Quantum² Resources : Marketing & Management Tools : Transformational Librarianship: Creating Value and Delivering It

Transformational Librarianship: Creating Value and Delivering It

by Jane Dysart and Rebecca Jones

Most of us don't know what to think when a professional discussion turns to the topic of "transformational librarianship." What does "transform" imply? For many years, we've viewed library operations in a formulaic way: Current and appropriate collections of materials. Immediate responses to reference requests. Facility in using electronic sources like CD ROM and online.

Our traditional activities, although valuable, do not prove the value of information services to management. Why? Because they're transactional. They are things that are easily automated, in the same way that many transactions handled by bank tellers were moved to cash machines. Being transactional does not make us indispensable to the organization.

To transform the way we're perceived by others, we're going to need a new lens to look through: one that's transformational, not transactional.

Client focus for adding value
First, we must transform the way our products and services are viewed in the organization so that people understand the ways in which our actions contribute to the actual business of the firm. If we can do this, the library will be perceived as indispensable. To do this, we must have an impact on our organization's clients, and be able to demonstrate how we contributed. Can you instantly enumerate the ways in which the library can directly impact the company's bottom line? Here are some ideas.

Transform client contact into opportunity
Start with people. It is critical that you become knowledgeable about your organization and cement relationships with key individuals and groups. Study the stragetic plan. Talk to those with influence. Identify the main strategies for the future, and then align your services with key areas. Position yourself as an information strategist. Seek roles on project teams where you can prove the value of an information strategist by contributing critical information to the project.

Manage your clients
Do you know their needs? Are you basing this year's assumptions on last year's survey results? Or are you anticipating what their upcoming needs may be because you are fully aware of their areas of concern? Invest in contact management software to organize and analyze the information you gather.

How to know what's of value
To add value you must know what your organization considers valuable. Organizations tend to value things that give them a step up on the competition or that increase the speed with which they can take action. They will "value" services and/or products that assist them in these efforts.

What is of value to the library's key clients? To senior management? To the organization's board? Here's a hint: people tend to indicate how highly they value something by the price they are willing to pay for it. How can you deliver value-based services?

Transform current awareness into tracking and triggering
Usually when we talk about value, we end up discussing what contributes to competitive advantage.

Using what you know about the organization's goals and what it values, transform the way in which you locate and present "current awareness" services. Get away from generalizing and begin tracking sources that will trigger actions on the part of your clients—whether offensive or defensive.

Transform reference and research into discovery and analysis
Research and reference services help clients become more knowledgeable about an issue or topic so that they can make better decisions. All too frequently, however, this sort of information is one-dimensional. Almost all the sources are in the public domain, and therefore accessible to everyone—including the competition. Information is only strategic if the competition doesn't have it.

The information created within your organization—in reports, memos, and minds—is not available to your competitors. Combine published external information with the intellectual capital and internal information generated by the organization itself to create a competitive gold mine for your clients.

Stress to management that this sort of valuable internal information might as well not even exist if it is relegated to file drawers. Demonstrate how you can leverage this information capital by contributing your expertise to the management of the organization's information. Afterall, most of this "capital" is in the form of text or audio-visuals, which we've been managing very capably for generations.

Familiar skills, new territory
We've been doing this sort of thing at a more basic level all along. How often have you saved your company time and money by linking up two departments that were unknowingly working on the same issues—which you noticed because you received parallel research requests? With a deep understanding of the organization's activities, goals, and information needs, you can take these sorts of synergies to the next level.

Remember: Information discovery and analysis services providing the highest quality answers or information profiles come from transformational librarians—information strategists who think and act unconventionally. Because they look through a different lens, they can see what's valuable and deliver it, and cement their future in the organization.