What is "research" without a Library?

Beyond Books: What Does Research Mean to You?

This was an interesting post from SLA's Future Ready that brings up the idea of doing research on items without books or really any of the common data sources most librarians use today.  The author is really talking about primary data curation, which I think will become more and more common in the coming years for the profession. 

Existential Crisis

Changing jobs triggered a bit of an existential crisis for me.  I’d been a traditional librarian for nearly ten years.  I was proud of the title, believed I had specialized skills, and identified with the profession’s values.  Being a “librarian” was part of my identity.   It wasn’t just a job or a career path. The closest thing I can use to describe it is “a calling.”  It made me special.  Unique.      

Now I’m out of the traditional setting, and I’m wondering what I am.  My official title is “Senior Analyst” (along with around literally 10,000 other people at my company).  I still call myself a librarian.  But am I still a “librarian?”  Am I a “researcher?”  Employee #24601?  I’m not special any more even though I’m doing the work that “librarians” do without the title. 

I also can’t help feel like a bit of a mercenary; like I’ve betrayed my beliefs in the sanctity of knowledge for its own sake to keep food on the table.  Not to mention failing to stop the library from folding.   People tell me I didn’t have a whole lot of choice.  The library was going to fold whether I stayed or not.  And it’s not like I didn’t try to stop it.  I tried to stop it and I lost.  And a man (and his family) gotta eat.  I realize full well that I’m considerably more fortunate than many of my colleagues in special libraries who had their positions eliminated.  They’d love to be called “analyst” or “Employee 24601.” 

So does the setting a librarian provides their services in matter in the 21^st century?  Does the title matter?  Is a librarian by any other name still the same?  If not what differentiates me/the profession from the thousands of analysts a company/entity employs? 

Stranger in a Strange Land: Part 2

Being an embedded librarian give you a chance to work as colleagues with people who aren’t like you.  They’re not trained like you and they don’t think like you. 

And that’s not a shot at my coworkers.  They’re fun.  And smart.  And I really like my new partner.  But it’s a unique experience that I don’t think many librarians get to have working in a super integrated way with people aren’t them. 

I mentioned last time that this is the first time in my career where I’m not working with other librarians.  Even if these folks weren’t fully degreed MLSs, they were still interested in “libraries” and had a background in how they functioned.  We shared a common language and a common paradigm of the world. 

I didn’t realize how jarring it would be not to work with people who you really don’t share a lot in common with aside from an imposed corporate mission statement.  There are certain touch points that I can’t refer to any more.  We don’t read the same professional literature or have the same professional ethics/values.  We don’t speak the same jargon.  We don’t use the same resources for research and our techniques are very different. 

This all makes me feel like I don’t know what I’m doing or that I’m doing something wrong, neither of which is the case.  In the end, it’s just a different way of getting to the same ends.  And I’m learning the ways of a new culture while bringing in some of my own. 

But I still can’t help feeling like a stranger in a strange land…

Stranger in a Strange Land

… so I had to leave the world of traditional libraries.  There were no opportunities or support to take the function in new directions and no real opportunities for career growth.  Or rather, I wasn’t interested in the directions the company wanted to take this particular unit.  It was hard, but eventually we all parted on good terms (something for which I’m eternally thankful). 

Luckily the company I work for is big enough that I could offer my skills in another area and is very good about not displacing employees.  I was actually looking for jobs in academia, when I saw a research position open up in the part of our company that deals with our internet and mobile presence. It’s a good thing too because despite the large number of academic institutions in my area, there wasn’t a lot of movement in the staff in two years of looking. 

About a month ago, I became an embedded librarian for this area.  Have MLS, will travel. 

It’s like starting work at another company and almost like switching careers.  I’m in a different building.  There is new technical jargon I’m not always familiar with.  A boss (who I like so far) with a very business focused perspective. Co-workers who, for the first time in my career, aren’t also librarians.  And a new department structure with an unfamiliar political landscape. 

I’m a stranger in a strange land. 

A Career Change

I used to be a librarian…  In the traditional sense of the word, if such a things as a “traditional librarian” exists anymore. 

Then things changed. 

I work in the corporate world.  When the economy tanked, special libraries were decimated.  Mine lasted longer than most, but two years ago, in true corporate fashion, someone wanted to do “visioning” for what the library could be in the future.  The staff pretty much knew how it would end, but present ideas for how we could take the function to the next level.

And over the course of the next two years, our physical collection, staff, and any resources we needed to take our services into the digital age evaporated. 

So I had to make a career change. Luckily there were other areas of the company I could use my search, research, and information organization skills in.  And now I find myself an “embedded” librarian doing pretty much the same work as I did before, but in a very different environment…