The Profession’s Gone Mercenary

“Career Sustainability” by Deb Hunt from SLA’s Future Ready blog. 

This entry got me thinking about my professional existential crisis again as well as reinforced my mercenary mindset. 

Here are some of the more interesting bits of the entry… 

• Trends related to LIS employment show that in 2007, 15% of employers were not libraries and in 2008, that number jumped to 27%.  
• …emerging jobs outside of libraries shows a wide variety of titles: emerging technologies librarian, usability analyst, information architect…  (Or the one I use: Information Broker.)
• LIS skills are good currency, but only for those with the flexibility and insight to exploit the opportunities.
• Many LIS jobs are not coming back or are coming back in a whole different way.

I can’t disagree with any of these statements.  If nothing else it made me feel better that others in the special library arena are having to go the mercenary route as well.  To survive, both professionally and personally, I had to adapt my skills to modern information problems and take them to where the work is.  As an embedded librarian (even though none of my coworkers would think to call what I do by that term) in a technology area, I’m using all my librarian skills, but in a non-traditional environment and in ways which they weren’t originally intended.  For example: 

• My ability to navigate information resources for retrieval of data has expanded to also include the interpretation of that data.
• My cataloging skills are now used to help flesh out taxonomies for the company’s web site as well as help organize my department’s internal white papers.  
• My ready reference skills, while still used as such, are much less in demand, but the customer service aspects associated with those skills are still in play when I deal with my clients. 
• My collection development and information evaluation skills are still being drawn on to choose quality sources of information for the department as well as my own group’s research needs, but instead of physical items, nearly everything I’m evaluating now is digital. 
• My outreach and instruction skills have morphed from traditional one-and-done overview events into more subtle and ingrained engagements with the teams I support. It’s changed from “Hey did you know the company has a library?” to being an extension of the project teams. 

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’ve been struggling with the idea of how my library degree sets me apart from the rest of the 70,000 analysts my company employs.  In a traditional library setting, the MLIS is kind of your club card to get in the door.  You’re not likely to be considered for the position unless you have the degree.  In my current position, tons of people could be considered for the work without having my rather specialized background.  So what makes me special now?  The degree I have exposed me to experiences and knowledge that give me an edge for the jobs I want whether they are in a tradition setting or as an embedded. 

Perhaps what it really comes back to (for me) is my antiquated and nostalgic view of what the “librarian” should be.  The age of librarians as holy guardians of knowledge is likely coming to an end, however.  So am I the last of the old or the first of the new?

Presumably Not Busy

There’s not much worse than feeling what you do and what you love are irrelevant and unimportant. 

During some friendly banter with a group of friends this week, I was referred to as the “presumably not busy, research trained librarian.”  The implication was that because I was a librarian, I wasn’t busy.  The comment wasn’t intended to be a jab… but it still felt like one and I snipped at my friend for it.  Not only did it hurt my professional pride, but I also have a psychological nerve about being called lazy. 

I’ve tried very hard to make the people around aware of what librarians really do and how they help people, especially with my circle of friends.   So it was frustrating to hear this and realize people still have this picture of librarians as people who have lazy days, just hanging out, reading in front of the pretty leather-bound books partaking of scotch and cigars.  More importantly, this mindset affects the support and resources I get for my job as well as how my friends, family, and acquaintances view me socially.   

There is this impression that anyone can do what a librarian does.  And yes, anyone can... to a point.  Anyone can retool the engine in their car too.  Or rewire their house.  Or sew up their own stitches.  Or diagnose their own illnesses.  Or represent themselves in court.  But trained professionals are likely to do it much better. 

I’m really good at what I do.  I can do it faster and more effectively than Average Joe Google Searcher.  In fact, if it’s something a client can find easily on Google, they shouldn’t be wasting my time.  People come to me when they can’t find something with Google. 

Part of the problem is I’m not doing work that saves the world.  I’m supporting people who save the world.  The work I do doesn’t make headlines, but it makes the work that makes headlines better.  What I do is hidden. 

And yes, I’ve done what all the literature tells me to do about showing value and showing it in a variety of ways and getting the right supporters.  After ten years though, it seems I’ve had little impact.  (If that was the case, I imagine I would have been able to convince the manager who closed my library to have chosen differently.) 

I’m even arrogant enough to challenge doubters.  I offer to go head to head with me on a research topic of their choosing.  I tell them I can find not only more resources, but more relevant resources than they can in a shorter amount of time.  Most of the time this just elicits an uncomfortable chuckle and/or feet staring. 

Then I started thinking about all the people who don’t think like my friend.  The ones who have actually engaged in me in work projects.  They have a different attitude towards me because they know what I can do for them. 

So what’s the point I’m trying to make here?  (Aside from a liquor fueled tirade…)  The point is, that in spite of all the work I and the profession at large has been putting in to changing the image of the profession over the last decade, the majority of people still seem have the same view of librarians.

Demonstrating our value doesn’t come from statistics or stories, but from working with individuals and teams on projects that are important to them.  Offer to build them a database or organize the mess that is their information repository.  Find them information that saves them money or helps them make a better decision.  Create something with information.  Show them.  Don’t tell them.

End of soapbox. 

Know What You Need

From SLA's Future Ready blog.  

A Future-Ready Fable: The Librarian Who Didn’t Know What He Wanted

The idea behind this is great.  Without management support, you're dead.  That said, I laughed at the point in the story where the exec asks what the info pro needs.  I've never seen this happen in 10 years.  (And I don't expect to in the next 10.)  

I want to work where the author works...

Using Blogs for Research (Part 2)

I talked last time about using blogs for research. That got me to thinking about how I’d evaluate a blog for quality. 

As information, a blog can be evaluated the same as a book, magazine article, web site, etc.  Here are some of the questions I often ask when I’m hitting a new blog:

• Who is/are the author(s)?  Do they give any credentials about themselves to give them authority to speak on the issues he/she is writing about?  I use this more than any other criteria to judge the usefulness of a blog.  
• Does the blog refer to other credible sources/material? 
• What kind of sources are they using to back up their statements?  Citing blogs that spiral down in to rumors from a message board don’t count.
• Does the author(s) give you a means to contact them or comment on their work?  (If not, the cynic in me always asks: What are they hiding???) 
• Does the blog have some kind of editorial or peer review of the content?  (Not a deal breaker, but it does lend credibility to the information at hand.) 
• Is the blog associated with a credible research institution, business, publication, university, etc.?  (Again, not a deal breaker, but it does lend credibility to the information at hand.) 
• Is the author backing their statements up with evidence when needed (i.e. citing their sources)? 
• How current are the entries? 
• Does it contain blatant errors you can spot? 
• Does the information in the blog ring true to what you already know about the topic?  (Trust your instincts.  If the information sounds “funny” for some reason, investigate further.) 
• Is this a rumor blog?  This might be more common with undergrads than in a business setting, but rumor is not information.  Some tech sites like macrumors.com should be taken with a dose of salt.  (Which is not a slam against Mac Rumors, only that I wouldn’t use it to make business decisions.)

What do you think?  Am I missing any criteria here? 

Using Blogs for Research

I was giving an instruction session on electronic research tools to a group of summer interns the other day.  In trying to emphasize why they’d want to use the tools I was showing them (as opposed to just searching Google), I off-handedly mentioned that the content in the database was going to be better than a random blog they might find online.  One of the “punk kids” had the daring to question my inflated authoritativeness.   He asked how often and how quickly the database in question was updated with new material.  Too late, I stumbled into his clever trap. 

“Well, it depends…” I responded.   “For some sources, it’s nearly instantaneous.  For others it can take a week.  And for some academic journals it can take a year.” 

(Truth is I was pretty impressed with his question.  Most students don’t think along these lines.  He must have been a grad student…)

Even though I’m not that old, I showed my age with this line of thought.  You see, when I was in library school blogs were an area of knowledge on which a sign saying “Here There Be Dragons” was hung.  Blogs were just gaining traction on the information scene and their contents were viewed with suspicion.  That was less than ten years ago. 

Today I’m giving certain blogs as much weight and deference as I’d give to established print publications (which also have blogs associated with their various columns and authors). 

Perfect example: Today I’m reading the stories of bloggers sitting at both Apple’s WWDC and E3.  I can pass that information on immediately to our developers and our leadership who can use it to make informed decisions about the things they’re building. 

In other words: I use blogs as research tools all the damn time. 

(As a total side note, my biggest frustration with blogs doesn’t have anything to do with the content.  The content is fine.  The search features suck.  Have a more articulate background in search and the manipulation of database elements I want to manipulate the search features of blogs.  I waste a lot of time looking for items topically when I get a question because there simply isn’t a much search power under the hood of blogs.  Luckily, some savvy information providers like Lexis are starting to scrape and incorporate larger, mainstream news blogs into their contents.)

My primary research responsibilities (and those of the interns) revolve around technology and demographic trends.  Traditional journals and books simply don’t cover these topics as fast as I’m required to report on them.  While sometimes shallow on details, blogs and other forms of self-publishing allow me to get information very quickly.  The blogs I follow also tend to be pretty reliable.  And when they aren’t they correct themselves with updates. 

In the end I managed to save a little face by telling the students that blogs were fine to use, “just be sure to check them out” before relying on them.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think to tell them how to do that.  Luckily, a colleague in the room at least suggested that I pass on some of the more reliable blogs I’ve found to the interns.  In any case, I’m making sure to incorporate a ten minute segment in the next session on how to evaluate blogs for quality. 

Embedded Librarians: Moving Beyond One-Shot Instruction

A new book from the ACRL.   Obviously more focused on the academic sector, but its interesting to see this trend there as well.  Having attended ACRL's Immersion last summer it seems like everyone is struggling with the "one-shot" issue. 

http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/new-acrl-embedded-librarians-moving-beyond-one-shot-instruction

Being Embedded without Being a Pest

I’m finding that being an embedded librarian involves working more closely with teams than I did before.  In the past, I’d do one-off projects and my clients and I would go our separate ways.  The new gig is a bit different.  While I’m not exactly part of the team, I often feel like an extension of the team.  There’s an ongoing relationship between myself and the clients.  I’m around them every day.  I sit in on their meetings (sometimes).  I’m regularly providing them passive research on topics of interest.  Most importantly, however, my new masters are checking in me from time to time and making sure I’m really tied in with these teams as opposed to sitting in my cloth covered cage cubical surfing porn all day.  When performance time comes around, my masters will talk with these groups about the work I’ve been doing for them. 

This creates a bit of a dilemma: There’s a fine line between making sure people know you can help them (marketing and outreach), offering people help, providing relevant and regular updates on certain topics… and just being a pest. 

So where do you draw the line?  It’s all about context and reading people’s subtleties.  There’s a couple ways to do that:

• Proceed cautiously at first.  You don’t run up on a horse shouting how happy you are to meet it.  That’s a good way to get kicked in the teeth. You approach slowly.  You offer a bit of apple or oats.  The same goes for teams.  Approach slowly and quietly.  Let them know your there, but don’t spook ‘em.  Proactively offer them what you think is relevant information and see how they react.  And adjust your approach from there.  
• Admit that you want to be helpful, but not intrusive and let the team set the comfort level. 
• Meet with the manager.  Get a feel for how the manager sees his folks in relation to the services you provide.  What are they already doing that you’re offering?  What aren’t they already doing? 
• Meet with the team to introduce yourself and offer the services.  Take note of how individuals react during your elevator speech.
• If you make a friend, use that as an entry point to the team.  
• Sit in on team meetings and simply listen.  (Then send a relevant bit of follow up information afterward and see if anyone reacts.) 

In the end, the process is a function of time as well as doing good work.  It takes a lot of time and a lot of trial and error to find out the nuances of an individual or a team’s research needs.  And it takes time to build trust.  You just have to hope you become pleasure before you become a pest.