Library Science without the Library

Library Science without the Library by Jane Greenstein.

This was a great post that appeared on Library Journal’s site.  To summarize, Greenstein points out that LIS programs continue to churn out employees, but many of them are working part time at lesser jobs (bookstores, coffee houses, etc.) because jobs in the industry aren’t forthcoming.  She encourages universities and students to look beyond libraries as potential landing spots for librarians. 

Whether students choose a traditional or so-called alternative path, MLIS programs should acknowledge-and embrace-that the library profession is changing. They should expand their focus by offering more degrees and creating a more fluid curriculum that keeps students aware of the evolution that is occurring in front of their eyes.

Librarian or Google employee?

To fit my own purposes, she’s telling the profession to get mercenary. 

While I believe in libraries and the mission they serve, jobs opportunities in traditional libraries are shrinking.  I have three academic institutes and two public libraries in the town where I live and I’ve seen around four openings in the last five years, two of which have been management.  I wax nostalgic about working in a traditional library.  But the likelihood of that happening is slim, and would probably be accompanied by a significant pay cut.  Maybe when I retire…

Being a mercenary, and looking to sell our information skills to the highest bidder, can help new and tenured librarians find well-paying jobs in a crappy economy.  Greenstein talks about what I’d consider some very non-traditional jobs for librarians.  But I’d add that there are also “traditional” jobs (although maybe it’s the idea that there are “traditional” jobs for librarians that’s holding us back) for those in the profession, but in wildly different settings from what we’re used to.  My embedded gig is pretty much just being a highly specialized research and reference librarian only without the traditional trappings. 

Greenstein also says:

… my impression is that library and information schools don't know how to properly court prospective "information"-oriented candidates or appeal to my colleagues in the interactive field.

I don’t know if courting the right candidates is as much of an issue as helping students discover, during the process of matriculation, how to apply the skills they’re being taught in radically different settings.  Library schools need to help students think more like information mercenaries and get beyond the altruistic nature with which we all (myself included) come to the profession.    I kind of just stumbled in to special libraries and then was kicked in to the world of embedded librarianship.  There was no training or even consideration about what one could do with a library degree outside of the traditional library walls.  I would have loved some discussion or mentorship within my coursework about how to apply the skills I was learning to other areas. 

The Embedded Librarian as Bullshit Detector

I received a request this week to investigate a web site that was viewing The Company in a rather negative light.  The question-behind-the question was essentially, how much weight should we give this site?

The site was well put together, and as it turned out, providing correct information.  Hell, they even provided citation information and links to supporting materials.  But the site also offered a very one-sided perspective on the issues in question.  In the fine print, the site itself even admitted to having a purpose that was somewhat axe grind-ey.  And the authors/administrators of the site were poets, not legal experts nor did they present any credentials that would make them authoritative for commenting on the issues the site addressed. 

I informed the requestor of all of this as well as the fact that the site doesn’t come up in the first hundred hits. So unless someone is looking for The Company’s name and uses some pretty specific topical search terms, the general consumer isn’t going to find this site easily if at all.  Ergo, low threat.  (As a total side note, the site will be a great example for the next time I have to teach a freshman information literacy course.)

The whole analysis took me maybe ten minutes, because I was trained (and train others) where to look for and how to judge whether information is credible.  I assume everyone can do and can do it as quickly.  But the fact that my colleague even asked the question maybe shows that this isn’t a skill everyone has or at the very least I can do it faster and more thorough.  Maybe I take for granted that I can do this. 

In any case, providing “bullshit detection” services is certainly another services and “added value” that embedded librarians can offer their clientele.  We shouldn’t take it for granted and should actively market it during outreach. 

The Embedded Librarian as a Triage Doc

I’m often jealous of other areas in The Company. 

The Company has several (small) units that can do research that a single librarian (or even a team of librarians) cannot.  They do “big data” analytics, usability studies, qualitative and quantitative consumer analysis, even some electrical and physical engineering.  Their services are top notch and highly specialized.  Because they are doing primary research in topics selected by clients, it’s hard to compete with their specialties when it comes to questions that secondary research can’t reach.  So sometimes I feel like I’m the second tier research.

(That said these areas were also the library’s best customers when it existed and most vocal when it closed.  I also count a lot of my colleagues in those areas as friends.)

The problem is these units often have huge backlogs and waitlists.  Their services are highly sought out, but they have small staffs.  So they can’t handle all of the work. 

That’s where I sweep in to save the day… Kind of.  While I can’t do the detailed primary research like the other groups, I can often find secondary sources that are close enough or supplemental.  And while it’s often not dead on topic, sometimes it’s enough for the project groups to make some assumptions and extrapolations.

So like the triage doctor, embedded librarians can help project groups stay alive when the kind of information they would prefer to have is not available.  In fact, I’ve turned this “bug” in my position into a marketing feature.  When I do outreach, I often tell prospective clients that if they can’t get in to see the specialists or if they’d like me to see what I can find while they wait to see a specialist, I’m happy to help. 

Meet the New Librarian

A few weeks ago, Apple introduced its new 4S iPhone.  Baked into the operating system was Siri, a voice interactive artificial intelligence.  More than just a voice interface, Siri is also (at least to the degree that the iPhone’s sensors allow) contextually aware and has search capability.  While she can be used for tasks as simple as setting up calendar reminders, she can also aggregate information.  And unlike other voice interactive AIs, Siri’s creators went to great lengths to give her an appealing persona.  So she’s not just an interface, she’s also interactive. 

In a test question of “Find me the best gas prices” Siri said she couldn’t make a recommendation on which one to choose, but found the nearest five gas stations and their prices for me.  This shows she can’t make qualitative judgment calls yet.  But Siri has been enough of a hit that she’ll be further developed and honed.  It may be that Siri will become the first widely available commercial AI (although a “weak” AI). 

Being paranoid about my livelihood I started to wonder: What does this mean for librarians and information brokers? 

In specialized settings like mine, I think librarians distinguish themselves from the rabble in two ways.

1. The ability to translate the client’s context into search strategies.
2. The ability to use sophisticated information retrieval tools.  While most people have access to information tools, they either use them really poorly or don’t know how to use them at all. 

I’m not going to prophesy that Siri is the end of librarianship.  Right now she’s about as skilled in collecting information as a high school senior.  But I do think that Siri’s ability to contextually aggregate information makes her a potential disruptor for librarians. 

The real question is how much Siri will eventually be leveraged to perform complex searches and aggregation.  If she’s only used for simple tasks (example: Find me movie times.  Find me local Thai restaurants. Etc. etc.) then she won’t be any more disruptive than Google has already been.  (Google, by the way, has to be worried about what this technology will to its search business.)  If that’s the case, then it’s likely that she’ll be just another tool librarians leverage more effectively than the rabble to provide high quality, targeted information. 

But what if/when she gets smarter?  What happens to the library profession when true artificial intelligence is cheaply and commercially available?  What then will be our place?  How will our profession work alongside and/or leverage AIs to do new and different work?  

No answers.  Only questions.  But its important that the field start looking in this direction. 

Librarians as Connectors

A colleague and I recently established a regular roundtable meeting between several different groups all working towards the same goal, but who were not connecting with each other.

This got me thinking…  One aspect of librarianship (embedded or otherwise) that is often taken for granted the librarian as connector. 

In large corporations, it’s not uncommon for multiple groups from different parts of the company to be working towards the same goal or on the same topic without knowing of each other. 

Because we assist a wide variety of people in finding information about a wide variety of topics, we get to view what a lot of different groups are working on.  And because of our familiarity with the groups and the subject matter, librarians are in in a position to see the connections between them and introduce them to one another. 

This can sometimes be better than if they find out about each other’s work through other channels.  For while corporations have a habit of having simultaneous groups unknowingly working topics in tandem, there is also the tendency to get into territorial pissing matches around those topics once the groups discover each other.  It can degenerate into a more civilized version of gang warfare.  But librarians can step in as a neutral third party to help gently introduce each group to one another and point out synergies.  

This helps The Corporation in a couple of ways. 

• It makes connections between groups that might not already exist and therefore leverage a larger force of people and skills toward the common goal. 
• It can help eliminate duplicate work efforts.
• It can assist in leveraging the skills of individual group members that might be absent from their adjacent teams. 

Back to the roundtable example…  The Corporation I work for has several groups looking at emerging technology from very different angles.  It makes sense for each of the groups to exist in their own silos. While chatting with a member of the other group we came to the conclusion that while we do a great job of keeping our respective clients informed about technology, we don’t network with one another very often.  There were probably things each group was seeing the others could benefit from.  Or, there was information that one group was finding which wasn’t relevant to them, but would be highly relevant to one of the other groups if they only knew the other group was interested in it. 

So now we gather every two weeks to discuss items we’re seeing and have a fairly lively email network to share items between one another.  (I suppose knowledge management folks would call this a “community of practice.”)  Additionally, we’ve come to find that individual members have specialized skill sets that others in the group were looking for, but didn’t know where to find.  Even if the roundtable doesn’t last, the members now know about each other and can feel comfortable reaching out to one another for assistance in specific circumstances.

What do you think?  What other ways can librarians act as connectors within large groups? 

Adapting to Change Sucks... But it’s Necessary

http://futureready365.sla.org/10/24/darwinian-librarian/

This post from SLA’s Future Ready 365 blog really resonated with me.  I’m not a fan of change.  I find change a disruptive annoyance. I like my life nice and stable and predictable unless I decide I want to change it.  Contrary to corporate speak, I think most of humanity functions on similar principles. 

Alas, neither the universe nor my corporation embrace my philosophy on change.  And as painful as change is for me, I’ll admit that change is often necessary for us to grow.  If there is anything that losing my library and becoming an mercenary embedded librarian have taught me it’s that adaptability is crucial to remaining relevant and employed (and sane).  The author of this piece gets that.  Its adaptability that allows librarians to use their underlying skills for new purposes, sometimes for purposes which they were never designed. It’s also adaptability that will ensure our profession continues into the future. 

Dealing with Information Overload (Part II)

Last time I talked about Dan Messer’s great post on Dealing with Information Overload.  To recap, Dan says don’t try and don’t stress about not trying because it’s very likely that even if you “miss” something, you’re not really going to miss it or you’re going to find out about it in another way.  I talked about how in my past life (and sometimes currently) I’d provide advice on how leadership could make staying on top of their subject matters more manageable. 

Now I’m going to talk about why that doesn’t work for the embedded librarian.

I’ll admit to a little obsessiveness when it comes to checking my feed reader.  Some people obsessively check their email and texts.  For me it’s Google Reader.  I look at everything.  The more the better.  I don’t necessarily read it, but I want to review it.  I want to be Lucius Fox standing in front of a huge interactive display monitoring everything like in The Dark Knight. 

I make my trade as an information broker.  I’m paid to obsess over catching snippets of competitive intelligence that helps my masters obtain a business advantage.  Because in business and war, having key intelligence before the competition is critical for success.  Even the smallest bit of arcanum helps clients out. 

In the business world, I think one of the most influential roles a librarian, especially an embedded librarian, can play is that of curator/filter.  The beauty is, as search experts, embedded librarians know how to aggregate and filter the information much, much faster than the average mortal. 

This is where my last piece of advice to leadership holds for all my clients: “rely on your librarian.”  Yes it’s self-serving and mercenary.  That’s the point.