Avoiding the AX: How to Keep from Being Downsized or Outsourced

by Mary Ellen Bates

Mary Ellen Bates is the principal of Bates Information 5ervices, an information brokerage and library consulting firm, She received her M. L. S. from the University of California, Berkeley and worked in special libraries for 15years before starting her own company. She can be reached via e-mail at.- mbates@BatesInfo.com or 1-202-332-2360.

We've all heard about corporate libraries that have been outsourced or closed altogether. Libraries are doing more with less, and less and less... On the other hand, there are stunning examples of special libraries that are stronger than ever, with the staffing and budget to meet the increasing needs of their parent organizations. What can information professionals do to ensure that they are part of the latter group instead of the former?

There are no guarantees, of course. Some excellent library managers have lost their jobs, despite their best efforts. For those, however, who are in a position in which it is not foreordained that the library is to be closed, the following may provide some guidance in not only how to prevent the library staff from being downsized or outsourced but also how to strengthen the position of the library for future development.

First, remember that the library always has competition. Whether it's college interns who surf the Net and claim to be able to find "everything you need ... for free" or the good old boys' network, there are always alternative sources for information within an organization. in fact, the toughest competition may be the "ignorance is bliss" syndrome, those whom Guy St. Clair calls the "information indifferent"- the people who decide that either they can find the information themselves or that they'll just do without.

And, although information has intrinsic value, no special library or information center is guaranteed its existence. just because it has been around for years does not guarantee it will be around next year. With the possible exception of academic libraries (since most accrediting programs require an adequate library), no organization has to have a library in order to conduct its business. it may not be able to compete adequately in the long run without a library, but that in itself doesn't guarantee that a library will not be closed or downsized.

Think Like a CFO

Since every organization has a financial bottom line, it's critical that library managers understand the organization's financial drivers. is it short-term revenue enhancement? Long-term growth? is the organization at the top of its niche-the company with the largest market share, the leading association in the field, a government agency that has seen its Congressional support grow? Is the organization expanding in new regions or new markets? what parts of the organization are growing? The answers to these questions will determine where the money will flow within the organization.

Every librarian should be able to read the parent organization's annual report, including the financial footnotes and technical jargon. Read the quarterly reports; read the reports that go out to major stakeholders, whether that's shareholders, financial donors, trustees, or members of Congress. if reading financial reports feels like reading the ingredients on a can of Cheez Whiz, this is a great opportunity to get to know the "shareholder relations" office or equivalent.

Identify the key profit centers within the organization, keeping in mind that even non-profit or not-for-profit organizations have centers that drive, define, and establish the funding for the organization. Decide how the library can become essential to these profit centers and develop a plan to accomplish your goal.

Read the periodicals the executives read. That probably includes The Wall Street journal, Business Week, and one or two major industry magazines. While you don't have to read all of them cover to cover, it's important to at least skim the major stories. Understand the financial environment in which your upper management lives and learn to think that way.

Identify your key executives and, more importantly, identify the person who controls the purse-strings two levels above you. Establish a relationship with that person, and make sure he or she understands what the library does, who it serves, and what your strategic plan for the next three years is. (That plan does reflect the priorities of your organization, doesn't it? And it focuses on the areas that have been identified by the latest annual report as being mission-critical, doesn't it?)

Making, the Information Center Downsize-Resistant

Thinking like upper management, you know that it's always better to be part of the revenue-generating side of the organization rather than part of the overhead. if the library is not already associated directly with the income side of the equation, determine how you can define the library itself as a profit center. Can you charge back by the project? How about setting up Information Center Subscriptions, by which subscribing departments or groups get value-added service (in-depth reference services, fast turnaround, proactive environmental monitoring, and so on) and non-subscribers get minimum service? Can you charge back each budget area at the beginning of the fiscal year, based on usage from the past year? Even if this is just internal dollars flowing from one department to another, it establishes the value of the information center and means that you represent a source of income to the executive to whom you report rather than one more place where the budget can be cut if needed.

Identify the key patrons of the library, particularly those who could successfully lobby for you. This doesn't mean the friendly sort who come in every day to read the sports pages; it means the people who depend on the library for their information and who are themselves part of the revenue-generating side of the organization. Form a Library Board of Directors, a Library Brain Trust, or a Library Advisory Council. This group isn't your new boss and it's definitely not a Friends of the Library group. These are members of your SWAT team-the people who remind upper management of how the newest product couldn't have been developed without the research provided by the library; the people who provide you with an early warning system to alert you to new directions of the company or threats to the library; the people who will lobby for you year in and year out.

As everyone learned in Special Librarianship 101, ceaselessly market your library and the library professionals' skills. Even when you are already busy or barely keeping up with requests, be sure your key patrons know what you're doing for them. As any business owner knows, even maintaining repeat customers means constant marketing. And as noted earlier, all libraries have competition, both within and outside the organization. Promote the library professionals as in-house consultants-the information experts who both understand your organization's needs and priorities and who have the expertise to find the information needed. Consider using information brokers or other outside support if you need additional help in meeting the promised service level.

And remember that libraries need to provide "consistently outrageous service." By making yourself indispensable and providing service patrons would be willing to pay for, you both ensure that a threat to close the library would be met with strenuous objections by critical users and that you could, if necessary, begin charging for your services.

Studies have shown that unhappy customers tell seven to ten people about their experience, whereas satisfied customers tell two or three. That means that the library needs to aim to delight-to provide service that more than overcomes the occasional negative experience a patron may have. Develop the ability to say "no" without saying NO. That is, learn the art of negotiation so that instead of telling a patron that a request is out of the question or can't be done, you can agree upon the scope, depth, and turn-around time that is within the bounds of possibility and still meet most of the patron's needs.

Be pushy-get invited to departmental and group staff meetings, lunches, and planning sessions. By becoming an essential team member, librarians can both provide proactive information services and gain allies who appreciate the value of the resources of the information center. it's also important to get out of the library and show up in patrons' offices. Library users (and non-users) often don't think to come to the library, which is why it behooves librarians to make the effort to go out of the library and put in "face time' around the organization.

Avoid what I call the "Black Box Syndrome." it's easy to take a research request, pull together the information from a number of sources-library collection, professional online services, the Internet, and an interlibrary loan, for example-and then present the material to the patron without an explanation of where the material came from. It is important to remind users of the wide variety of resources the library has; this fights the tendency to assume that "it's all on the Net" or that the research services provided by librarians are simple or straightforward. Include a list of all the resources used for each reference request-the reference books used, the CD-ROMs and online databases searched, the Net sources used, the telephone calls made, and so on. Make sure your patrons know how many specialized sources to which you have access and the contacts you have developed over the years.

Remember to put your mark on everything you send out. if you are word-processing the results of a search, add a footer with the library's name, mail stop, phone number, and internal email address. if you are sending out photocopies, be sure the first page is property-stamped. if you e-mail the results of a search, be sure to put a notation at both the beginning and end of the document that this information was compiled by the library. Remember that the information you send out may be passed on to several other people; you want to be sure to get credit for the material you prepared.

Beat Them to the Punch

Embrace the Internet. Every librarian knows that the Net does not present a serious threat to the research services provided by information professionals and it's important to get that message out to everyone in your organization. Offer training sessions on how to use the Net most efficiently. Develop and maintain a library home page on both your Intranet and on your organization's public Internet site. Become the in-house Internet guru before someone else takes the tide. Who better than information professionals can claim the role of navigating through the vast but untamed resources of the Net.? [For more ideas on how to view the Internet as an asset to the library, see Bates, Mary Ellen, 'The Internet: threat or asset?' Information Outlook January 1997) p. 20-23.]

MIS and network support departments are exploring how to deliver information to the desktop. They may not understand how to evaluate information sources-rather than see their initiatives as a threat, insist on working with them as the content expert, helping them to determine which information sources are the most appropriate and cost-effective resources for your organization. Explore ways for the library to bring information to your patron's desktops. Work with key users to set up Netbased updating services that monitor the most appropriate sources for information. Explore both free Net 'push' technologies such as PointCast and Reference.com as well as fee-based services-the traditional alerting services of DIALOG or LEXIS-NEXIS and services such as Individual Inc.'s HeadsUp and First! services and the San Jose Mercury-News' NewsHound. By being seen as part of the new trend to deliver current information continuously, the library maintains its place as the source of both information and information experts.

Some upper-level managers come to believe that they can replace the library with a "virtual library"- one with no hard copy and, often, no professional librarians. one way to address this threat is to adopt your own version of The Virtual Library in a manner that truly meets the information needs of your organization. This doesn't mean doing away with your books or magazines, but it does mean keeping an open mind to alternatives to paper, particularly when you can get mileage out of the conversion. Take a hard look at the usage of each of your periodical titles and decide which could be canceled, using those funds to pay for electronic tables of contents and online retrieval of articles as needed. Promote this move as a transition to "just in time' delivery of information. Explore the cost-effectiveness of moving from hard-copy to CD-ROM versions of some of your key reference sources, particularly if those CDs can be made accessible through an internal network.

If you're a DIALOG subscriber, take advantage of DIALOG's Quantum Program-a program specifically designed for special librarians that includes excellent materials on how to market the library and strategically position information professionals as knowledge officers.

Benchmark the library's performance before any threat of outsourcing. Benchmarking takes time and resources, neither of which are in abundant supply when faced with the possibility of a significant budget cut. instead, collect meaningful statistics continually and compare them to the performance of comparable libraries. By "meaningful" I have in mind numbers that a CFO would want to see-sales closed because of the information provided by the library, amount billed back to other departments or to clients, time/money saved by having the library do the research. [Note: this last item can be very persuasive if done properly. it requires that you ask users to estimate how long it would have taken them to do the research; then you calculate the average fully-loaded hourly wage for professionals, multiply that by the number of hours saved by having the library do the work, and project that estimate out for the rest of the library's research services.]

You may already be counting items such as number of books added, interlibrary loans sent and received, and so on. These are useful library management statistics, but they are usually irrelevant for the purposes of showing why the library should not be downsized.

Know your worth in dollars and cents and in the added value of being the in-house experts. That means being familiar with the full costs of the library and being prepared to defend those costs. Be able to prove that the services you provide are not easily replaceable-that you offer industry and subject expertise, that you have access to internal resources not duplicated outside the organization, or that your in-house collection and specially negotiated information service contracts are unique.

And When Push Comes to Cut

If, despite your efforts, your budget is slashed, follow the example of federal government agencies-use the Washington Monument Gambit. When the U.S. Park Service has had its budget cut severely, one of the first things it has done is close the Washington Monument. "Sorry, tourists... no money. Perhaps you want to wander up the Mall and visit your member of Congress and express your concerns?"

While it's difficult for librarians to curtail a popular service, often this is the only way library patrons will realize that the library is in dire straits. If you simply absorb the cuts by buying fewer resources, using the Net rather than a commercial online service (which often saves money but wastes time), or cutting back on professional development, it sends the message to upper management that the library had fat it could cut. If everyone who uses the library sees the curtailed services or is otherwise directly affected by the reduction in service, they are much more likely to be strong advocates for restoring funding to the library.

And finally, remember that a budget cut isn't necessarily forever. See what portions of your mission you can still meet. If that means charging back for outside support or referring callers to other resources (and keeping track of those referrals as an indicator of ongoing demand for library services), do what you can to provide quality information services, take names of all your supporters, and fight for either more budget or the ability to bill your costs to users. It may not be pretty, but at least you survive until it becomes eminently clear that your organization needs a library. 88

Additional Resources

Davidson, Jeffrey P. Blow Your own Horn : How to Market Yourself and Your
Career. New York, NY, American Management Association, c 1987. xv, 271 P.

DIALOG Quantum Program - contact Anne Caputo, anne_captito@krinfo.com or call 1-703-908-2388

Eddison, Betty. "Our Profession is Changing, Whether We Like It or Not." ONLINE (January/February 1997) p. 74-76,

Marketing Matters: An SLA lnformation Kit. Washington, DC: Special Libraries Association, c. 1997. 94 p.

Portugal, Frank. Exploring Outsourcing: Case Studies of Corporate Libraries, Washington, DC: Special Libraries Association, c. 1997. 35 p.

Schmidt, Janet. Marketing the Modern Information Center.- A Guide to lntrapreneurship for the Information Manager. New York, NY: Find/SVP, c. 1987. 193 p.

Schwalb, Sandy. "The Ins and Outs of Outsourcing: The Changing, Evolving Scene'
for Information Professionals." DATABASE (June/July 1997) p. 41-46,