Lessons for Corporate Libraries--and Others

“When the Internet as a popular research tool began affecting the lives of librarians and information professionals and their clients, accountability for contributing to the mission (i.e., bottom line) of one’s parent organization—whether a for-profit or not-for-profit—became the most critical driver behind the survival of corporate libraries.”

Thus begins a great article by special library gurus Toby Pearlstein (retired from Bain & Co., Inc., Boston, Massachusetts) and James Matarazzo (retired Dean, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College, Boston). They outline the ways corporate librarians can—and, in fact, must—make their value known to the decision-makers in their organizations.

What happens to an organization when the library is closed? The authors answer this with the case study of the “Caveat Publishing Co.” The librarian had not seen the signs of a change in the wind and it was too late to make a case for keeping the library open. Senior management had hired consultants to make cost-cutting recommendations. “Since they were never asked for any data from the library manager,” the decisions didn’t take into account how or if the library was used. They conclude that if the decision to close the library is made by top management, “resistance is futile.” The head librarian had 4 months to train the staff to meet their information needs with the resources on their desktops. However, ‘is it reasonable to expect that they [the writers] can do the job of a researcher as well?” (I see a double meaning for “as well:” in addition to their own jobs and as well as the librarian did.) The answer is unknown, but probably not. “In similar publishing environments where the library has been cut, one writer noted that he never heard anyone say it was a good thing….”

Pearlstein and Matarazzo conclude, “Perhaps there was a disconnect between the library and the divisional heads or their bosses at Caveat that made it easier or at least less controversial for them to drastically reduce library services.” The moral? Know what’s going on in your organization, make sure top management knows the value your library brings to the organization’s bottom line, and act proactively. As networking guru Harvey McKay says (in the title of one of his books, which you should read, by the way)—Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty—because if you wait until the axe falls, it’s too late.

Read, understand, internalize, and implement the message in this article—before it’s too late for you!

Citation:
Pearlstein, Toby and James Matarazzo, Survival Lessons for Librarians: Corporate Libraries—A Soft Analysis and a Warning, Searcher 17(6):12-17,52, June 2009, available for US$2.95 at http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jun09/index.shtml

How to Succeed by Blogging

Tania P. Bardyn [UCLA, Los Angeles, California] has a very good article in the June 2009 issue of Computers in Libraries—Library Blogs: What’s Most Important for Success Within the Enterprise? (pp. 12-16) She asks if library management should support blogs in the enterprise and answers yes—if adequate software and creative librarians are present.

Five factors influence the implementation and eventual success of library blogs:

1. Develop clear strategies, objectives and plans.

2. Understand the value proposition of a blog. (reducing cost of producing marketing materials, reduction of email spam, more efficient communication, increase in site traffic, for example).

3. Incorporate multiple initiatives in the enterprise.

4. Engage library management in continual improvement of the blog.

5. Invest in IT in the library (by installing appropriate and sufficient technology).

The article and its suggestions are worth a read.

GREAT POST ABOUT WHAT LIBRARY BRANCHES COULD/SHOULD BE

Jenni Fry, my wonderful editor at ALA Editions, posted comments and photos of bank branch (ING) in Chicago (Illinois, USA) that would be a great model for a branch library—or even for a small library in a corporate setting. It is bright (orange), has coffee and healthy snacks, well-trained staff, free meeting space, free wifi, ten terminals, free newspapers and financial magazines, branded merchandise, and a buy four-coffees-get-one-free promotion to encourage return customers. And they don’t even require you to be a customer to use the facilities. What a super idea! Thanks, Jenni, for calling our attention to it!

URL: http://blog.alaeditions.org/2007/08/23/104/

SHOULD YOUR COMPANY BLOG?

“The Blogging Success Study was conducted by Dr. Walter Carl; the students in his Advanced Organizational Communications class (Spring 2006) at Northeastern University and John Cass and his colleagues at Backbone Media, Inc. The objective of this research was to determine the reasons, conditions and factors that make a blog successful, and to create a list of criteria to help companies assess whether and how they should engage in blogging.”

The students interviewed 20 corporate bloggers who had been blogging for over one year and who “considered their blogging efforts successful.” The bloggers were asked three questions:
1. How does the set up of a blog contribute to a blog’s success?
2. What is it about how you blog that makes the blog a success?
3. What is it about the content on a blog that makes the blog a success?

“After careful review, the research team identified five factors for success:” the ability to convey the corporate culture; transparency or openness, to establish credibility and trust; devotion of sufficient time; ability and willingness to dialogue; and entertaining writing style and personalization in order to bring humor and a human side to the blog.

Bloggers interviewed were from Adobe, Adweek, author and speaker Aliza Sherman Risdahl, BzzAgent (marketing and media), Conference Calls Unlimited, foodie blog Daily Eats, Emerson Process Management (automation and process control), Gourmet Station (chef-cooked meals), Indium Corporation (manufacturing), Landfair Furniture, Marqui (web content management), Masi Bicycles, Microsoft, Mississippi Hospital Association, MSInteractive (online research), Paperback Bazaar, PR and blogging professional Jeremy Pepper, coffee roaster Stone Creek Coffee, Stonyfield Farm (natural dairy products), and SuccessFactors (employee performance management software).

Among other things, the study found that “compelling content comes from unique experiences, industry content provides great relevancy for audiences, sometimes the most random content generates the most interest, [and] put search engine optimization marketing at the center of your blogging content strategy.”

Finally, when deciding if your company should blog, the study concludes, “Blogging is complex, and each company approaches blogging differently. If one measurement of success is reaching an audience, it is, therefore, important to choose a content strategy that is relevant to your audience. If you do not conduct a dialogue with your audience, but instead try to sell your audience something, your blog will probably not produce the traffic or links you seek. Without results, a company will either change its strategy in order to become an effective blogger or give up blogging entirely. The decision to blog, then, should be based upon an understanding of what resources are available and the commitment that is needed to maintain a successful blog.”

URLs:
Executive Summary: http://www.scoutblogging.com/success_study/
blogging_success_study/study_executive_summary.html
Download entire study (free registration required):
http://www.scoutblogging.com/success_study/download.html

DATA ON (U.S.) CORPORATE LIBRARIES

(from a press release from Primary Research Group)

Here are some tidbits from Corporate Library Benchmarks (New York: Primary Research Group, 2007, ISBN 1-57440-084-3.

Online and other electronic information accounts for more than 65 percent of the materials budgets of corporate libraries, and more than 80 percent of the library content expenditures of companies with greater than US$5 billion in annual sales.

The median number of patron visitors to the physical location of the library was only 13.5.

The ratio of librarians to other service personnel was almost two to one.

Only one library in the sample outsourced research functions to researchers or librarians based in developing countries such as India, Russia or China.

Overall, more libraries lost FTE [full-time equivalent] positions over the past two years than gained FTE positions. More than 30 percent of the libraries in the sample lost full time equivalent positions over the past three years, while 11.63 percent gained positions.

In 2006, the libraries in the sample estimated that their budgets had increased a mean of 7.38 percent, and a median of 5 percent.

Close to 40 percent of the libraries in the sample believed that the library accounted for 80 percent or more of company spending on electronic information typically associated with the library, such as spending on journals, databases, newsletters, e-books and directories.

62.16 percent of the libraries in the sample keep a written log of the reference questions received from library patrons.

Competitor profiling was of dramatic importance to the librarians in the sample. It was a primary theme more in more than 15 percent of research assignments for about 53 percent of organizations in the sample, and it was a primary theme in more than 30 percent of assignments for more than 29 percent of survey participants. Competitor profiling was particularly important in heavy industry and finance.

The librarians in the sample spent a mean of 3.47 hours per week reading blogs or [electronic lists].

The librarians in the sample traveled more than 35 miles away on library business a mean of 5.52 times in the past year, and a median of three times.

In 2005, the libraries in the sample maintained a mean of 6.00 workstations primarily for librarian use, with companies in the information services or informatics sector maintaining the greatest number of workstations for librarians. This figure rose slightly to 6.1 in 2006.

More than 71 percent of the libraries that use subscription agents pay their agents in one lump sum, while 28.6 percent paid them in increments throughout the year. Incremental pay was somewhat more common among the smaller organizations, as it was among companies in industry and information services/informatics.

The study presents a broad range of data, broken out by size of parent organization, type of industry, and also between organizations that have decreased the physical size of their library in recent years vs. those that have maintained or increased it. The report includes data on salaries, budgets, spending for books, directories, magazines and newspapers, journals, online databases, CD-ROM and other information vehicles. The benchmarking report is based on data from 48 major corporate and other business libraries of organizations with mean revenues of approximately US$3.6 billion.

The 130-page report has more than 250 tables and charts. The cost of the report is US$189 and can be ordered at http://www.primaryresearch.com./publications-
Information-Science.html. It is available in either PDF or print format.