Librarian of Fortune

The bookless library - quelle horreur

I have been reading a number of articles lately on the decision by Bexar County (Texas) to open a public library with only digital editions of their content. They will have lots of e-readers that patrons can borrow, along with laptops and tablets in the library.

My take on the articles: Keep in mind that Bexar County, Texas, doesn't have a county library system. This is an effort to provide library services to residents in unincorporated areas. That is A Good Thing.

On the other hand, it appears that the library will not be staffed by professional librarians, which is an alarming move. And the cost for library versions of digital books is often significantly higher than for the print edition; the Douglas County (Colorado) library system tracks the disparity in pricing of the top 25 e-book best sellers between print and e-books, as well as the premium that libraries pay for library versions of e-books. And we're not talking chump change here... Libraries pay $24.99 for an e-copy of The Time Keeper, whereas consumers can buy the same digital book for $9.50. And A Wanted Man? $84 for a library edition, and 12.99 for consumers.The other limitation of digital libraries, of course, is that not everything is available in digital format, including a number of bestsellers. And I just can't imagine reading Pat the Bunny to a child on an e-reader... 

(And I must mention the Aloha Community Library, a volunteer storefront library in a suburb of Portland, Oregon, as another way that a community without a public library can create one. Full disclosure: my sister Amy Grant is one of the board members. A very small library can still have books.)

That said, if a county has $1 million to spend on library services, and it wants to address the digital divide, this is one step. Today, children are spending their afternoons in McDonald's because they don't have highspeed Internet access at home. Offering them a place where there are lots of computers and lots of resources can't be a bad thing. Were the location staffed with information professionals, who could assist patrons in research as well as direct them to the more in-depth resources available at the San Antonio City Library, I would feel a lot happier about the initiative.

More on the imposter syndrome

An evergreen topic for my coaching clients is the Imposter Syndrome - the fear that people will discover that you're a total fraud, that you don't know anything, and that you have no particular skills or expertise. (I blogged about  it here, and it's on my web site at batesinfo.com/imposter)

Sound familiar? I talked about it on my latest coaching conference call (want info on my coaching? Ping me) and got two thoughtful responses that tied into this nicely.

Connie Clem's comment was that one of the things that exacerbates the imposter syndrome in many of us is our lack of appreciation for our innate talents and gifts. If something comes naturally to us, we assume that it must be easy for everyone, and why brag about that? If you tend to undervalue your talents, think about how you would describe a dear friend who happens to be just like you. Would you denigrate her amazing ability to make sense from chaos, or the way she gets along so well with people, or her amazing work ethic?

And I was pointed to a recent blog post by Seth Godin, on "pricing power":

If you’re not getting paid what you’re worth, there are only two possible reasons:
1. People don’t know what you’re worth, or
2. You’re not (currently) worth as much as you believe
The first situation can’t happen unless you permit it to. If you’re undervalued, then you have a communication problem, one that you can solve by telling accurate stories that resonate.

If you've got the imposter syndrome, you are probably in the first category rather than the second. For us to be able to convincingly tell people about our value, we have to believe that we do in fact add value to information (or whatever else you do).

And a final thought that I had during the conference call was that slipping into this fear is a way for us to limit ourselves. By telling ourselves "Oh, I'm not all that great; I don't have any special skills", we are setting ourselves up for failure.

What do you do when you start hearing those imposter-syndrome thoughts in your head?

Skills vs. added value

I often notice with newly independent info pros, and I think this applies across our profession, that they identify themselves by their skills instead of their value. This is really self-limiting; by talking about the activities we do rather than why we do them, we downplay our value.

So, for example, how would I describe myself as an info pro? Here's how:

Q: So, Mary Ellen, what do you do?
A: I get to play with information all day! I help my clients make better strategic decisions. How? By bringing them intelligence about the external world into our organization.
--OR--
A: I help local entrepreneurs build their businesses through my public library's outreach program to small businesses.
--OR--
A: I make sure that the senior executives in my agency are kept updated on new technologies that affect our constituents.

Over the last year, I've taken on new clients in areas I hadn't imagined I'd be in. They all found me because I talk about the insights I bring to my clients. That's something any potential client understands and applies to his/her own situation.

 

Is an MLS still relevant?

I recently asked "Is an MLS Still Relevant?" in my ONLINE column. (Online, v. 34, n. 2 [March-April 2010], p.64) An MLS student recently emailed me some questions about that article. I'm curious as to what other thoughts you might have.

First is the quote from my article. Next is a question. Following that is my answer.

At a recent online conference, the head of a large corporate library told me that, as she reviews resumes for info pro positions, she counts an M.L.S. degree as a point against an applicant…

 This seems counter-intuitive. What was this library head’s reasoning for this stance?

Obviously, I can't speak for this person. I suspect that it was because many people with MLS degrees leave school with little experience working in special libraries, are not familiar with the need to market the library, don’t have much experience in the professional online services, and don’t have their heads around the idea of providing analysis to research.

This isn’t to say that current MLS grads don't have those skills, of course. Simply a statement that, for her, experiencing doing these things were more important than being taught the skills.

 

The better-paying jobs for M.L.S. graduates are those that require initiative, an innovative approach, and practical research and information management skills.

Would you please give me some examples of these better-paying jobs?

Corporate libraries often need info pros who are willing to take the initiative to create internal wikis, or to develop a new marketing strategies, or to develop webinars, or to provide analytical skills on top of research. Part of the skill set required in these jobs is the ability to identify an employer’s most pressing strategic needs are, and to figure out how your skills can address those needs. For example, are special libraries concerned about moving into social media? Then they’re looking for info pros who understand how to build a brand in the Web 2.0 space.

I wrote a newsletter issue on informational interviews, which may give you some ideas on how to learn what special librarians’ needs are.

 

“Unfortunately, many LIS programs are still graduating students who have no meaningful experience in using the professional online services, searching beyond the open web, or providing added value to their research.”

 What are some examples of commonly desired value added services for research?

The ability to work with the library client to learn what the information will be used for, and to then build a deliverable that enables the client to make a decision. Data visualization skills – to turn a statistical table into a more compelling chart or graph, to understand how to make numbers more understandable. Data-mining skills – to understand how to learn information about information. I also recommend running a simple search on the concept of added value in libraries for lots of other perspectives on this topic.

 

The ‘clients’ of the LIS programs' graduates want people who have a practical set of professional skills, a familiarity with new media and new technology, an appreciation for the need to tangibly demonstrate their value to their employer, and the basic skills in using the premium online services.

 What practical set of professional skills are these employers looking for?

In addition to what I described above, initiative to gather, analyze and summarize information; ability to market yourself and your library; familiarity with how to search social media and to use it for branding; skills in creating podcasts, webinars, charts and graphs, blogs, wikis, effective presentations, among other skills.

 

What are the main premium online services that MLS graduates seeking jobs with these employers should be skilled in?

Any two of Dialog, Factiva and LexisNexis. Or one of the three and a deep understanding of one of the library-oriented services such as EBSCOhost. You need -- in at least a couple of different "languages" -- to understand how to conduct effective searches in a minimal amount of time. That means thinking on your feet, understanding how to get the most out of each service, how to produce output that you can then incorporate into a report, and so on. It also means being able to do that kind of dance in a variety of online search systems and services. Ability to search the web is assumed; what employers care about is skill in using resources beyond the web.

 

What other thoughts do you have on what skills an MLS graduate needs?

SCIP re-brands

The board of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals has just changed the organization's name to Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals.

Given the drama last year about the proposed name change from Special Libraries Association to Association of Strategic Knowledge Professionals, it's interesting to see how similar organization handled their rebranding.

 

Say what???

When I give workshops for librarians about the reference interview, I always talk about the "bum cite". You know... the book The One-Minute Manager gets requested as The Sixty-Second Supervisor - that sort of thing. Sounds right but is completely wrong.

I just found the perfect example, and it's with my own book. The second edition of my book, Building & Running a Successful Research Business, was just cited in a syllabus as "Establishing and operating a successful information consultancy".

Awesome mangling of the title! Entirely same idea, all the wrong words. Reference librarians, beware!

Plus ça change...

In 2003, I was asked to give a short talk at the Information Online 2003 conference in Sydney on the role of information professionals in the online environment. I predicted the day when we saw the distinction between librarY and librarIAN, when info pros permeated the workplace, when we were seen as an essential component of every information management function within organizations and institutions.

I re-discovered it when migrating to a new laptop and realized that almost all of what I said then applies just as much today. It's here, on my Extras page. What do you think? Besides the Microsoft Watch, which is now a smartphone, I think it's still applicable today.

I love my job

Reason # 5,882,401 for why I love my job: working with clients who get as geeked out about whatever they're working on as I do. Moisturizers, bathroom plumbing fixtures, pens - our obsession of the month gives us one more thing to bore people to tears with. It's a gift...

Are you a supermarket or a personal chef?

In my ongoing obsession with the need to add value to information services, I just wrote a newsletter item on the difference between "merely" doing great research (a great supermarket) and providing the client with distilled, actionable intelligence (a personal chef).

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.