.

To recap and expand:

• If possible, get an internship while still a student. This will make you stand out from less-experienced library school graduates.
• Library placement agencies are your friend - but don’t rely just on them, and keep in mind they get paid for placing you, so they might put pressure on you to take the first job that comes along.
• Network like mad. One thing my boss explained to me after the recent news was the concept of an informational interview. You’re not clasping your acquaintance’s knees in supplication and begging for a job, you’re talking with a friend (over lunch, say) about what their job is like. This gives you an idea of whether you might want a similar job. Make sure to get one other contact from informational interviews.

Be aware that the job search will take time, and don’t get discouraged if you get rejected by one outfit. A friend looking for an academic position tried to send out 1-2 resumes a day - it was a manageable volume and got him practice with his cover letter-writing skills. The Corporate Librarian’s first job took him months and months to get, after multiple interviews, applying with multiple library placement firms. It was a temp job, and when the firm moved operations to another state they realized the Corporate Librarian was already a good candidate for a permanent position, since I’d been doing the work for months already.

Right now, the Corporate Librarian has an Excel sheet set up, with columns for date, action taken, position applied for (if any), company (ditto), contact, result, and next action. I expect one could whip up something prettier in a database program - when the Corporate Librarian was laid off from his first job (not for performance, he hastens to reassure potential future employers), he custom-built a database in FileMaker. Which was free. Yes, this dates the Corporate Librarian.

Anyway, there are several purposes in doing this:

• It allows you to see you’re making daily progress.
• You have a set of contacts which will stand you in good stead for professional networking even after you have your job.

Any further suggestions the Corporate Librarian’s readers have for getting that first job out of school? Tips on networking? How to decide what sort of job to apply for? Post away!

The Corporate Librarian worries sometimes about alienating his audience. Sure, it’s fun to post about various technologies and their potential applications, but judging from traffic reports that also seems to turn people off. Leaving aside the usual trends (traffic dropping over weekends, or, oh, say when one takes off several weeks from posting), this saddens the Corporate Librarian and he fears that he’ll start complaining to imaginary bartenders in no time. And nobody wants that.

So, while browsing through SLA’s website, the Corporate Librarian stumbled across a history of special libraries (PDF), excerpted from the writings of John Cotton Dana. Among his other achievements, Dana created the first business branch library. It’s interesting to read his thoughts on what made special libraries special - a new methodology for managing information resources which recognized that much information was ephemeral and could and should be discarded at some point. Other definitions suggest that what makes special libraries special is their focus on the needs of a specific group or organization. So we see a shift from methodology to clientele - not what we do, but who we serve. The SLA suggests a combination of the two:

Special librarians are information resource experts who collect, analyze, evaluate, package, and disseminate information to facilitate accurate decision-making in corporate, academic, and government settings.

The key part of that phrase is, it seems to the Corporate Librarian, “information resource experts.” After all, other information professionals “collect, analyze, evaluate, package and disseminate information.” Looking at Resources for Employers, we move back to methodology:

This is accomplished through the development, deployment, and management of information resources and services. Information professionals, working in non-traditional settings such as market research, business development, and strategic planning, use the Internet and other technology to present information in a way that maximizes its usefulness, saving time and money in order to attain the goals of their organization. Organizations that are integrating information professionals into strategic planning initiatives recognize their necessity in gaining a competitive advantage in the information and knowledge age.

A study conducted by SLA found that eighty-five percent of the companies ranked in the top 100 on the Fortune 500 list employed information professionals, compared to less than fifty percent of the companies ranked in the bottom 100. The Special Libraries Association represents thousands of information resource experts who are ready to put your organization over the top. What steps are you taking to differentiate your business from the next and maintain your company’s sustainability?

So the argument is that information professionals (note: not just librarians - CIOs, consultants and other “knowledge workers” are included) can provide actionable information and save time and money to boot, essentially. Interesting to note the focus on corporations - I wonder how all the art libraries, museums, etc. feel about this? Well, that’s probably one reason the vote on whether to change the name of the association to Information Professionals International back in 2003 didn’t quite make it.

The About Information Professional section gives the following examples of information professionals:

IPs include, but are not limited to, librarians, knowledge managers, chief information officers, web developers, information brokers, and consultants.

Now I know the SLA has an Information Technology Division with various sections, and Knowledge Management finally got to be a Division in its own right. Consulting is a section within the Leadership Division. But can my readers provide any insight as to how SLA works with other industry associations? How do we define our mission differently from theirs? What sort of issues come up in terms of competition?

In short, aside from other knowledge workers not necessarily wanting to take the time to do what we do (it would be difficult for a consultant to take on managing a physical library, for example), what makes us special now?