by Nicola Franklin, Fabric Recruitment

Faced with challenges from all sides, from the economy, from technology and from changing user expectations, what skills will info pros need in the years ahead?

Apart from specialist professional skills, of course, everyone working in the library and information profession needs to be able to answer these questions:

• What’s an information professional for?
• Why should I ask a librarian instead of just searching Google?
• I can find what I need myself, why should I use the information centre?
• Why shouldn’t we just put the sources on everyone’s desktop?
• Surely it’s cheaper to outsource the research service?

One of the most credible defences of the services of a librarian I’ve seen came from a post on the Voices for the Library website:

“Our lives and the world around us are being documented, analysed, archived, and published at an astonishing rate and to a level of detail that wouldn’t even have been conceived of just a few years ago. You need us more than ever.”

Once you have thought of good, succinct, answers to questions like these, seek out opportunities to use them – to other stakeholders, not to fellow librarians!  That sounds daunting, but in practice it means developing a new skill set, one around writing (blog posts, articles, comments on others’ posts), speaking (at internal meetings, at seminars, at conferences) and marketing your information services.

Nicola has worked with the information profession as a recruitment consultant for just over thirteen years, working at Information Business Services, PFJ and Sue Hill Recruitment in London, UK.  At Fabric Recruitment Nicola leads the Information division, helping librarians, knowledge managers and records managers find that next best step in their career, and promotes all things social media to the team.