The Corporate Librarian

It’s not a full-time position, but through networking with former colleagues I got a short assignment to help a company decide on what knowledge management solution they want to use. So that’s why I haven’t posted in a while. I’m presenting my deliverable this week, so perhaps I’ll do a follow-up post on lessons learned.

Two jobs I’m looking into involve knowledge management, so that’s as good an excuse as any to look into the relationship of knowledge management and research. Keep in mind, I’ve worked for consulting firms all my life, so I’d love to hear other people’s takes on these musings.

The first job I had, the same people were responsible for both knowledge management and research in theory. However, I often got push-back from the people who solely did research when I tried to grow my research skills. We charged back for our time on research requests - I don’t recall now whether we did or not for knowledge management activities.

At my current employer, Research is a separate function from Knowledge Management. This wasn’t always the case - when I was first hired, I’d search the company’s internal knowledge bases, help people contribute to them and manage the local library as well as calling associations and conducting searches on DIALOG, LexisNexis, etc.. Over time, Research became distinct from Knowledge Management. The two functions work together to solve client needs, and as a member of Research I work to see that deliverables are added to the firm’s internal knowledge base as appropriate, but there are some key differences. Research charges back for time. Knowledge Management doesn’t, I think. Research reports up to Strategy. Knowledge Management reports up to HR.

A few issues I’m thinking about as regards knowledge management and research:

• Who “owns” the customer? Established relationships with clients are valuable, so I’ve seen conflict over who is the single point of contact. Obviously, combining knowledge management and research eliminates this conflict (though there is still the potential for conflict with other corporate functions).
• Charging back for time. Honestly, I see it as a barrier to good client relationships - there’s a tension between projects wanting to maintain high margins and researchers wanting to maximize their billable hours. Also, do you want your clients thinking in terms of price, or value provided?
• Where knowledge management and research sit in the organization. Research reporting to Strategy gives it visibility with high-level executives and insulates it somewhat from the basilisk-like cost-cutting gaze often bestowed upon support functions. I’m a firm believer in the potential for knowledge management and research proactively surfacing issues for executives as well as promoting thought leadership.

Comments? Reactions?

While doing my regular search for new items on corporate libraries, I ran across Primary Research Group Inc.’s Corporate Library Benchmarks 2004-05 Edition. You can get the table of contents as a .txt file here. Much of the contents of the report, as summarized in this press release, are no surprise: less space for libraries, not much growth in budgets, increased spending on electronic information.

But this jumped out at me:

Attitude of Library Management Towards Knowledge Management

For about half of the libraries in the sample, knowledge management software and practices had little impact on their day to day work life, while for a third, the impact was quite important.

What’s wrong with this picture? If corporate librarians aren’t involved in the aggregation and dissemination of information, doesn’t that hurt our position in companies? I’m flabbergasted, honestly. I looked at the SLA’s Competencies for Special Librarians document, just to make sure I wasn’t misremembering.

Participates in knowledge management activities that create, capture, exchange, use and communicate the organization’s “intellectual capital”

That’s from a SLA publication that’s now 10 years old:

Remeikis, Lois A. “Knowledge Management — Roles for Information Professionals.” Business and Finance Division Bulletin, SLA, 101, Winter 1996, 41-43.