What would you say ya do here?

Bob Slydell: What would you say ya do here?

Tom Smykowski: Well look, I already told you! I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?

Describing an embedded librarian’s work to someone outside the profession is one of the most difficult aspects of my work because the tasks and results of the information profession are largely intangible. 

Recently my area was assigned a “team lead.”  For those of you who aren’t familiar with this role, it’s a position that deals with the day-to-day operations of a small team to free the manager up to do “manager stuff.”  In other words: it’s all of the responsibilities of management and none of the authority (and no pay increase). 

My team is made up of individuals who are all generally involved in the same topics and goal (research and innovation), but do so in very different ways with different responsibilities.  So my new team lead scheduled meetings with each individual to talk about what they do.  She kind of already knows what we do, but wants to get a more specific idea of how our jobs function, who we serve, what roadblocks we might have, etc.  For example, she knows I do “research” but doesn’t exactly know what “research” entails. 

I think it’s great that she’s doing this. “Research” in most people’s mind involves going out to Google, searching through the first page of hits and then moving on whether you find what you need or not. 

That’s not what I do.  

Because it’s so rare that I actually have an opportunity to help someone understand my profession, how I do it, and why it’s important I’m trying to carefully construct a discussion outline.  I think my previous inability to converse around this topic is what may have led to the demise of my library, so it’s very important to me to communicate all this correctly.  As they say, you only get one shot at a first impression…

Here’s an outline of what I came up with. These aren’t intended to be presented as a formal presentation so much as they are talking points to hit on or inject at the most appropriate time.   

• A 30 second elevator pitch/tagline of what I do. 
• A 30 second overview of why I’m better at research (because of my library background) than 90% of the rest of the world (i.e. I know more sources and can search them more efficiently saving my clients time and money). 
• The teams I support (i.e. the subject areas I cover). 
• The research products I produce (proactive white papers, reactive requests for information, passive research), the purpose of those products, the audience they target, and the impact they’ve had.  I even went so far as to bring examples of tangible documents I’ve delivered. 
• The tasks I engage in (research, presentation, instruction, documents delivery, etc.) 
• Other duties as assigned and how those help me do my main duties. 

Am I missing anything? What else would you talk about? 

Extreme-Embedded-Librarian

Extreme-Embedded-Librarian by Amy Maule

This was a great post from another embedded librarian sharing her experiences and daily activities as an embedded librarian.  And Amy is a total mercenary librarian (in the positive, tongue-in-cheek sense of this blog) in that she advises: “Worry less about whether the bosses think libraries are valuable.  Make sure they know that you are valuable.”  I love this concept.  As much as I love libraries and what they stand for and believe in what they do, the concept of the modern library is a little difficult for the majority of society to grasp (especially in a corporate setting).  It’s much easier and more tangible to convince my masters that I am talented and produce valuable results. 

Performance Anxiety

It’s time for our mid-year judgment performance reviews.  Not unlike other places, my masters have asked me for a short list of clients I’ve serviced over the last six months.  My masters contact these folks and ask them to provide feedback on my performance which they factor into their comments.  It helps ensure employees aren’t looking at porno or down at the pub when they’re supposed to be in meetings.  In other words, it keeps employees accountable.  And librarians should be accountable to their communities.   After all, what good are we if we’re not really helping anyone?   

Even so, the review has me… unsettled.  What are people going to say?  Will they say anything at all?  Did I do enough for them?  Or for enough of them?  And as I was putting together my list I realized there was an uneven distribution between the teams I support.  Some teams I had a lot of contact with.  Others not so much. 

While I can’t control what people are going to say, I did have some control over the process…

• I chose people with whom I had a regular contact with. 
• I chose people for whom I did measureable amounts of work.  No ready-reference-what’s-the-fastest-animal-on-earth crap.  These were meaty requests. 
• I have a stack of deliverables (a “Thump File” as one author put it) I can produce if asked. 
• I chose a mix of management and grunts like me.  
• I kept a log of all the significant requests I fulfilled as well as other significant task I engaged in   (hosting teleconferences on tech topics, helping on “other projects as assigned,” etc.) and how many people it affected. 

In the end, I’m probably doing fine.  I’ve seen a lot of corporate zombies do far less and still get by.  And it’s good to be uncomfortable by the process.  It keeps you on your toes and constantly wondering where you can engage your clients.  It’s motivated me to reach out to my two less engaged groups to do a check in. 

What do you think?  Any suggestions on what to do next time around? 

Being Embedded without Being a Pest (Revisted)

In a previous post I talked about how being an embedded librarian requires me to walk a somewhat delicate line between being useful and just being a pest.  My success depends on really knowing the context of the groups I support and providing them with relevant information.  (And my performance rating is based my interactions with them to some extent.) 

Some groups engage me more than others.  One particular team I’m assigned to uses me extensively for passive research, but doesn’t engage me a lot in their team meetings or for active research. 

I’m ok with that.  I feel if I meet teams and individuals on their terms, they’re more likely to trust me and we’re more likely to develop a relationship.  So I try not to be pushy.  But again, there is an expectation from my masters that I’m going to be more actively engaged than I and the team wants. 

It would seem I may have made inroads to the team, however, and its supporting my philosophy that building relationships as an mercenary embedded librarian is sometimes a function of time and baby steps. 

I and another member of the team in question happened to be walking out of work one evening when talking about our respective day.  She said the passive research I’ve been sending was great and asked if I’d be interested in semi-regularly sitting in on the team’s meetings where they discuss their projects.  We had a great informal discussion about the team and how I could help.  It couldn’t have lasted more than three minutes.  But since then I’ve also had multiple research requests from the team and an opening to attend their meetings.  I’m counting it as a victory. 

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?