by Debi Beall, Oregon Chapter, Competitive Intelligence Division

Future Ready for a corporate library means being relevant to your company’s changing needs by staying nimble and looking for new ways to support the company’s goals and strategies. The Intel Library has always been focused on the needs of the company, but a couple of years ago, we tried a new, more proactive approach. As a result, we have undergone a transformation that has empowered our staff and increased visibility throughout the company.

The Intel Library has been publishing the Executive News Summary on a daily basis for the past 10 years. This publication was created at the request of Craig Barrett as a way to stay informed without having to scan endless news clippings. Two years ago, we decided to expand our publications with more in-depth industry newsletters, called Monitors. These weekly Monitors are specifically focused on Intel’s Global Strategy and key market segments and include an analysis of the news that week. The Monitors are a deeper dive into the areas of key importance to the success of the company. They have been wildly successful (we now publish 11 Monitors) and have resulted in several changes:

1. Fewer requests are coming into the library since the information people need is already being selected and distributed.
2. Each staff member has developed a deep understanding of the topic of their Monitor, becoming the experts that others turn to for insight.
3. Different business units throughout the company have linked the Intel Library Monitor that most applies to their business to their business unit web site.
4. The Intel Library is now more than an information repository. It is a place to gain critical insights into each of the Monitor markets.

Now that the Monitors have been institutionalized, we are looking to the future again. Next on our plate is improving access for mobile devices and a step into visual analytics. We have developed a rich data repository that is ready to be mined for insights. Visual analytics will take us to the next step, offering added value to Intel and contributing to the success of the company.

Debi Beall began her career as a Systems Engineer for IBM, then switched careers becoming a librarian with the Phoenix Public Library. Debi joined Motorola in 1992 as a Research Specialist, where she ultimately transitioned to a position as a Competitive Intelligence Analyst. She most recently joined Intel as a Research Analyst for the Intel Library in October 2008.

by Michael Haynes

As a consultant who works with organisations to improve their performance, I can definitely say that I am in total agreement with the four key components required for future readiness.

Collaboration: It is imperative now that all elements within the value chain (companies, customers, suppliers) work together to deliver the products and services that are being sought after. The ability to effectively develop and deliver sought after offerings is often best achieved through such efforts. As a result, many organisations are starting to do this with their product development. Boeing is an example that quickly comes to mind. Given the added complexity, cost and risk of developing and delivering products and services…this will really need to continue to be the way forward.

Adaptable Skills: Also another imperative that must be met. The way business is being conducted is constantly changing. Hence a much broader and deeper skill set is required in many areas of business. Marketing and Sales are two examples. Both now require a data driven analytical and strategic skill set. The distinctions between various functional areas of business are becoming more and more blurred. Again referring to marketing for instance, today and future marketers need to have solid foundations in marketing, strategy, finance and even IT and statistics. With the heavy emphasis on technology and information (and the increasing sophistication of both) moving forward, continued adaptability and expansion of skills will be critical for both one’s survival and success.

Alignment: Establishing alignment both within organisations as well as among other members of the value/supply chain is critical. Gaining internal alignment is often quite a daunting and challenging task for many large corporations. Senior leaders in the organisation must spearhead and drive this. Unfortunately all too often there is difficulty in gaining alignment to meet common objectives. I suspect this is due to the various internal agendas which exist.

Community: Again given the added complexity that now exists given technology, establishing a community among those with common goals and interests is going to be key to success. They will be able to pull their skills and resources together (ie collaborate) to achieve the desired objectives.  I think a “win win” attitude must be adopted more within the business setting to allow more progress and achievement to occur moving forward.

Michael Haynes is Director of 2Excell Consulting, an international firm that positions B2B organisations to maximise their bottom line performance by empowering them to systematically understand and respond to customer needs. He has over 14 years experience in the areas of customer insights, strategy development and execution working for large corporations in various industries including automotive, financial services and telecommunications in Australia, Brazil and Canada. Michael can be reached at michael@2excell.com

by James Kane

In 1930, a paper cup salesman for the Lilly Tulip Cup Company walked into a Walgreen’s Drug Store near 43rd St. and Bowen Ave. in Chicago, IL and changed the world.

That’s a pretty dramatic statement, but it’s true. You see, paper cups were big business in the early part of the 20th century. As scientists and public heath officials warned people about the dangers of drinking from unwashed glassware and shared eating utensils, disposable food and beverage products became all the rage. And, of course, where there is a rage, there is a salesman.

One prime target of these paper cup peddlers were drug stores. After prohibition became law in 1919, the introduction of the soda fountain in American drug stores not only filled the social void caused by the closing of bars and speakeasies, but ushered in the dawn of the soft drink. Egg cremes, Black Cows, and Cherry Phosphates became staples of the new American diet, and the glasses they were served in the target of every paper cup salesman in the country.

All except one.

While most cup vendors made the obvious pitch to the drug store owners and soda fountain managers – no more broken glasses, no more dishwashing, no more risk of spreading disease – our salesman had a different take.  When he first walked into the Walgreen’s off 43rd Street, he knew that he couldn’t make a sale using the same tired  arguments that others had made before him. So, instead of trying to sell the products he brought with him that day, he stood in the back of the room and watched.  More importantly, he learned.

It was just before noon when the store began to fill up with day’s lunch crowd.  He watched as the first ten patrons arrived and took up all the seats at the fountain’s counter. And then watched as one by one the people from the streets entered the store, looked around for a vacant seat, and walked out the door, having never bought a thing. It was all that watching that made everything clear.  He knew what Walgreen’s problem was, and it wasn’t paper cups.

The problem Walgreen’s had was the same problem every soda fountain of its day had.  Not enough space. Everyone wanted a seat, but those who got there first didn’t want to leave.  Without the turnover, the stores were losing sales – and lots of them! Our salesman knew by observing one potential customer after another walk out the door without being served that the answer was not cups, it was lids. He explained to the Walgreen’s manager how he would increase the soda fountain’s sales tenfold without adding even one foot of new counter space. Yes, he would provide them with paper cups, but every one of those cups would come with a lid, and the concept of “take out” was born.

This is a story about the power of insight and the importance of stepping back to see what the real problem is.  We all have our bag of goods – the things we try to sell to others every day. We come ready to explain our value and convince the non-believers of our importance, only to be left dumbfounded that they just don’t get it. The tried and true paper cup pitch is “we can SAVE you money.” The insightful one is “we can MAKE you money.”

We all fall into the trap of trying to sell what we have instead of selling what others need. The first requires doing nothing more than what you have always done, the second demands that you step back and understand what the real problem is. Being “future ready” is not only about knowing how to go forward, it’s about knowing when to step back. Knowing how to put yourself in the shoes of others and figuring out what they truly need and want.  What your boss needs.  What your institution and organization needs.  What your client and customer needs.  What your industry needs.  Sometimes you may have the solution in your bag.  Sometimes you will need to order lids.

Insight is not a magical gift we are born with. It is something we develop – by listening, by watching, by learning, and by practicing empathy. It takes some time to get good at it, but the results are definitely worth the effort.  They certainly were for our paper cup salesman. He made the sale to Walgreens, but practicing insight would bring him even  greater rewards. Standing in the back of the room and watching what was really going on gave birth to the take-out business, and forever changed the course of Ray Kroc’s life. Applying what he learned at the Walgreen’s drug store in 1930 would influence his decision to buy a small restaurant in San Bernadino, California 20 years later from brothers Dick and Mac McDonald. The rest, as they say, is history.

Merging the worlds of business, neuroscience, and behavioral psychology, James Kane is one of the leading researchers and consultants in the science of loyalty and the role it plays in human relationships and the communities we form.Kane makes the case that loyalty is a complex human emotion and a fundamental part of our human nature. When an organization or individual demonstrates those loyalty-building behaviors, they can develop relationships that will last a lifetime and result in unwavering and unlimited support.

SLA has retained the services of James Kane for a 12-month pilot program where he will audit and assess one Chapter’s current relationships, consult with and train Chapter leadership, and develop and implement loyalty strategies that will have broad applicability to other SLA units. He is the closing keynote presentation at the SLA Annual Conference in Philadelphia.  For more information see JamesKane.com

by Ned Potter, Europe Chapter, Leadership & Management Division
by Laura Woods, Europe Chapter, Leadership & Management and Legal Divisions

Libraries and information professionals are stuck in a bit of an echo chamber. We spend way too much time talking to one another, and not nearly enough time talking to the potential users. Potential users who have no idea really what a (future ready) library does, but who would probably come and visit if they did. Some people use an analogy of ‘floating voters’ to describe those currently indifferent to libraries, but I think our offer has changed so much and people’s perceptions of libraries are so far behind, these are people who don’t even realise there’s an election on…

Classic examples of our preaching to the converted often come when the profession or the industry is criticised from outside. When Seth Godin or someone from the national press puts us down, our first urge seems to be to find another librarian to commiserate with. This doesn’t do anything, not really – it’s great to engage the library community by blogging about it, but library blogs tend to be read by other librarians –  we also need to engage the people who heard all the bad stuff about libraries in the first place. We need to fight back in public. In short, we need to take greater control of the narrative arc concerning libraries, and stop letting other people write our story for us.

The presentation below is one used by myself and Laura Woods when we talk about the echo chamber – follow the Prezi through to find out more about the concept, about how it impacts negatively on libraries, and to see some ideas for marketing libraries outside of the echo chamber in future.

Ned Potter works in the field of digitisation at an academic library in the UK; he was named as a Library Journal Mover & Shaker for 2011, and is about to attend the SLA Annual Conference in Philly as a winner of the SLA-Europe Early Career Conference Award. His blog and other presentations can be found at www.thewikiman.org.
Laura Woods is the current Webmaster and Bulletin Editor for the Europe Chapter. Her blog, Organising Chaos can be read at http://woodsiegirl.wordpress.com/.

by Allan Foster, Europe Chapter and Business & Finance Division

For more years than I care to remember I have been charting developments in business information use through an annual survey of information managers. This is the Business Information Survey published each March in Sage’s quarterly journal Business Information Review. The focus of the Survey has changed over time, from a concentration on sources of information to key issues in information management.

The methodology has also changed, from an open, widely distributed questionnaire to a series of in-depth interviews with a small number of senior corporate information managers. These are mainly based in the UK but many work for global businesses and have responsibilities for international services. If I was being pretentious(!) I would describe it now as almost ‘ethnographic’, a series of ongoing conversations with trusted colleagues, trying to chart year on year changes in their services, roles within their organisations and strategic priorities. It has only been possible to do this and to get brutal honesty from respondents by honouring a rule of strict confidence and aggregating results so as to avoid disclosing any identities. Most but not all respondents are involved in the Survey each year. In it’s 21^st year, the 2011 Survey¹ included seventeen of the interviewees from the previous year whilst another four were new participants.

Although the respondents represent a range of corporate information, library & research services, across industrial sectors and of varying sizes, I claim no statistical representativeness whatsoever for the Survey. But, given the seniority and frankness of the respondents, the findings provide a rich narrative of current practice and future intentions. It’s the latter which I’m concentrating on here as a contribution to the ‘Future Ready’ discussion.

Whilst massive turbulence in the business and financial environment is the new norm and technologies change so fast, the Survey results suggest that the crucial ‘future ready’ attitudes and skills in the corporate information scene are and will be in the next five years pretty much the same as those exhibited in successful information services now. This may be a disappointment to the ‘everything is changing’ lobby who are looking for new magic bullets and a cookbook formula to succeed in the corporate information/knowledge management world.

The key approaches and skills that define successful information management, now and in the next few years, amongst the 2011 Survey group of senior professionals, are:

1. Access to, and a good relationship with, senior executives, preferably at board level.
2. ‘Business strategy & culture fit’ – the ability to develop the information service in harmony with the company’s strategic objectives and organisational culture.
3. Developing a shrewd political instinct, having sensitive antennae amongst users and senior managers and being adaptive in consequence.
4. Financial nous – contributing to the increased profitability of the company, streamlining processes and services, reducing costs.
5. The ability to work globally with all that this implies – building alliances, harmonising & integrating services – whilst understanding different cultural and business practices which shape the environment.
6. Develop hard nosed negotiation skills with content vendors. And getting harder.
7. Responding to the growing emphasis on compliance work.
8. Managing capacity & workload, with flexibility and responsiveness.
9. Ensuring that your information/research/knowledge staff are embedded within business project and work teams.
10. Continuing to look dispassionately at alternative organisational and delivery models including outsourcing and off-shoring.
11. Embracing and handling internal ‘know-how’ as well as external data.
12. Enhancing knowledge management skills (note small rather than capitalised ‘KM’) – knowledge sharing, capturing tacit knowledge, using stories, applying appropriate technologies.
13. Use social media when appropriate. A number of respondents are somewhat sceptical of the business case for such deployment in terms of their information and research services.
14. More attention should be given to measuring the impact of the information services (including outsourcing/off-shoring), through ROI and other metrics.
15. New IT systems should be implemented in line with technological opportunities and trends but most of all to improve access to content and cost-effectiveness of services.
16. IS/KM staffing – the most important internal resource of all. Improve communications, provide development opportunities, undertake succession planning.
17. There’s no substitute for persistence and hard work.

1. These and other issues are developed much more fully in “Let’s save the company money” – the new orthodoxy. The Business Information Survey 2011. Business Information Review 28 (1), March 2011.

—————–—————–

Allan Foster (allan.foster@gmail.com) is an information industry consultant and writer, previously Director of Information Services at Keele University and a senior information manager at Manchester Business School, Lancashire Polytechnic, Sheffield Polytechnic and the British Institute of Management. He presented these findings at an SLA Europe session, Is your information service ‘Future Ready’?, in Manchester on 22^nd March 2011.

by Janice LaChance, Chief Executive Officer of SLA

“If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.” – Eric Shinseki, U.S. Secretary of Veteran Affairs and former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army

This is one of my favorite quotes from someone I greatly admire. To me, it sums up the situation we all find ourselves in today. Even when Eric Shinseki was born in 1942, everyone was feeling the pressure to change on one level or another. Politicians, soldiers, salespeople, advertisers, accountants, and yes, even SLA members, were encountering new technologies to use, policies to follow, expectations to fulfill, and lessons to pass on to the next generation of pioneers.

It seems one of the few things that hasn’t changed over the years is the constancy of change itself. So, why is there so much emphasis on change now if it’s old news?

Because we’ve seldom encountered change of this pace or magnitude before. Everything—from your workplace to your organization’s strategy to the phone you use to the car you drive to the road you drive it on—will be different in five years. The occurrence and pace of change are out of our control. The way in which we choose to change is not. We must not simply change, but progress.

Sure, as information and knowledge professionals, SLA members are hearing about the importance of being future-ready perhaps more than others, but all professions are being called upon to learn new skills and adapt to a new world of work. If you’re an SLA member, you’re not in it alone.

We have a vast yet tight-knit community that acts as a support structure to all our members—and this blog is just one of the many things that bring us together. SLA has conducted alignment research that is unprecedented within the profession, and that research has shown us the way to introducing new professional development programs and educational resources. SLA is faced with the task of providing relevant resources to librarians in medical hospitals in India and information analysts in top law firms in the United States, and everyone in between. While the context of knowledge delivery and use is unique across the globe, the necessity to adapt is not.

I’ll leave you with some of SLA’s resources included with your membership, many resulting from the alignment research and all focused on the task of giving a diverse membership tools to better meet the demands of information users across the globe.

• SLA’s 23 Things – Deb Hunt, along with MLIS grad student Kim McGrath, worked together to update this weekly learning program. I think you’ll like what’s new here; see week 6 for updated social networking and learning. This program was created by our members, for our members.
• Atomic Learning – This resource often gets passed over, but it shouldn’t. From beginner to expert level, from Sharepoint to Delicious, these easy videos are a fun and easy way to learn at your own pace.
• Alignment Toolkit –Look for tools, based on the alignment research, to be unveiled starting April 1^st and leading up to SLA 2011. Writing Your Own Marketing Plan, Dictionary of Future Ready Terms, and SLA Tools for LIS Students will be among the first resources provided.
• This blog – Our strongest asset is…ourselves! No, sometimes we don’t all have time to read the blog every day, but the good thing is we can catch up at any point in time. We’re up to about 60 posts already (way to go, Cindy and team!). So read, discuss, and try a post of your own sometime in 2011.
• Click U – Ask the Copyright Experts, Social Media Research for Business, Moving into Management.  From in-person classes to online webinars, free and paid, these opportunities are scattered throughout the year.
• Information Outlook – Read our latest issue online. Don’t miss the articles on mobile applications; one could give you an idea to change your organization for the better.

So don’t look at Future Ready as a goal for just 2011, because it’s more than that. Treat it as something to embrace, a way of thinking. It’s not only about seeking out opportunities, but looking forward to those opportunities with the confidence of preparation and positivity. The world is driving forward, upward, and outward, and I’ve seen more than enough evidence from SLA’s outstanding membership to know that we can be right there in the driver’s seat.

Janice Lachance, SLA’s Chief Executive Officer since 2003, is a popular speaker and commentator and the champion, spokesperson and global ambassador for SLA and its 11,000 members working in 75 countries on five continents.  Before joining SLA, she was a management consultant to nonprofit and membership organizations in the areas of strategic planning, organization transformation, and culture change.

by Denise Mc Iver

I’m still in I-school, so I’m new to the information profession.  Prior to going back to school to pursue my MLIS, I worked as a publicist in the music and entertainment industry for over a decade. Upon reflection, there are some lessons from that world that might apply to becoming Future Ready.

First of all, it’s true:  Publicists ARE control freaks (in the best sense, I should add) because that’s what we’re paid to be.  We control the public perception of our clients’ “brand” and we’re the “keepers” of our clients’ dreams and goals – whether they want to secure the cover of Rolling Stone, perform on a segment of The Today Show, or get ranked in the Top Ten on any Billboard chart.  So for me, a former flack in the music business, being Future Ready is all about branding.

Some lessons I’ve learned in my former professional life include…

Begin With the End In Mind: Publicists always begin a new campaign with this as our mantra.  For us, Christmas arrives in July.  If our client’s new album is being released in the fourth quarter, we spend a great deal of energy doing something called “set up” beforehand.  For information professionals and librarians, it might mean doing some setup by taking an audit of our skills, experience, and passion (a key ingredient!). We can then use these as springboards to ‘futurize’ ourselves.

Know Who You Are: Publicists understand that their recording artists have a public persona and the music they create (hopefully) extends this.  Lady Gaga gets this; had she made a boring entrance at the Grammy Awards a few weeks ago, it would have been clear that she wasn’t “on message” and her public would have been surprised, and possibly lost. Love her or hate her – she’s clear about her brand:  One-Who-Pushes-The-Envelope-Off-The-Table.  I’m not suggesting we become Gaga-ized, but it is vitally important that WE define ourselves first so that we can communicate who we are and what our value is to our various stakeholders and constituencies.  Capture the vision, promote it, and remember to stay on message.

“Grow Some Feet”: There’s nothing remotely glamorous about doing a bus tour of any kind (trust me on this!) unless your client is Mick Jagger or Beyoncé. If you want to sell albums, you’ve got to tour – it’s how you build awareness. The same goes for information professionals. I’m not one to sit behind a desk all day, so I hit the “road” (actually the hallways) and do short “drop-ins.”  I let my stakeholders know I’m a co-collaborator with them, and these drop-ins give me the opportunity to anticipate and determine what their needs are, possibly before they’ve even had the chance to think about them themselves.  This is how I make myself visible and sell my value.

Summing it all up:  After the press screening of Black Swan, actress Mila Kunis, who was strapped into five-inch high Christian Louboutin stilettos, expressed how exhausting and painful it was to wear them throughout the long evening. She also remarked how grateful and amazed she was that her publicist had the presence of mind to bring along a comfortable pair of slippers for her to change into as the evening wore on.

Now that’s a lesson in being Future Ready.

Denise L. Mc Iver is a recipient of an IMLS scholarship and attending the MLS program at St. John’s University.  She anticipates graduating in May. She’s a student member of the NY Chapter of SLA.

 by Judy Anderson, Oregon Chapter, Academic Division

What keeps you coming to SLA? Is it because you are making things happen that benefit you and those you know?  Is it meeting new people and making contacts? Supporting a strong volunteer campaign and program can bring that enthusiasm and interest to others, too. One of the saddest comments is, “I would like to get involved but don’t know how.” Or even sadder, “I said I’d like to be volunteer but no one got back to me.”  Making getting involved easier may spark new life into our Chapters.  Volunteers bring fresh ideas and positive energy that can’t be beat.  

A few thoughts to keep in mind when working with volunteers:

1. Match their interests and opportunities for career growth (something to add to their resumes as a skill) with things your organization needs done; busy work is not helpful for anyone.
2. Support their enthusiasm and fresh ideas…try new things. If they work, that’s fantastic; if not, you know now that they don’t work and can move to something else.  Both experiences are valuable.
3. Choose projects that are needed but not mission critical or time sensitive to get them started.
4. Break the project into small segments that are easily managed and have an end point so it’s readily apparent that progress has been made and there is a finished product to be proud of.
5. Figure out the type of recognition needed for that person…verbal praise? Recognition at a meeting? A plaque? A thank you letter to their employer? How are you going to thank them in a way meaningful to them?

Like many of you, Oregon added a volunteer coordinator position to our Board. Not only does it provide a volunteer opportunity, but it’s helping us reach our members to let them know how they can take a more active role in the organization and is keeping track of their areas of interest so we can match projects with volunteers.  After all, we’re all volunteers, so think about why you’re enjoying our association and work to bring that life and joy to others in the membership and beyond. 

 Judy Anderson is the current Past-President of SLA’s Oregon Chapter. She is the Head of Reference & Instruction at Concordia University-Portland, Oregon.

by John Creighton

20^th Century centralized institutions were created to solve a specific set of problems:  Scarce resources, high production and carrying costs, cumbersome logistics and limited (by today’s standards) communications.

Traditional libraries are a perfect example of a centralized institution. The cost to produce and store books, periodicals and other information was expensive and required a large amount of space. Very few people could afford to purchase their own reading collection or had the shelf space to store more than a few books. The solution: public libraries. Communities pooled their resources (taxes) to provide people with access to information.

When people share resources, it is necessary to create a set of rules and regulations to ensure fairness and equity in how resources are distributed and used. Libraries made rules such as “a person can only check out a book for one week so others have a chance to read it, too.” A system of penalties and, sometimes, rewards were put in place to encourage people to follow the rules.

It was and is the responsibility of public boards and administrators of centralized institutions to decide how to allocate scarce resources. Many public decision makers followed the mass market axiom of, “What will help (or appeal to) the most people for the longest time.” Controversy emerged when people couldn’t agree on how to spend their pooled resources. Should the library buy a controversial book or not?

Centralized institutions also need a set of rules to function as an enterprise. For instance, communities typically could neither afford nor wanted to keep their libraries open twenty-four hours per day. Libraries set hours of operation so people would know when they could access information.

For nearly a century, perhaps more, people have been satisfied with this relationship with public and private institutions because centralization was the most practical thing to do.  People deferred to boards to make decisions; they conformed to the institution’s rules and regulations, and embraced the systems of penalties and rewards (how many readers remember the importance of perfect attendance at school). Our language developed to reflect our willingness (even if we grumbled) to conform to the needs of the centralized institution: Working nine-to-five, working for the weekend, spring break, summer vacation, 10 o’clock news, morning paper.

People’s willingness to conform to the needs of centralized institutions is waning. People have lost their patience with public boards and other centralized decision makers. People aren’t willing to conform to the institution’s hours of operation. They want access to information now, on their own time. And, people ignore penalties and rewards. For instance, few schools award “perfect attendance” and many parents scoff at attendance policies.

Why have people lost their patience with 20^th Century centralized institutions? The problems these organizations were designed to solve are less severe or non-existent.  Put another way, it is economically possible and logistically practical for people to get what they want, when they want, how they want it.

Resources are more abundant than they were in the past. The costs to produce and carry goods are lower. The digitization of books and information is wonderful example of these shifts.  The marginal costs to produce, ship and store a book are all moving toward zero.

People are less interested in pooling their resources to buy things like books because more and more people can afford to purchase and store their own.  People are less interested in the product that appeals to the masses and more interested in products customized to their individual interests and needs. And, there is not as much need for people to agree on how to allocate scarce resources. Don’t like the history textbook the local school board chose for your child? There are several others online and the cost is next to free – or soon will be.

Indeed, people have come to expect options and choices. The idea of “one size fits all” is considered as old as the steam engine train. And, people’s growing expectations are not ending with choice. Increasingly, people expect to design, produce and manage their own experiences.  They will gravitate toward institutions that help them do these things.

21^st Century institutions will need to help people solve a new set of personal and social problems. On the personal side of the ledger, the challenges of growing importance include how to help individuals:

• Identify, organize and create options
• Make informed and satisfying choices
• Gain access to the tools of production, distribution, and collaboration
• Form ad hoc, short term and long term communities
• Sustain action over time.

On the social side of the ledger, the challenges are more difficult because the demand to solve them is not on the forefront of people’s minds. But, to ensure the ongoing health of our communities and our democracy, we will need to figure out ways to bridge differences between an increasingly diverse and segregated society and foster the democratic skills to ensure that we are able to make decisions around resources we still must share.

This is the challenge for libraries and other public institutions. How to make the shift from 20^th Century centralized practices to 21^st Century platform practices.

John Creighton, a Longmont, Colorado leadership consultant, writes on community life and public leadership at johncr8on.com. He can be found on Twitter @johncr8on and on Facebook.  See John’s presentation, “Emboldened Individuals – Platform Organizations” on SlideShare and read more of his work in Dispatches From The Heartland at the Communities at the Washington Times.

by Chad Groenhout, Michigan Chapter, Competitive Intelligence and Information Technology Divisions

I began the library science program at Wayne State in May of 2009 at about the time when SLA leadership and members were contemplating a name change and discussing how to market the profession to employers. I wondered if I was entering a profession in its decline, suffering from an identity crisis that would ultimately leave me unemployed. Yet, as I approach graduation in a few months, I am more hopeful for the future of the profession and I realize I am fortunate that SLA started the process five years ago to rethink the profession of special librarianship. This evolution of the field is what creates new career options such as taxonomists, knowledge managers, embedded librarians, and competitive intelligence analysts. Nearly five years earlier the first inklings of self-reflection were emerging among SLA leadership and membership. What do I hope the next five years will bring?

In 2015 SLA will have emerged from what all great traditions go through, a period of questioning that allows them to adapt to the changing environment and to envision what their role will be in the future. Special librarians will have rebranded themselves to make their skills even more marketable to marketing managers, CI directors, and senior business strategists. In five years, I hope the CI director that Arik Johnson mentioned in his inaugural Future Ready blog post will have already realized that he needed a special librarian. By now, they will be reputed information analysts who are adding value to information by interpreting it, putting it in context, and recommending courses of action to senior management. In five years time, the reference interview will be positioned as a crucial asset that saves businesses money by finding out the right question decision makers should be asking before they spend thousands or millions of dollars seeking an answer to the wrong question. Librarians will still be the guardians and purveyors of information, but they will be in the new role of linking all of the information flows found throughout the organization to strategic business objectives.

In another five years, special librarians will no longer need to justify their existence to senior management, or explain what is “special” about special librarians, or even explain what SLA stands for. Librarians will no longer be seen as functional accessories that can be discarded but as valuable assets who will always be needed to guide the business in the right direction to ensure its survival, being as integral to operations as marketing, finance, and human resources. As a budding professional who will soon enter the job market, I am beginning to worry less about our future and am instead seeing the amazing possibilities for the integral role special librarians will play. For over 100 years, special librarians have sustained a tradition that will only be strengthened in the years to come.

Chad Groenhout is a circulation assistant at Henika District Library and a technical services coordinator at Aquinas College. He graduates in May from the library science program at Wayne State University and is pursuing a career as a competitive intelligence analyst.