The Corporate Librarian

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.”

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?

It seems that several librarians use some form of cataloging or database software, which isn’t surprising. With a global network of colleagues and (potential) customers located all over the globe, our research group has been heavy users of instant messaging (and it’s widely used within the larger firm). We’ve got a website for our research group, with the capability for users to register for and/or subscribe to research sources from the website.

What other technologies are widely used in corporate libraries? E-mail, obviously. I’m assuming most firms have some sort of knowledge management application, but I could be wildly overoptimistic about that. How many of you lot are using blogs for work? How many are using wikis? Do you have developers you can call on for applications? What technologies would you like to explore that you haven’t so far?

For those of you with public or academic library backgrounds, do you see any differences in how technology is adopted and which technologies are adopted in the corporate environment versus the public/academic one?

When I was first hired, my job straddled knowledge management and corporate research. One of my responsibilities was for the collection of internal and external materials - assigning Cutter numbers to books, otherwise cataloging binders and videos, managing their circulation, ordering new items and weeding the collection periodically. Our catalog was a custom Lotus Notes database, which I’d helped build and maintain.

I have to admit, I hated this with a passion. I’d hated cataloging in library school, people never returned items on time (often losing them, or lending them to other people and not telling me), and the final straw was when the group I was supporting was moving to another building and told me I’d have to pay for transporting the resources.

So, largely by fiat (and the support of my manager), I transitioned control of the video collection to someone else, tossed most of the books and magazines (or donated them to a local library school), shredded much of the internal documentation (don’t worry, I made sure I had backups of the important stuff), and washed my hands of the affair.

In the building I moved to, there was a library as well, with the catalog maintained in some Inmagic product or another. When the Grand Restructuring occured, many of the library items were disposed of, with a few remaining in people’s (limited) file drawers or in their home offices.

Currently, there isn’t a catalog of the various publications, reports, etc. we researchers have. I’m considering suggesting this as something to add to our Sharepoint site.

My suspicion is that most corporate libraries still have a physical library of some sort, with some type of catalog. So sound off! Do you have a library? Do you have a catalog, and if so what software do you use and why? What do you look for in cataloging software?

What with the vagaries of budgets and cutbacks in space and whatnot, I find myself relying on other libraries a great deal.

The two main ones I use are St. John’s University’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Library (for access to A.M. Best CD-ROMs, insurance reference books and periodicals) and the New York Public Library’s Science and Industry Business Library (some insurance sources, but also references from other industries - for example, I recently went there to check out the LexisNexis Advertising Red Books). I’ve also used the New York Public Library’s NYPL Express document delivery service as well as the University of Michigan’s Michigan Information Transfer Source (MITS) in the past. And I’ve used the Open WorldCat search to find specific resources I’m looking for. As far as I can tell, I’m the only person who uses local libraries, at least in my office.

The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Library charges $30/day for a day pass, which I expense back to whichever project I’m working on along with travel time to and from the library. There’s no charge for me for NYPL Branch Library and ACCESS cards, so I just charge for travel time.

Do you find yourselves relying more on local libraries with budget cutbacks and space reductions? Any useful tips to share?

When looking for a topic to post on, it never hurts to check out other blogs. And thus I discovered the brouhaha resulting from Steven Cohen’s post on his new job.

We work with outside research providers on occasion, but the relationship is very carefully managed and the value that our research group provides as opposed to external service providers is always communicated. As I’ve noted, we’re constantly working to market ourselves.
Nevertheless, there is always pressure to deliver services more cheaply, so we have been building up staff in lower-cost locations. Even here though, American and European researchers have advanced presentation skills, deep client relationships and a wealth of industry expertise, so it’s more of a partnership then a case of “Oh my God, those [insert nationality] are taking away chargeable* work from me!” Although I won’t deny that some of us had that very fear initially.

Do any of you have experience with outsourcing of library services, and what has the impact been (I refuse to use “impact” as a verb)?

* We have recoverability targets for our time, with the exact percentage varying based on level. Not meeting recoverability targets is grounds for a downgrade come performance review time.

Bonus link: Wikipedia’s poorly-cited article on Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), which I should edit one of these days. The “$17 billion by 2010″ comes from Evalueserve’s 2004 study “The Next Big Opportunity – Moving up the Value Chain – From BPO to KPO” (the “recent study” mentioned in the article). That report which “predicts that India will capture more than 70 percent of the KPO sector by 2010″? Evalueserve again, though I haven’t found the primary source yet.

Building on one of the topics of my inaugural post, via the SLA Government Division's website, a pointer to the U.S. Institute for Museum and Library Service's compilation of Advisory Panel white papers on the "Future of Librarians in the Workforce," which includes business libraries.

I found it interesting that business librarians are increasingly expected to work in "virtual libraries":

In the next ten years it is likely that the majority of information needed by a business library’s customers will be digital. Business libraries will become virtual libraries. They will require less physical space; perhaps they will occupy no physical space. Business librarians may work in a small office or workspace or from home. This virtualization will bring about more outreach; we will go to our customers rather than have our customers come to us.

At my organization, we are eligible for a work-at-home program, which many of my colleagues and I took up with great eagerness. Permission was required from our supervisors, and a one-time reimbursement was made available for necessary office equipment. It does take some discipline to work effectively from home, but as a corporate researcher most of the resources I use are either online or on my laptop, and most of the people I support are not located in my "official" office. I don't travel much (budgetary restrictions), so I try to stay in contact with the people I support via e-mail, IM and phone. I come into the office 1-2 days a week for face-time with co-workers - we've adopted a hoteling system. However, there has been something of a backlash against the widespread use of telecommuting, with official "in-office days" being established twice a month.

Does your organization support telecommuting? If so, how do you remain visible to your clients? Have you experimented with offering online training at all, or other "virtual" services?