Information Literacy for Newspaper Librarians

Wired ran a great podcast on their fact checking desk. Great lesson in information literacy for journalists. 

Creating Future Knowledge

Are librarians choosing to disappear from the information & knowledge delivery process?  By Carl Grant

Like it or not, how we define ourselves (or allow others to define us) reflects our value, especially in the world of business and special libraries. 

As a mercenary librarian, your value reflects 1) How much money you’ll make and 2) How long The Company will employ you.  So I’m always searching for new ways to show what I do is important and explain the service I provide.  For a long time, I’ve said that I help people find and organize information.  The problem is everyone thinks they can find good information efficiently just using Google.  Everyone thinks they can do secondary research.  And to an extent, yes everyone can.  So the tag line I was using at the beginning of my career ten years ago is needing an update. 

I really enjoyed Carl Grant’s article, particularly for how it defines what it is that librarians do, no matter the setting:

We help people create new knowledge by helping them find existing knowledge that is authoritative, authenticated and appropriate to their needs. We put that knowledge in context and provide it without bias.  This becomes the foundation upon which they create new knowledge.
 

While I detest the term “added value,” it’s important to show to one’s Masters.  Grant’s emphasis on helping other create new knowledge is a really great way to show that added value, especially when your name may not be the one going the final product. 

Commentary: Not a Librarian?

Not a Librarian? by Nicole Fosh

I really liked Nicole’s musings here and I think they’re representative of what a lot of us in the profession are going through these days.  (Or at least they are still issues that I struggle with.)  She has a very mercenary practical philosophy about the type of work librarians engage in, but struggles with what to call herself, whether or not the MLS is worth the time and expense, and seems to have a bit of guilt for not working in the traditional library space.

She epitomizes the mercenary philosophy that I think will save our profession with the following:

It may not have been in the city I hoped (I had thought I’d leave Boston as soon as I finished my degree).  It may not have been in the industry I hoped.  But it was a job.  A job that was in a great city, paid well, and most importantly, a job where my degree was a requirement. It seemed like a no-brainer to not take it.

While I think Nicole feels the same pain/guilt/betrayal/whatever as I do for not working in a more traditional setting, sometimes it’s the right choice.  We librarians have a mindset of martyrdom which does us little good.  There is no reason we should work long hours for poor pay if there are better options. 

I still ask myself the same questions that Nicole does and struggle with the same issues after a year of being out of a traditional setting.  Sometimes I’m comforted by a quote from Joseph Campbell (probably borrowing from Einstein):  “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” 

Creating the Library of Tomorrow from the Ground Up

Creating the Library of Tomorrow from the Ground Up by Laurie Putnam

A great article that talks about the philosophy behind the curriculum at the new Dutch LibrarySchool.

I was first intrigued by the fact that Dutch librarian training takes place at the undergrad level and that this program is the first of its kind at the graduate level.  Personally, I’ve always thought that having a four year undergrad program instead of a one year graduate program would give more credibility to the profession as well as give students a broader set of skills to leverage both in libraries and non-library settings. 

More importantly, however, I was fascinated by the four ideological buckets the school is using to guide the curriculum.  I think these buckets speak to why librarians can be so helpful in so many different environments.  In my own situation and from what I hear from colleagues at other companies, a major problem seem to be that non-library employers don’t understand the skill set librarians bring or how to leverage it.  They’re hung up on librarians as people who manage libraries.  And that’s understandable because that’s what we’ve done for the past hundred years. 

I’ve tried for a very long time to articulate why my background as a librarian gives me an edge over the other 25,000 analysts at The Company.  But this program seems to finally define it: 

It’s the knowledge of the intersections and ability to meld skills in technology, organization, culture and society in delivering contextual information that makes librarians powerful.

This ideology makes librarians more cross-functionally relevant in both traditional and non-traditional setting.  Of course I’m biased, but this is particularly valuable for those of who are mercenaries in non-traditional settings.  Because let’s face it: It’s not like the amount of jobs in traditional settings is growing. 

Libraries and librarians will always be around in some form, and I think this new ideological mix creates a new form of librarian that allows us to continue to be relevant.  I’d argue the LibrarySchool is not building the library of the tomorrow, but the librarian of tomorrow.

An Embedded Librarian at CES

Going to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has been a minor dream of mine for a while.  I’m a science fiction fan, so getting a chance to see the lasted tech and gadgets and talking about emerging concepts was gleefully mind blowing.  (And Las Vegas is one of my favorite cities in the world to visit!)

CES was the first non-library, professional conference I’ve attended.  I’m only speculating, but at least anecdotally, I think many librarians (myself included) are guilty of going to primarily to the conventions attended by peers (ALA Annual, SLA Annual, Internet Librarian, etc.)  While those conventions help me develop as a specialist in my field, the problem is that they only help me.  Unfortunately, The Company can sometimes view this as an empty expense because it’s only helping me. 

So what’s the value of going to non-library conferences?  Primarily that you’re adding more value to your organization.  More importantly, that translates into you being seen as more valuable. 

I went with the idea that I would be on the lookout for certain topics and tech that would help inform the groups I support over the next year. (Looking back on it, I should have also sat down with each team and asked if there was anything specific they wanted me to look for.) I was essentially acting as an information broker for The Company.

In addition to bringing back pure data, embedded librarians can also bring a special perspective to intelligence gathering at trade shows.  As I’ve said before, because we work with a variety of teams we’re in a position to see how concepts and gear may affect multiple groups and make connections.  The Company had multiple people going from specific areas with specific foci, which allowed me to look at focus on more overarching themes and how they tied together. 

Further think librarians might consider sharing the information they bring back a bit differently than others.  I had intended to post updates to my in-house blog while there, but technical difficulties didn’t allow that.  I’m not sure if anyone else considered doing this.  And, on returning from the show, I set up a roundtable Lunch-And-Learn for my department with speakers from the areas that sent staff to the show.  (Perhaps this was the librarian in me wanting to programming? Or maybe just the showman in me wanting to be ringmaster?)  The hope is that together, we’ll be able spread the information we gathered beyond individuals and individual areas.  Again, the benefit to the mercenary librarian is that as the host you get a bit of credit for pulling it all together (even if that’s all you did). 

A final side note from my experiences: It was immensely useful to have colleagues back home emailing me stories they saw coming out of the show and asking me to look for specific items.   CES was 4-5 times bigger than any professional conference I’ve ever been to and it’s just not possible to catch everything.  Having an ops center helped me to stay aware of things I might have missed.