by Victoria Harriston, Washington DC Chapter

Innovation, always on my mind, sitting in traffic and yes even in my sleep. Why? Because I know that no matter what our Research Center is doing there’s always room for improvement, to be better than we are. Nothing earth-shattering here, just a few thoughts and musings on innovations that have given our Library/Research Center greater visibility from the top down, fostered increased demand for our expertise and services and kicked the value of our contributions to the organization up more than a couple of notches.

One of the best ways to keep your finger on the pulse of the organization and really get to know your stakeholders is to start a Liaison Program. No huge start-up effort and the rewards are a win-win for everyone. Know what’s going on within your organization, recognize and seize business opportunities.

Every librarian is a business entrepreneur. You’d be amazed how forming partnerships opens innovation doors. Partnership with our Staff Development Programs office gave us the financial support for our successful training program.

Advocate for your stakeholders. If your organization publishes reports organize public Forum events and invite internal staff contributors to speak. Spend time learning about programs or events within your organization to get the library involved. We regularly participate in our Graduate Fellows program. Showcase library value, publish an Impact Report (saved project staff 20 research hours, proposal research contributed to new project funding, citation analysis validated key report recommendations).

Gather those publisher backfile collections and create an Intellectual Heritage Vault. Innovation includes not reinventing the wheel (if you don’t have to!). Use publisher online tutorials for databases, use your Delicious guides as classroom instructor tools.

Victoria Harriston is Manager, at the George E. Brown, Jr. Research Center, National Academy of Sciences. Her 35 year career includes several management positions in special, corporate and academic libraries and serving for 2-years as Public Relations, News Bureau Manager for a telecommunications company.

by Steven A. Lastres, New York Chapter, Knowledge Management Division

Since the earliest days of libraries, librarians have served as knowledge managers. Whether they were maintaining the scrolls at the Library of Alexandria, creating the catalog for the House of Wisdom (a Ninth Century Islamic library), or assembling annotated links for the law firm intranet, law librarians have always been in the forefront of organizing information and adding value to it. Librarians have long excelled at getting information into the hands of the people who need it. The precise definition of knowledge management (KM) is an elusive one, but one pillar of KM practice holds that knowledge management “is the process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets.”¹

Steven Lastres

Becoming Business Managers

What has changed is that the librarian needs to wear a new hat–that of a business manager. The array of tools available to today’s librarian has driven that change. No longer restricted to offering only upon-request services, librarians can instead embrace a broader view of their professional role. They actively manage their organization’s information assets rather than passively respond to requests.

KM, as evolved from traditional librarianship, today means identifying business opportunities within our organization to help our users practice more efficiently and effectively. Librarians need to understand how our users work, not just anticipate what their information needs will be.

As librarians expand their professional roles, their efforts at KM must align with their organization’s business objectives. Librarians need to become business managers. If we take the business view, librarians are selling a product (knowledge and information) to a market (our users) that needs to be serviced effectively (the right product), efficiently (at the right time), and cost-effectively (at the right price). Figuring out how to improve upon that business model is what knowledge management is all about. When it comes to knowledge management, the emphasis should be on management.

Why do librarians make good knowledge managers? The answer may be that librarians tend to be more eager to adopt new ways of sharing information than our users. Librarians look at new technologies and services with a critical eye to understand how to meet current and emerging information needs. KM is not technology for technology’s sake. Instead, librarians focus on content and its seamless delivery. In many ways, they can decipher what our users need before our users even ask. (After all, that’s what reference interviews are for!) They know the resources, they know how the resources are delivered, and they know how to find the information that our users ask for.

In addition to their skills, when it comes to knowing the content available, most librarians fit well into the KM mold because of their technical sophistication. Today’s librarians are perfectly at home in the online world. And unlike the past, when any project that lived on a server was automatically the ward of the IT department, KM projects are now managed by librarians. Library staff members drive the selection of tools to deliver content, the adoption of interactive services such as wikis and blogs, and the promotion of KM applications such as work product retrieval. This is a major change in librarianship, in which librarians are innovators and technologists, as well as content managers. Most librarians bring considerable technical savvy to their professional work. Librarians, in short, should select the information resources that best fit the practices they support, but they also should be involved in selecting the best delivery platforms. That includes managing the graphic display of information on portal or intranet pages and creating a Web-based presentation that is easy to use and search.

As librarians adapt to a changing world, it’s a good idea to understand some of the changes they face, including these:

• Users expect to receive information faster than ever.
• Users expect to have no impediments to get the information they need.
• Users depend on knowledge managers to keep up with KM innovations and best practices.

As knowledge management becomes more ingrained in corporations and law firms, KM managers need to become experts in three specialized fields: librarianship, legal technology, and business management. Librarians need to understand the technical possibilities–not just the nuts and bolts of the software but also the realistic research needs of the lawyers.

Change is propelling librarians forward in a world where they must adapt to new ways of thinking about the information over which they are stewards. This changing world means new opportunities for librarians, as librarians redefine themselves as KM managers who create value for the firm by effectively managing the information for which they are professionally responsible.

¹ Megan Santosus & Jon Surmacz, “The ABCs of Knowledge Management”, CIO Magazine, 2001.

Steven A. Lastres is Director of Library and Knowledge Management at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. His e-mail address is salastres@debevoise.com.

by Mary Strife, Pittsburgh Chapter, Academic Division

In this age of iPhones, iPads and “I want it now”, there are a few things that still take time. And sometimes we benefit by taking the time. The Evansdale Library opened in 1980 and received updated technology, some new furniture and new carpeting in 2000. By 2005, there was something lacking. We negotiated with the administration for funds to retool the first floor only. We added weight to our cause by conducting student surveys and focus groups. I sat in the room for all three focus groups, run by the chair of the Interior Design Division. She did a great job with the questions, getting the exact information needed to support our floor redesign. The majority of the renovation happened in the summer of 2009. Students did not get everything they wanted, but what did happen was a great change. We put in movable furniture, white boards, and three new study rooms. Students asked for space to display their projects, since students do not generally go into other’s areas. So we have used floor space and provided different types of cabinet space and wall cases for their projects.

The Fashion Design students and faculty were the first to take advantage of this area. Everyone was very pleased with the results. We are now working to install a hanging system for art work and bringing in other student displays. I think that giving students a way to connect with the library is essential to the future.

Mary Strife is the Director of the Evansdale Library at West Virginia University. She is a past-President of the New York Upstate Chapter, has been Bulletin Editor for the Chemistry Division, and currently serves on the Information Ethics Advisory Council.

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.

by Jill Strand, Legal Division, Minnesota Chapter

I’m borrowing the title of recent American Bar Association Journal article in which the authors Patrick Lamb and Paul Lippe ask if anyone starting a new law firm today would have a library or even a librarian. Although unsure about the value of a physical library, they favored having a librarian, noting that “finding essential information is more important than ever. When you live in a value free world, someone who finds the right information efficiently is really valuable.” While I would debate their assumption that all the resources lawyers need are available online, they are right to recognize that “the role of the librarian is becoming more critical as the volume of information in the world grows.”

Yet the authors go on to wonder if there is a disconnect between how they would define librarians’ value and how librarians themselves define it. Mr. Lamb and Mr. Lippe see librarians as professionals who can manage internal knowledge and external information, understand the costs involved and the connections to marketing and business development. They go on to quote an unidentified survey of a small group of librarians who describe their value using phrases such as “loyal, accurate, friendly and smart.” The authors see this disconnect as a challenge to everyone (not just librarians) “to figure out how to add real value to their enterprise.”

Sound like a familiar challenge? Nearly two years since the ground-breaking research of the Special Libraries Association Alignment Project was released, this challenge persists. More importantly, how do we make sure that we, as librarians, are aware of the value our customers perceive in us, and how do we change our perception of our own value? I chose to see the challenge as an opportunity for librarians to demonstrate that we understand these concerns and are already several steps ahead in addressing them. SLA’s Alignment Task Force is currently turning the Alignment Project research into tools and tips to help members align themselves and their libraries with the goals and values of their organizations.

In a way, being Future Ready is really just a form of Alignment put into action. Even better, it offers an open slate – you get to decide the how, when and why of your own Future Ready agenda. As a law firm library director I’m taking the advice of another Future Ready librarian, Nina Platt, and spending 15-20 minutes to meet with individual attorneys and learn a little more about the focus of their practice, their business development goals and how they stay informed. Each interview gives me a glimpse into the future. Rather than wait and respond to a last minute request, it allows me think ahead about tools and information that can support their goals.

Even before the economy took a nosedive, librarians and knowledge professionals were investigating innovative and cost-effective ways to add value to their organizations. Mr. Lamb and Mr. Lippe note that “we create five exabytes of information every two days and that pace is accelerating.” In order for lawyers, doctors, scientists, professors and other professionals to be able to fully use their unique training and talents for success, they require the unique training and talents of librarians and knowledge professionals to evaluate and manage the information searching, sifting, analyzing, synthesizing and delivery that affords them that focus.

Jill Strand is an active member of SLA at the local and national levels. She has held several leadership positions in the Minnesota Chapter, and is currently a member of the Annual Conference Advisory Council, and Nominating committee and past member of the Public Relations Advisory Council.