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32nd Conference of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Spezialbibliotheken 22 September 2009 |
Good afternoon! It is a privilege to be here to talk with you today. I would like to thank the German Special Libraries Association and offer special thanks to Dr. Juergen Warmbrunn for inviting me to join you. I would also like to thank our hosts at Karlsruhe University, who are represented by Dr. Becker and Dr. Heinrich Kristen, deputy director of the university library.
Let me begin by telling you a little about SLA. Despite the name Special Libraries Association, SLA is an association of people rather than libraries. Our members, like all of you here, are the professionals who provide organizations with the knowledge they need to make effective decisions. This year, we are celebrating the centennial of our founding by a group of librarians who met on the porch of a mountain resort hotel to discuss a new kind of librarianship. It involved a nontraditional group of customers: people who worked for manufacturers, government agencies, research institutions and other organizations.
These were not the intellectuals or avid readers the librarians were accustomed to serving. Instead, they were people demanding specialized information they could use to make their organizations more successful. They were living at a time when new technologies, materials, communications methods and transportation options were being introduced every day. They wanted information that would help them harness those changes. They knew that information and knowledge are practical, not just intellectual. Working together, librarians and organizations could put knowledge to work.
They recognized, a century before David Weinberger , that "everything is miscellaneous." Highly useful information can be found in many places beyond the dusty stacks of the traditional library. Long before the new "digital disorder," these new librarians saw themselves as "human aggregators." They began to put together bits and pieces of information from all kinds of sources--from traditional academic texts to news reports, technical reports, product literature--in order to meet the specific needs of an organization.
Fast forward a hundred years. The digital revolution has changed almost everything. Consider the number of dramatic changes that have occurred since the first German e-mail was sent from this very location 25 years ago. The universe of information available to info pros and special librarians grows exponentially each minute, and with it grows the challenge of sifting through it to find what is relevant, useful and can be verified.
Old systems of classification seem quaint. In fact, SLA's newest division is devoted exclusively to taxonomy and the developments in that field. It joins a host of other subject-based divisions that our founders might find both bewildering and exciting--such as divisions devoted to Information Technology, Competitive Intelligence, Knowledge Management, Petroleum and Energy Resources, and 22 other fields.
The technical skills and knowledge you must have to exploit that information are expanding at nearly the same pace. After all, some of us finished our formal education before the personal computer was even invented, never mind the Internet and mobile communication. The idea of finishing your education when you finish school is now quite arcane thinking!
However, the three basic roles SLA plays as the international professional association for special librarians and information professionals have been surprisingly consistent.
The first role SLA plays is providing opportunities for members to develop their professional skills and keep them up-to-date. The methods and technologies used in gathering, verifying, analyzing and distributing information are constantly changing. Information professionals are constantly challenged to keep up.
SLA has a deep commitment to supporting our members' need for continuing professional development. And, like everything else, most of those learning opportunities are now digital. We have our own online learning portal, Click University, available to our members every hour of every day, no matter where in the world they are. Through Click U, we offer our members free Webinars and replays, a free Innovation Lab where they can learn about the newest Web 2.0 applications, and free online libraries. Click University also offers online certificate programs in areas of growing demand, such as competitive intelligence and knowledge management.
SLA's second role is to build a global network that our members can use to share information, advice and support. This has long been an important activity of the association, but it grows more significant each year. SLA now has about 11,000 members in 75 countries, but we are working hard to expand that network and to connect information professionals worldwide.
In addition to the subject-based divisions I mentioned, we also have geographic-based SLA chapters, including one here in SLA Europe. These chapters are able to focus on issues of particular interest to members in their region. You may know that one of our German members, Michael Fanning, received a grant from SLA and recently completed a study of information professionals in Germany.
Recently, my former boss, President Clinton gave a speech where he said the world was now "interdependent."
I see that every day with librarians and information professionals. In a global economy, connectivity among librarians is essential in finding the right information, solving problems and highlighting the value special librarians bring to the workplace. SLA members across the globe, working in vastly different fields--academic, corporate, government, manufacturing, health care and more--can easily exchange information and ideas. Beyond in-person networking opportunities at our annual meeting, SLA employs a variety of communication technologies--from listserves to blogs and wikis to our own island in Second Life--to make it fast and easy for information professionals to tap into the knowledge of their peers all over the world.
I want to share one example I recently ran across. One of our members is a special librarian at an architecture firm. She is routinely asked to research the building requirements of all kinds of businesses, from medical facilities to manufacturing plants, in any part of the world. Through her SLA network, she can rapidly locate other information professionals who work in the fields and locations she is investigating.
In this kind of work, everything is indeed miscellaneous. Chances are that no single information professional can guide her to all of the information her architects should have. One might point her to reliable geological information about the site, and another to economic data. A third may point out that new regulatory requirements are under consideration in the type of business the architects are designing for.
By tapping into the knowledge and resources of all of these colleagues, she can tame the digital disorder. She can identify the best sources of the information she needs and learn about additional information that even her architects do not know they will require. As a result, she can deliver a superior product to her organization--and save them a great deal of time and money in the process. Our members consistently cite the opportunities to collaborate with other members as one of the most enriching and useful aspects of their work.
Finally, I would like to discuss the third role of SLA, and that is advocacy.
SLA is an advocate for our members individually and for special libraries generally. This advocacy can take many forms.
On the public policy front, we are active in efforts to maintain government funding that will allow the public to have access to specialized information. Recently, for example, we successfully worked to keep open the libraries of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency--EPA.
The EPA plan is an example of something that we must all watch out for, a major pitfall in the road towards digitalization. I want to take a moment to describe what happened because there are lessons here that apply to every library.
EPA had 27 libraries and information centers across the U.S. People rely on EPA information to make decisions that affect everybody's health and many businesses. There's EPA itself, its scientists and researchers. And there are other Federal agencies, states and local governments, industry, academics . . . We even heard from exterminators who relied on local EPA libraries to learn about the chemicals they use in houses and put down on lawns to rid them of insects and pests.
In order to save money, EPA planned to digitize all the unique materials in their libraries. Unfortunately, they had no business plan, and no timeline, and no budget. And as far as we could tell, they had no knowledge of the technology involved or its limits--and no plan to safeguard original documents.
And nobody had analyzed the impact on users. Would EPA scientists have access to previous work? Would the public be able to get at information that only EPA had? Would public officials be able to put their hands on the right information in time to deal with toxic events such as chemical spills or industrial accidents? Nobody really knew.
How did things get to this point? There is little doubt that EPA's lack of innovation in information management decreased the efficiency and usefulness of their libraries. And that made them an easy target at budget time.
The lessons that every library, and every information professional, can take from the EPA Libraries story is simple: Those who stand still will be run over. Information professionals must keep up to date on new technology and constantly emphasize the value of information to their organization.
Back to the subject of advocacy, SLA often joins with other organizations to advocate a position on issues of common interest, as we did in May with IFLA and the International Publishers Association in a statement calling for a more rational, evidence based debate on open access.
And, as you might expect, we are often engaged in public policy work relating to copyright law and intellectual property, both in the U.S. and internationally. SLA has observer status in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
SLA is also part of the Open Book Alliance, a coalition of librarians, legal scholars, authors, publishers, and technology companies created to counter the proposed Google Book Settlement in its current form--something I know is of great concern here in Germany. Together, we are working to inform policymakers and the public about the legal, competitive and policy issues involved.
The most important advocacy role that SLA plays, however, is to empower our members to demonstrate the important role they play within their organizations. This is the focus of an ambitious two-year research effort undertaken by SLA to find the best way to communicate the value of the information profession.
With so much information available online, and with organizations and governments looking for ways to cut costs, advocacy at the personal level has taken on new urgency. People outside the library world--and more than a few in it--believe that digital information has made human aggregators of knowledge--special librarians--obsolete at a time when organizations need them more than ever before. As my EPA story illustrated, too many librarians and even whole libraries are becoming victims of the budget ax.
Our challenge was to find out how information professionals view their own jobs; how those jobs are viewed by executives; which activities performed by info pros are valued most; and what language can be used to effectively communicate the value that information professionals add to the organizations that employ them. We undertook this challenge in the manner in which information professionals tackle their work every day: by conducting extensive research and finding the best information to support data-driven decisions.
We started with in-depth research, in partnership with a top communication consulting agency, a futurist, and an information analytics firm. The first step was to assemble existing data on the information profession. We then held a series of workshops and strategy sessions to determine what we needed to learn and who we needed to ask.
The result was the first phase of our primary research, an international online survey of top executives and professionals in information technology, human resources, marketing and information in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia. We took the findings of the first phase and conducted a second research effort using sophisticated dial testing to observe the reactions of executives and information professionals to specific words and phrases. All of the findings are available at our Web site, sla.org.
I would like to share with you the 5 major findings of our project. After that, I will give you 5 tips all librarians can use to become their own advocates, no matter where they work.
1. "Knowledge" is the bridge between information and action. Knowledge implies a deep understanding of information. Information professionals and librarians do more than just connect people and information; they provide context and analysis that turns information into knowledge and results.
2. Corporate executives acknowledge the value and importance of good information. To resonate with this critical audience, information professionals must make the connection between their product and their company's strategic goals. Executives want more than information--they want to know how that information will create competitive advantage and benefit the bottom line.
3. Information professionals should promote rather than defend value-driven benefits. Language that points out the value of information professionals--rather than language that emphasizes the shortcomings of "do it yourself" research--is more effective. Your customers do not want to hear that the information they put together using standard search engines is a waste of time. However, they may be receptive to learning about the additional tools you have mastered that will enrich and expand upon their findings, and the professional network available to you as an information pro.
4. The word "librarian" sends a mixed message. While "librarian" has some positive connotations, it is not associated with the positive attributes that employers value. People like librarians--but they used words such as "dusty" and "antiquated" to describe them.
5. Information professionals must focus on and value results, accountability, leadership and service. Saving organizations time and money by providing value-added intelligence that is accurate, reliable and relevant gives users a competitive advantage and contributes to the bottom line.
Now, I would like to take these findings and put them into more general terms--terms that I hope all librarians can use to become their own advocates.
1. First, DO use simple, accessible language. Members of every profession have their own vocabulary, but it is a mistake to assume that the people who make budgetary decisions about your library understand it. Whether you are writing a job description or a report on your library's activities, avoid professional jargon.
2. DO stress what you accomplish for your customers rather than the functions you perform on their behalf. You are more likely to find support for, for example, your efforts to "improve computer literacy" than the fact that you "taught five computer classes." In another example, our research found strong support for "making information accessible in a timely, convenient and secure manner," but very little enthusiasm for "managing and disseminating information."
3. DO highlight the analytical skills you bring to your job. Our research demonstrates that information professionals spend just as much time analyzing information as they do gathering it. In a world suffering from information overload, you have unique abilities to steer customers to the best of whatever they seek. Whether you are assisting a colleague with research on a competitor, or you are helping your organization to assess different methods to manage its knowledge, your ability to analyze and verify information is extremely valuable. Take every opportunity to point this out.
4. DO connect to your organization's overall strategic goals. In devising measurements, selecting priorities and even making decisions about acquisitions, work within the framework of your organization's strategic goals. Use the language that management uses. Anticipate their information requirements so you can deliver it before they know they need it to firmly link your capabilities to your organization's success.
5. DO demonstrate how you save time and money. By combining your knowledge of your organization's goals and your analytical skills, you probably make cost saving decisions and recommendations on a routine basis. You also introduce ways to save your customers time. Highlighting these activities underscores the value you add to your organization and helps position your job as an asset rather than a cost.
Finally, do remember that you are your own most effective advocate. While organizations like the German Special Libraries Association and SLA are working hard to enhance the profiles of libraries and the professionals associated with them, what you say and how you say it can be even more important.
No matter where we live or where we work, I think it is fair to say that all of us want to live in a world where decisions are made based on knowledge . . . where information is shared freely and efficiently . . . and where the professionals who work every day to organize information and make it available to people who need it are valued and appreciate it. The best way to accomplish this is to become our own best advocates.
Thank you. It has been a privilege to be here with you.
1Theme of the conference, "The Power of Digital Disorder," is based on David Weinberger's book Everything is Miscellaneous.
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