Gaining Weight

At heart, I’m a scholar.  I like reading and learning new things, but not necessarily for any practical reason.  And I love the challenge of being able to uncover a piece of information that someone needs.  I don’t really care what they need it for, only that it’s hard to find. 

In my old department and in the traditional library setting I got to investigate interesting topics ranging from business to technology to law to medicine.  I passed off the results of my investigations to let someone else make the decisions based on the information I found. 

Things are different in the new area I work in.  The topics are more focused, but they’re also topics I’m really interested in. But the biggest difference and the one that’s causing me the most angst is:

I’m being asked to analyze the material I find and draft recommendations/decisions on it.

In addition to the finder of material, now I’m also an analyst of the material.  Librarians in special libraries have been headed this direction at least since I entered the profession around ten years ago.  But adding interpreter to finder in my skill set raises some uncomfortable questions.  What if I recommend the wrong technology?  What if I misinterpret a trend or miss a crucial piece of data?  What if a path of action I suggest leads the company in the wrong path and costs us a lot of money?

In the end, the best anyone can do (librarian or not) is be thorough and make the best decision you can with the best data you have available.  That said I’m finding out being an “embedded librarian” carries with it a bit more weight and responsibility than my previous traditional role. 

What do you think about this?  Is there more responsibility when you are asked to analyze material? Or am I simply being overly dramatic? 

Human Powered Search

Jason Calacanis seems to have a special place in his heart for librarians.  Or at least he should because the type of tech businesses he starts.

Among other things Calacanis is a venture capitalist and tech entrepreneur.  I’ve been keeping a loose eye on him since he launched Maholo.  Maholo is interesting because it functions as a cross between online answer platforms (like Yahoo! Answers) and a search engine, but also incorporates human curated content.  Essentially it packages results on a topic from a variety of places into a single, authoritative source.  Sounds rather like reference services to me. 

The Mercenary Philosopher pointed me to his latest startup this week, a project called Launch.  Librarians, particularly special librarians, will recognize this as the alert services we’ve provided to our clients for decades.   

Surrounding both projects is the concept of “human-powered search” results, which I think is particularly intriguing.  I’ve struggled over the last ten years with both friends and The Company to justify why I became a librarian.  Their approach is that the search engine can power any kind of knowledge discovery needed.  Calacanis, however, seems to understand that machines and human working together can produce information discovery that neither could alone. 

I wonder if he’s hiring…

Career Day & Stereotypes

The kids had career day at their preschool last week.  One of the boys decided he wanted to be a librarian like daddy.  (To which I almost said: “No, son.  Do not follow in daddy’s hippy idealistic footsteps.  Go be a scientist or a doctor or something that’s valued by society and makes money.”)   So mommy dressed him as the stereotype: big glasses and a backpack full of books.  And of course he was told the standard role of the librarian was someone who helps other people find books. 

After mommy was done I tried to… uh, “update” the description of a librarian to the twenty-first century.  The boy listened politely as I stumbled with how to explain exactly what I do.  I don’t work in a physical library and I don’t really use books much anymore when it comes to research.  But he doesn’t get “research” anyway.  Nor does he get what it means to help people find “information” (regardless of format) or why that’s important.   

All week I’ve been struggling with how to describe what I do to my kids. 

At this point you’re probably saying: “He’s four.  What the hell does it matter?! Give him the basic concept and move on.”  So I’ve also been struggling with why I care.  And I suppose it comes back to showing value because I love what I do.  Organizing books isn’t valuable to society and it’s not what I do.  (Or at least it’s only a very, very small part.)  No, I don’t need to prove my worth to my son, but I want him to have an appreciation and respect for what I do and love. 

So I decided to make it kind of sexy and say: “A librarian is kind of like a detective.  He helps other people by finding things for them whether that’s books or artifacts or words that help them be better people.” 

My four year old nodded politely and then asked “Daddy, what’s a detective?”  *facepalm*

How Much is Your Job Worth?

How Much is Your Job Worth? by Jerry McLaughlin

McLaughlin poses two questions every mercenary should asking themselves...

1. What is the importance to the employer of doing the task you fulfill?
2. How desired/specialized is the skill set you bring to the task?

Embedded librarians have a lock on the second aspect.  We bring a fairly specific skill set information retrieval, dissemination, and organization.  

The first question is a bit more problematic.  My grizzled perspective has lead me to believe that My Masters don't always place a high value on the need I fill for them.  So when I'm feeling really cocky I'll ask, what happens if you don't have someone like me doing what I do?  Can you afford to miss something that I'll uncover for you? 

Your Strength Isn’t Searching

One of the skills I use to differentiate myself for my fellow Corporate Drones is the ability to retrieve relevant information, quickly, and from specialized sources (i.e. anywhere but Google).  In other words: Searching.  Everyone can search Google for movie times and the latest news about Google or the next generation iPad rumors. 

So when my friend The Mercenary Philosopher said in conversation that my strength wasn’t in searching I bristled. 

We were discussing a stable of interns we keep on hand for ad hoc research requests.  Interns often give mixed results when it comes to research.  Some are great.  Some are terrible.  But when he stated that the interns could find information just as well as I could, I started looking nonchalantly for the nearest object I could find to use as a shank. 

I struggled to find anything immediately, which gave my friend the chance to explain.  He went on to say that while librarians are adept at find information, their strength really lies in connecting the information together and to people who can best use it. 

As I reflected on the idea for the rest of the evening, I came to realize there was some wisdom in The Mercenary Philosopher’s words, particularly for special librarians and even more so for embedded librarians.  These two classes of information workers (anecdotally) tend to work with the same people on a regular basis.  Knowing what information is relevant in the context the organization operates in as well as whom in the organization might be able to best use that information is incredibly powerful.