Librarian of Fortune

Google does social searching

Google just rolled out Social Search, a new experiment in providing better or more relevant results. You join the experiment through google.com/experimental  In addition to the usual results, if you click the "show options" link at the top of the search results page, you'll see an option for Social. This separates out just the results from your circle of friends (that Google knows about).

Google identifies your friends through a few means:

• Your Google Contacts (did you know about this? - another place to house info on all your contacts
• Google Reader
• links in your Google profile to other social services (Twitter, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)
• your gmail chat contacts

Damn you, Google! Yet another reason to share all my personal links with you...

Twapper Keeper - Archive and Organize Your Tweets

Just learned about Twapper Keeper from Gary Price. (Twapper... like Twitter trapper) The love child of Google and Twitter - all the archive of searching Twitter on Google (using site:twitter.com) plus the hash-tag feature of Twitter (Google strips off hash tags when it indexes tweets, so you can't limit your search just to hash tags).

See twapperkeeper.com/il2009 for tweets from the Internet Librarian 2009 conference, and twapperkeeper.com/slaname for all the discussion of the SLA name change.

And more thoughts about the proposed SLA name change

I appreciate Marcy Phelps' thoughtful approach about why she likes the proposed name, Association of Strategic Knowledge Professionals. MarcyPhelps.com: ASKPro - Why I like it.

Taglines - not just for Kleenex

When I was wrapping up the 2nd edition of Building & Running a Successful Research Business, I came up with some examples of info-pro taglines that describe your value, not what you do. While we usually think of taglines as being more appropriate for consumer goods ("Got milk?" "Coke is it"), they can be used effectively for info services, too. For example:

• We make your strategic decisions better
  
• Making information actionable
  
• We bring information together
  
• We identify trends and provide insights
  
• Turning information into answers
  
• We create a competitive advantage

More thoughts on SLA name change

I think one of the underlying issues in the debate over SLA's proposed name change is whether or not affiliating with an association called "Special Libraries Association" helps or hinders our professional standing and, even more importantly, best ensures that we are -- and are seen as -- strategic players within our organization. Many people, like me, describe ourselves as librarians. However, for us to restrict the vision of our association to the members who have "librarian" as a job title is to preclude our association from reaching out and retaining members who are doing work that isn't within their organization's idea of "library" but which is in fact being responsible for thinking strategically about information and knowledge. 

To put it another way, I anticipate that soon we won't be able to describe ourselves as "Well, never mind my title, I'm actually a librarian". Our roles will have expanded to a point where they are no longer recognizable to people who associate the word "librarian" with people are really really good at finding information.

I think it's critical for our association to find words that better reflect all that we do. If nothing else, the existing name indicates we are an association of entities (Special Libraries) rather than an association of professionals, most of whom have an MLS or equivalent, and many of whom do not use the word "librarian" in their job description. For our association to continue to identify itself with entities rather than us professionals is to severely restrict what it can do for its members, many of whom are not, technically speaking, within a special library.

Thoughts on the SLA name change

As I read the comments about the proposed name change for the Special Libraries Association, I realize that the name implies something that many members may not want to hear. They don't want to be "strategic knowledge professionals" -- they want to be librarians, running their library, providing the best information services to clients. A name change like this forces them to think about having to really stretch themselves, or to be part of an association of people who don't focus primarily on "running a library."

Personally, I think that identifying ourselves as "librarians" is career-limiting. I sometimes call myself a librarian of fortune, but that's tongue-in-cheek. I know that I have to see myself as someone who looks strategically at my clients' information needs, who is able to provide added analysis to my research, and who is always staying on the leading edge of the information industry. I expect to drive my clients' expectations of what I can do; I'm not just responding to what they ask for. That's something that I believe we all have to do in order to successfully adapt to the new information environment.

I suspect that a lot of people are thinking, "I'm busy just keeping everything going - I don't have time to be strategic!"  If it turns out that most of our members simply aren't willing or interested in seeing themselves as strategic players, then we will know that one of the challenges we as an association will face will be to encourage members to get "the vision thing", as President GHW Bush used to say.

At the end of the day, I think that people's vote will be determined by how they see themselves and what their vision is of their role within their organization. I hope that people will look at themselves and their profession expansively, and will look at themselves as strategic assets within their organizations.

[additional thoughts in next blog post]

An Info Pro Manifesto

I recently gave a talk at the San Diego chapter of SLA, for their Fall Seminar. Great day - every speaker focused on adding value. I put the slide deck for my keynote, "Wanted: Information Revolutionaries - an info pro manifesto", at BatesInfo.com/manifesto.

R.I.P. Blue, 2000-2009

Making ourselves upwardly visible

I attended a meeting of the Rocky Mountain chapter of SLA last night, mainly so I could hear Gloria Zamora, SLA president, talk about the SLA Alignment Project. One of the pieces of advice Gloria offered was to get our deliverables in front of the CEO of our organization. And that got me thinking that what a lot of info pros deliver isn't fit for a CEO -- it's a lot of information but not a distillation or analysis.

Info pros can raise their profile by creating deliverable in a format the CEO would read. If we make it upwardly-forwardable, we make it possible for our brand to make it all the way to upper management and strategic decision-makers, regardless of who originally requested the information.

SLA's Alignment Project reality check

This posting on SLA's Alignment wiki is a nice summary of what SLA's Alignment Project is all about, and why it extends far beyond a possible name change.

I have been collecting some of the more thought-provoking ideas from the Alignment Project discussions. What strike me as the key take-aways are:

• We all need to articulate our value in language upper management can relate to, no matter where we work.  
• Our job is to talk with [upper management] about the solutions and support we offer and to align it with the organization's goals.
• We provide strategically important information, content and knowledge that make our organizations competitive and successful.
• If we do not stand up and state our value we cannot expect anyone else to do it for us.

Whew!