San Diego, California is home of beautiful weather, spectacular beaches- and a group of highly motivated, driven and future-ready information professionals. The SLA-San Diego Chapter is proud to join in the conversation with our SLA peers about what it means to be Future Ready.  Our San Diego membership boasts a wide range of professional experience and expertise, and we hope that you find our contributions to the FutureReady365 blog to be both thought-provoking and useful!

by Kathy Elliott, San Diego Chapter, Biomedical & Life Sciences Division

Anticipation … no, not the 1971 hit song, and not the feeling you get sitting down to a Thanksgiving feast. I am talking about the act of preparing for the future before it arrives. As information specialists, we often find ourselves juggling too many tasks, struggling to keep them all up in the air. Who has the time to look into a crystal ball? But that just-in-time attitude only has us treading water in tough economic times. Anticipating future trends can give our clients the added value they need to succeed and thrive. This is true for businesses, academic institutions, hospitals, museums … every type of organization that uses information.

What can a special librarian do to anticipate future trends? Obviously, research plays a critical role. But we’re information specialists, not necessarily subject specialists. So I have one more word for you: networking. An idea may start out with one or two people, but librarians are connected to a world of colleagues who are in this business because they love to help others. As a former scientist retooling for a career in libraries, I’ve been struck by this supportive culture. And when librarians reach out to non-librarian specialists, synergy happens.

What does this model look like in the real world? I’ll offer one example. My sister, Judy Kammerer, is the managing librarian for the health sciences library of University of California, San Francisco, Fresno Center for Medical Education and Research and the hospital library of Community Regional Medical Center, while I have experience doing genomics research in the lab. We decided to collaborate on a project that anticipates the application of new genomic medicine discoveries to clinical practice.

As a first step, I am writing a paper on this topic for a Medical Librarianship course at San Jose State University. I started by collecting background information from the literature. Then I posted a questionnaire for hospital librarians on several listservs, asking if clinicians (doctors and nurses) were requesting information in this field, and what resources the librarians recommended. The survey feedback was great. It suggested that this hot new field has not yet made significant inroads into clinical practice. Next, Judy and I plan to network with clinicians and genomics researchers. A key step will be to design an algorithm that can identify articles about clinical applications of genomic discoveries. Finally, we will create a website with links to these articles, relevant RSS feeds, and other resources that will enable clinicians to monitor and understand new applications as they arise.

Experts in the field predict that translation of genomics research into clinical uses will accelerate rapidly. We hope that our website will help doctors and nurses learn about new applications without delay. Reducing the time lag between discovery and application may save not only money but also lives.

For the future-ready librarian, just-in-time is not good enough. Anticipation rocks!

Kathy Elliott is a graduate student in the MLIS program at San Jose State University. She received a BA in Zoology from Humboldt State University and an MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. After teaching high school biology, Kathy returned to the laboratory, performing molecular biology research at SIBIA Neurosciences, Merck Research Laboratories, TorreyPines Therapeutics, and in 2009 she played a major role in the start-up of Pathway Genomics. Her career change to librarianship is providing new opportunities to apply her scientific background. Kathy is currently Student Liaison for the San Diego chapter of SLA.

Kathy shares her home in San Diego, California, with one husband, two dogs, and three lizards. In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, singing, hiking, and volunteering for American Brittany Rescue and the San Diego Zoo.

Image: By Courtesy: National Human Genome Research Institute (http://www.genome.gov/17516876) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons”

Info-entrepreneurs, represented by the Association of Independent Information Professionals, stand out as innovative, forward thinking, and client focused information professionals.  This series of posts delivers future ready solutions and strategies from current and past presidents of AIIP.  As industry thought leaders they have much to share about staying ahead of the curve and delivering cost effective solutions to clients worldwide.  In this insightful series of postings readers will learn how to create a job for life by listening for opportunity, watching for changes, stretching to acquire new skills, finding a balance, planning for the long term, and drawing on your strengths. — Cindy Shamel

by Susanne Bjorner

 “Once you have been an independent information professional,” I like to tell those new to information entrepreneurship, “you will have a job for life.”

But only if you accept the fact that the job will change a thousand times, and that you must create and re-create the job yourself.

Since the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) was formed over a quarter century ago, I have seen many of its members establish businesses, market their services, achieve their professional and financial goals, and then revise and reinvent their businesses as change rolled in to hit society at large, the information industry, their market niche, or them personally.

I have also seen several smart, capable business owners make the decision to move on from their successful business and take higher-level jobs in corporations, academic institutions, and prestigious non-profits. Often these were institutions that were former clients or partners. The new employee had seen an opportunity and created their next job, this time choosing to be on the inside.

Eyes wide open

Independent information professionals learn to look at the open market around them and see what needs to be done. What encourages independents to keep their eyes wide open while facing the future? We have to. There is no paycheck coming in automatically next week or next month. We are constantly on the lookout for the next job, whether it is a new client or a new service to sell to an existing client. Success demands constant watchfulness.

AIIP members have a unique forum that keeps them continually aware that change is coming. In order to maximize profits by targeting their resources, most small information business owners work within just one or two industries or market sectors. As a group, however, AIIP members cover the gamut of industries and business sectors. All members have access to a lively private electronic discussion list that has been running since the second year of the association’s existence (way back in 1988). In this active members-only forum, AIIPers share their experiences, questions, and reflections as they discuss–while observing client confidentiality–projects, resources, tactics, strategies, technology, and possible trends.

Active reflection

I say “possible” trends because the word “trend” rarely comes up in the discussion. Discerning potential trends that may affect the information industry–and our businesses–is an individual responsibility and largely an individual activity. The beauty of the AIIP discussion group is that there are readers and contributors from multiple industries and geographic areas who provide very different services and perspectives. Discussion is not targeted toward specific disciplines, specialties, or market sectors as it is with many e-discussion lists. Often, a key insight comes when observing an activity, industry, or practice far removed from the area we are working in, carried out by someone we might never know if we did not share association in this very diverse forum. Not everyone figures out future trends from the wealth of data points that are offered in this global exchange, but the opportunity is there.

Look outside

Even if you are not a member of AIIP (though you are welcome and do not have to own an information business to become an associate member) you can take a step toward being future-ready by participating in forums (electronic and otherwise) outside your area of immediate interest and practice. Yes, it requires a time commitment that may be hard to manage in the short term. But this is an easy way to look into the long term, and we need to do that frequently and reflectively. Because by definition, the future is outside of where we are today.

When Susanne Bjorner attended the organizational meeting of AIIP in 1987, she had no idea that today her business would be providing editorial services from a home in Spain. Along the way she has had hundreds of jobs, belonged to six SLA chapters, and observed countless information professionals move successfully into the future.  Susanne served as AIIP president in 1989-1990.

by Joseph Kraus, Rocky Mountain Chapter, Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics, and Science-Technology Divisions

For librarians and information professionals to be truly future ready, we should be able to predict the future, but of course that is impossible.  One of the ways I think about the future is to think about how accurate predictions of the present were in the past.  For the sake of picking a date, I am going to predict what things are going to be like for libraries and information centers in the year 2031 using 1991-2011 as the lens.  Since I am an academic librarian, this article will have an academic bent to it, and I hope you can extrapolate the logic to fit your situation.

When it comes to technology, Jason Griffey from the University of Tennessee says that the future is already here.  But if the future is already here, then what is going to happen in the real future?  I would guess that tablets are here to stay, and that ebook readers will also continue to grow in popularity.  Tablet and laptop computers will continue to get lighter, cheaper, faster, hold more information, and have more memory.  They will continue to follow Moore’s Law.  Cloud computing will continue to grow, especially as more and more data becomes available, and it needs a place to live.  Software will continue to fracture with more OS choices and more bloatware as the space becomes available. More and more people will communicate with each other using smartphones (or some other device) in the US and throughout the World.  Digital images and videos will continue to get easier to make, edit, store and publish online. 

Even though technology changes rapidly, social constructs and culture change more slowly.  In 1991, people:

• read books, magazines and journals in print
• watched television on cable, go to the movies or rent VHS movies from Blockbuster
• called each other on a landline telephone
• snail-mailed pictures to friends
• listened to music on the radio or on tape/CD
• met each other at bars or coffee houses
• drove gasoline-powered cars to go to those places

 
Today, in 2011, people:

• read books, magazines and journals (many with an e-reader or on the web)
• watch television (either on cable or dish), go to see movies, or get movies on DVD/Netflix
• call each other on cell phones, text each other or call someone on Skype
• see what friends are posting on Facebook or Twitter
• listen to music on an iPod or some other device
• meet each other at bars or coffee houses
• drive gasoline-powered cars (or a hybrid car) to those places

 
People still want to converse with each other either in person or using technology.  That will not change in 2031.  People will want to read, view, or make information products.  People will want to meet with each other, either in person or virtually.  Speaking of that, virtual meeting software is getting cheaper and easier to setup and use, so that will be used much more often in the future.

In my view, the publishing and media industry is a cultural and social construction.  In 1991, the major publishers had a good strong hold on the publishing industry, and they have a similar hold on publishing today.  In the last 20 years, major publishers have consolidated , and I don’t see the big publishing houses withering up and dying.  There has been a lot of activity in the Open Access front, and they offer some great alternatives to publishing, but they have not made a huge dent into the profit margins of for-profit publishing outfits. In the academic and STM publishing world, there is resistance to change in traditional publishing outlets. See Michael Clark and Josh Sternberg and Leonard Cassuto.  However, there are many people who say radical transformation of scholarly publishing is ahead. Cameron Neylon and Michael Nielsen  and Ingmar Mewburn and Nigel Thrift.

One aspect of change in the publishing industry has been the contraction of A&I sources. Since more and more content is found on the web, people are searching Google and Google Scholar to find scholarly content.  They are finding good enough information.  If Google Scholar (or some other search engine that might be developed in the next 20 years) really wanted to, they could put a big dent into the revenue stream of traditional citation searching database businesses. 

When it comes to social change for scholarly authors, they get rewarded through the tenure and promotion (T&P) process.  Many universities and colleges have been employing less and less tenured faculty, and there is debate over the long term viability of tenure on campus.  Many people think that higher education is ripe for disruption.

Be that as it may, the faculty who do research in universities and colleges are under pressure to publish this research in high quality sources.  In 1991, the perception of high quality journals was limited to certain journals and publishers, and over the last 20 years, it was very difficult for new sources to be added to those lists.  Over the next 20 years, these lists of journals and publishers will probably stay roughly the same because the administrations of academic institutions are very slow to change their T&P policies.

Some authors are starting to see the citation advantage of making their work available through Open Access sources, but this has been slow on the uptake.  Over the next 20 years, more faculty will see these advantages and change their behavior, but it will not be a quick change.

By 2031, the technology will have changed quite a bit.  Maybe we are typing in the air while we view our email in virtual reality glasses.  We might be able to talk to our documents, and the language is automagically translated into Russian for our colleague in Moscow.  We might be able to digitally video record our waking hours, so that we can easily remember dates, names, people, places and the things we thought about and said.  Whatever technological changes are ahead, the behavior and the culture of the people who use that technology will not change near as rapidly. 

Joseph Kraus is currently the Science & Engineering Librarian at the University of Denver (DU) Penrose Library. DU is a medium sized private university in Denver, Colorado. He is active in the Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics and the Sci-Tech Divisions of the Special Libraries Association (SLA). He is also a member of ALA/ACRL and the American Society for Engineering Education. He has written numerous articles and has presented on topics from Library2.0 resources, unconferences and collection development.

By Sara Tompson, SLA Board 2011-13 and Head of Library Instruction & Orientation Services, University of Southern California (USC)

How to stay future ready? Read science fiction! Science fiction (SF) is a “sandbox” in which writers can play with possible outcomes of current technologies, cultures and trends.

SF writers often deal with information or library trends in their novels. I read Gary Shteyngart’s near-future Super Sad True Love Story this spring, and was struck by how he projected texting, Tweeting and consumerism just a few steps further. The novel’s transcriptions of online chats “sounded” so much like my two nieces in their young 20s, and how my USC students talk online!

I’ve been an avid science fiction and fantasy reader much of my life, with some detours over the past few decades. My husband and I met at one SF convention and honeymooned at another, so naturally I retain a fondness for the genre! Recently I’ve gotten back into it, with Super Sad, as well as another near future novel, Riding the Trail of Tears by Blake Hausman, in which a Cherokee Long March virtual reality “ride” takes on its own separate reality and what information is “real” and what is not becomes debatable. I’ve also revisited old favorites, like Alexei Panshin’s award-winning Rite of Passage, where the young protagonist Mia’s ark-like interstellar ship includes a comprehensive digital and realia (e.g. old musical instruments) library.

Information professionals like to know things and organize things. The downside of these traits can be aversion to change. Exploring science fiction can free us to think outside of our everyday boxes!

Sara Tompson is serving as a Director on the SLA Board from 2011-2013.  She is a member of the SLA Finance Committee, and the Board liaison to all the California chapters, the Rio Grande, NM chapter, the SciTech Division, the Research & Development Committee and the Professional Development Council.  Tompson is the Head of Library Instruction & Orientation at the University of Southern California (USC).  In her spare time she is an instrument rated private pilot, and enjoys flying her husband and friends around beautiful California.

by Bethan Ruddock, Europe Chapter, Business & Finance, Leadership & Management Divisions

Reposted with permission from SLA Europe blog

SLA Europe board member Bethan Ruddock spoke on a panel on Alternative Uses of the Library Degree at SLA 2011. Here, she shares her thoughts on what it was like to be part of the panel, and what she learned from the experience.

Back in 2010, Dee Magnoni contacted me to ask if I knew someone from SLA Europe who’d be willing to take part in this LMD/Taxonomy panel.  The person specification?  New professional, based outside US/Canada, working in a non-traditional environment.  I put my hand so far in the air that my feet nearly left the ground – but, in the interests of fairness, we decided to open the chance up to SLA Europe members.  When no-one else stepped forward (to my secret delight), I was in.

Not only was I pleased to have the chance to be speaking at all, and wear the coveted ‘speaker’ ribbon, I was also eager to talk about my work at Mimas.  It’s not something I get to talk about very often, as most of my writing and speaking is focussed on wider professional issues, but it’s profoundly important to me – and I really do love my job!

Fast-forward to 2011, and find me preparing for conference in a fairly desultory fashion, with no real idea what I’m going to do for the panel.  Fortunately, moderator Ruth Wolfish had it all under control – she gave us a set of questions of which we could answer all or some, set out the running order, requested a slidedeck and an introduction, and encouraged us to share our planned slides with the other panel members (Jean Fisher, George Plosker, and Kim Dority).  Ruth also did something rather sneaky, which I would recommend to all moderators: after telling us that we had 10 minutes max each, we found out the night before the panel that we actually had 15 minutes.  And yes, we all used them all – in fact, we finished pretty much exactly on time! Definitely a great way to make sure your speakers don’t run over.

Ruth also took us all out for dinner the night before the panel, which I found enormously useful! It was a fantastic opportunity to get to know the other panellists, to learn more about their views and ideas, and to connect with a really amazing bunch of information professionals – not to mention my chance to try Maggiano’s pound cake!

Ruth also asked us to get to the room early and circulate among the audience – chat to them, ask them why they were there, and what they were hoping to get from the session.  I found the thought of this rather terrifying, so decided to look out for people with first-timer ribbons as a) this gave me a great opening gambit and b) they were the only people in that room likely to be as nervous as I was…

I really enjoyed doing my panel slot.  Lots of speaking experience over the last year has helped to get me over the ‘nervous gibbering wreck’ stage, and I’m now starting to feel more comfortable in front of an audience.  The audience were great, too – they listened really well, and laughed in the right places!  I also found that it having spoken to some of the audience in advance did really help, by giving me a few extra familiar faces in the audience.  I’d suggest it as a tactic if you’re a bit nervous about speaking, especially if the alternative is to be stood self-consciously at the front waiting for the session to start.

Having some idea of what my fellow panellists were going to say was a huge boost too.  As we were all talking around the same questions, it’s not surprising that many of the same themes came out, but it was very reassuring to know that I wasn’t about to be flatly contradicted by the next speaker!

The questions Ruth asked us to address were:

• What is the type of individual, with what skills that are currently successful in your Library?
• What personality skills would you look for in an individual?
• How important are technical skills? What specific skills?
• In your opinion, going forward in the Library profession; what type of individual will succeed?
• In hindsight, what would you do differently in your career to succeed? What did you do that was the most beneficial?
• What trends do you see for the future? How will your type of Library change in the future?
• Name 3 things that you continue to do in order to succeed? (ie. public speaking, networking, classes, SLA ……?)
• Will Libraries exist in the future ? Public Libraries? Corporate Libraries?  How will databases or products change in the future?

We all had a slightly different take on these, and some of us (well, me) didn’t answer them all, but there was definitely some cohesion in the answers.  We all spoke about the need to be flexible, open to change, and willing to learn new skills.  The need to get involved in the profession outside your workplace was also identified as being key – unsurprising, given that the advice was coming from active SLA members.  Each panel member mentioned different technical skills, relative to our different environments, but it was clear that technical skills – or at least the willingness to acquire them! – was a must-have.  And the same message kept coming across:

You have the skills to do this!  You’re an information professional: you have learned how to learn.

Something which I don’t think was stated explicitly, but which came through very strongly, was that to work in a non-traditional/non-library environment you must have a keen sense of two things: adventure, and your own worth.  4 years ago I wouldn’t have said I had either.  Now I’m helping others to find theirs.  Whatever else librarianship may be, it’s certainly one heck of a ride.

Bethan Ruddock is an early-career professional, working as Content Development Officer for Library and Archival Services at Mimas, University of Manchester. She is Awards Chair and Early Career Co-Chair for SLA Europe, and Co-Chair of the LMD Marketing Section.  Bethan blogs at http://bethaninfoprof.wordpress.com/, tweets as @bethanar, and is currently editing a New Professional’s Toolkit (http://lisnewprofs.wordpress.com/), due for publication in 2012.