KM for Librarians: View from the Executive Suite

Dave Pollard knows his stuff. The slides will be posted on the Knowledge Management Division's section of the SLA website. Caveat: please review the handouts/materials as what I have written are in no way complete and represent interesting thoughts that I want to consider/explore later.

In this session, Mr. Pollard was the only speaker. He was a good speaker, but was in the unfortunate position of being right after lunch. His slides tracked his speech pretty well.

Leaders are concerned about mitigating risk, reducing costs, strengthening key customer relationships, and increasing the value of people. Leaders of companies want to know how librarians and knowledge workers can help with these concerns.

In many cases, relationships are more important than knowledge. People will choose, even vendors, based on the quality of relationships with representatives rather than facts.

Mr. Pollard said that people don't know as much about resources as they should. Many of them will acknowledge that they can search, but cannot research. After some training (by information professionals?) they begin to understand what it takes to do research and that knowledge makes people appreciate information professionals more. It also makes them willing to turn questions over to the library staff.

One idea to pass on to senior management is to suggest e-mail groups by subject matter or knowledge in a certain area. Knowledge can cross practice areas and these kinds of groups can alleviate messages to all staff and get more targeted results.

People want to know who owns KM and what the librarian role is?

• there is no agreement on what KM is, does and who owns it or if it is needed.
• Type D (disintermediation) view: it's everyone's job. If people can't do it, get rid of them.
• Important information is in people's heads (institutional memory)
• Type R (reintermediation) view: business units own the content
• If KM is about learning, HR owns it.
• If KM is about infrastructure (technology), then IT owns it. They have the budget as well.

There is a perception that librrians have 2 roles: research and cataloging /responsibility for metadata. Librarians have to specialize or they will be outsourced. By specializing they become subject matter specialists, but there is a fine line. Libarians should not specialize so much that they get disconnected from the vision and business of the company.

Where does KM fit in? What is the mission of KM?
-Extranets are usually not used by customers. They are used primarily used by competitors, recruits, alumni. Customers want information delivered their way not a way that is convenient to their vendor.
-New technology (MySpace) is intriguing. Should orgs use it?

Some interesting technologies Mr. Pollard mentioned are:

• DodgeBall - mobile social software.
• FreeMind - mind mapping sofware.

Help executives assess the cost of not knowing. After a crisis the relevant departments that provide information usually experience a funding increase, more responsibility, because the cost of not knowing something has inccreased. As time goes on, people forget and the cost of not knowing goes down, e.g. what is the cost of not knowing about your company's SARS infection?

SLA 2007: Podcasting

The most fun I had at the conference, though all of it was great, was learning to podcast. It was interactive; we actually did make a podcast! It was great to do something hands-on.

Audacity and WavePad are used to record the audio. They are free downloads.

Switchpod will host podcasts for free, up to a certain limit, then you can buy more space for a fee.

It was the last session of the day and the conference, taught by Thomas Dopko, who did a great job. Tom was funny, patient and entertaining. You can see the slides at http://www.factiva.com/fitch/microsite_02/Podcasting.html. They will be available for the next six months.

If only someone would pay me to do all these fun Web 2.0 things!

SLA 2007: Tuesday Session in Brief

Dream Jobs of the Future
The panel was staffed by 3 people from recruiters and one academic from Edinburgh, Scotland. I thought there were some great tips, but I don't think the session lived up to its promise.

In order to move forward, up or out, think about why you got into librarianship and catalog your skills. See where those skills can be applied elsewhere. Definitions of jobs are important rather than titles. You may not know what the jobs are, but if you know your skills, you can see where you fit in. Embedded librarians and digital asset managers are hot right now.

Taxonomists, ontologists may want higher ed degrees as employers want people who understand the structure of language (linguists).

Many jr positions, especially in the financial sector are being outsourced to India. This means that there is no training ground for senior people.

Skills to have for the future:
-management
-budgeting
-supervising people (NO fear!)
-flexibility
-contract negotiations
-no fear/experience in talking to management in their terms
-project management combined with another expertise (like healthcare)

Things to consider:
-usability testing jobs
-getting MS Certification (or similar computer skills certification)
-experience/certification in new media management

Networking is how to get jobs:
-speak at conferences
-meet people at conferences
-be a member of LinkedIn

If possible, take a sabbatical to rejuvenate your career: find a short term job and take a leave of absence to do it. Military is always looking for librarians at bases for 1-2 years. LC often has project oriented contract jobs.

SLA 2007: Synergy Session - Monday

The Synergy Session was comprised of innovative thinkers: Stephen Abrams, Sirsi/Dynix, Clifford Lynch of CNI, Eugenie Prime, retired from H-P and currently working with NIH on their board. Tom Hogan, one of the founders of Info Today was the moderator.

Tom Hogan used a quote from Yogi Berra: 'you can learn a lot by watching.' Tom also suggested a publication by Stephen Abrams that was recently published by SLA, Out Front.

The format of the session was that Tom would ask a question and address it to one of the panelists. After the panelist answered, then the others would chime in. I will note the question and put the name in parentheses of the person to whom the question was addressed. My notes of the answers are noted under the question.

Bottom line: Core competancies are: curiousity, creativity, conviction, courage, ability to accept change.
Bottom line: Try new things and iterate when they don't work.

1. How can we persuade business leaders to invest in an information professional? (Eugenie)
-We have to be convinced that we are worth the investment. We can't accomplish anything if we don't believe in what we are doing.
-deliver results.
-no fantastic powerpoints, no statistics. Tell real life stories that made a difference when you talk with leaders, e.g. how you helped land the client, how you helped win the case.
-no magic bullet. Tell customers the effort it took to get the answer to their desk. Never say "oh, it was nothing." Abolish the culture of victimization. Tell people that it isn't a competitive advantage to only use Google, then give examples.

I would add that all information professionals should make the firm/company leaders their customers. Start with alerts.

2. How can librarians help organizations manage/use information that sprouts up all the time? (Cliff)
-quantity of information available is vast; Information professionals have experience dealing with information management. Do what you do best, then talk about it.
-Non specialists rely on Google for their information. Make the people who come to you look good. Give them quality, targeted information.

3. Librarians rely on the OPAC to feed information to users, but it is not working for customers. How can librarians give Google experience to customers (Stephen).
-don't dumb down OPAC, but don't work on improving OPAC. OPACs meet librarian needs. OPACs show users our brilliance without telling them why what they are looking at is brilliant. All information users need a portal type experience. The portal can sit on top of OPAC.
-librarians make the questions better (reference interview), which helps to give the user better answers. Librarians/humans need to be added back into Google.
-the advantage of Google is speed: one click anytime. There is no ILL, no library hours.

Google is good at who, what, where.
Librarians are good at how and why.

4. How do we deal with different learning styles/techniques of those under 25/35? (Eugenie)
-need common goal/vision and to embrace strengths
-learn from each other
-Have more respect for different learning styles. Create reward structures. Learning styles have changed.

5. What innovations/technology has had the greatest impact in past 5 years? What are the core competencies for the future? (Cliff)
-competancies: adaptability and paying attention broadly.
-what we are seeing right now is the cumulative effects of a lot of new tech: Putting them all together and seeing the group of technologies coming together.
-use whatever is necessary to get the job done: curiousity, creativity, conviction, courage, ability to accept change.
-social skills transferred to technology.

6. What do we need to do to be most sought after information guides? (Eugenie)
-no magic bullet, just be the best know what they need and give users the means
-end users are present in a different way.

7. Can the Web 2.0 group of technology make a difference in a corporate environment? Where does the library fit in? (Cliff)
-Web 2.0 is a collection of technology, not one thing
-great need for people to work together
-collaboration is key. Group approaches to opportunities/problems which will build on collaborative tech tools. Collaboration will make corporate environments successful.

8. Effect of not addressing profession as a business? (Eugenie)
-Librarians are being impacted by outsourcing, Google, etc. The only way to combat these challenges is to always operate according to business principles.
-Stop whining. Everything is being outsourced; just deal with it.

9. How do we figure out what users really need (Stephen)
-iterate. Everything will fail the first time. Stop evaluating the first try. Iterate your ideas and let the ideas group up.
-watch users without them knowing it. Use anthropoligic techniques. Don't filter through the librarian filter.

10. What tools will SLA provide to help members to demostrate value to top management?
-SLA should provide some resources. One single person cannot do it alone.
-Speak to business leader where they are.
-Route special edition of SLA Outlook geared towards business leaders.
-Learning lab within SLA
-CIO, CTO are positions that say that info is important.
-One value of profession is that we are used to working together.

SLA 2007: Strategic Budgeting: educating your management, own your own numbers

Linda Will and LaJean Humphries jumped off from Linda Will's article in Legal Information Alert from a few years ago to create a comprehensive and detailed session on budgeting in law firm libraries.

Handouts, including a budget worksheet are on the Legal Division website. See link below.

Basically: document everything, educate management

Law firm libraries are basically fourth after office space, insurance, associate salaries in cost to a law firm. It is important to understand where libraries fall in the grand scheme of profits per partner.

Ken Svengalis has already done a lot of the work for you in his Legal Information Buyer's Guide from Rhode Island Press. He has information about costs of basic resources by practice areas.

Tracking
Marketing library services creates a natural rise in the number of requests. When you note what new resources will be needed also say how you will offset costs. Management tools such as West Research Partner and OneLog give you the information you need to make decisions about content. Not only do these systems allow you to bill clients, but they allow you to more accurately see what files are being searched. This gives you leverage in cancelling materials.

Your ILS should be able to print out usage reports. Include information in your ILS about why resource/book/item was purchased, who requested it and what the cost was. This is institutional memory.

LMA - help you know what the costs for materials are. They prevent surprises. These are evolving.

Firms and vendors have analysts crunching numbers behind the scenes. Realize that vendors have budgets and quotas as well.

Feit/Nuzzo - may contact partners/ management and offer to save them money. Linda's inside counsel decided that it would break NDA to work with them on LexisNexis/Westlaw contracts, but gave them other tasks like UPS accounts where they saved significant amounts.

Outsourcing - most firms aren't going to outsource their research, because they like their librarians, they appreciate the librarians knowing what they want and how they like it presented. It is an issue we need to be aware of, however.

Competitive Intelligence

If firm isn't doing it, the librarians need to work with marketing to do it, because it will enable firm to be more competitive in getting new clients.

Slice out costs for C.I. and point them out in budget.

Get someone to tell you (Marketing, Accounting??) when library research helped win a client.

Vendor Reps

Job is evolving.

Provides one point of contact. This is good, because rep understands librarian's personality, firm personality and culture. Some companies are allowing one rep to service an entire firm regardless of location, which provides even better customer service.

Linda would like them to do more 'consulting' with regard to budgeting in terms of warning us about new products, services so that we can budget for them in advance.

LaJean Humphries

She thinks of strategic budgeting as a cohesive, long term plan. In the dictionary, however strategic has many meanings associated with war. Budeting in a law firm is kind of like a war.

Strategy vs. Tactics
-long term vs. short term
-big picture vs. local
-forest vs. details - trees

You won't win every battle. It may take 2-3 budget cycles to get something accepted, so connect your activities to your firm's goals.

Practical Tips for Creating your Budget
-provide a summary
-state your assumptions, e.g. firm is expecting to hire 10 new attorneys in new year; online services contract will cost 15% more in new year. Make sure your boss knows what is getting you to the numbers that are in your budget.
-create a line item for things that don't exist. This will allow you to answer 'yes' when your boss asks you if the new thing you want is in your budget.
-auto date/time stamp all versions of your budget. If the CFO frequently asks for revisions near the deadline, you will know you are handing in the most recent.
-keep track of your own expenditures.

Management Tools
-Cost Recovery Manager (or similar) - this is a tool that allows librarian to see what resources people are using so that you can accurately design contracts that work for your firm
--improves bill back
--provides usage reports
--improves contract management

-Develop your toolkit
--cheatsheets (e.g. how to do a ratio, how to figure out a percentage)
--calculator

Library Staff
-Improve continuing education opportunities - CE is a srategic necessity, because the profession is changing so quickly.
--regional and local
--at least 1/hour per day

-Professional dues
--save cost in reduced price of conferences

-Fight for salaries
--participate in salary surveys
--share survey information with CFO

Other
Advantages of electronic information
-Time: everyone gets the information at the same time
-Space: requires no shelf space
-Cost: equivalent to adequate print copies (adequate means enough copies to get information to people at the appropriate time)
-Currency: more current than mailed print copies

You need to know:
-firm's business
-know trends
-know costs
-know contracts - couch the changes in terms that CFOs can understand (e.g. if there is an increase in a contract, fiure out the per attorney cost, such as "this is an increase of $1/attorney, which is less than a 1% increase)
-know users

Create a spreadsheet of 50-100 titles. Choose the titles that are most heavily used and/or most expensive from each practice area. You consider using the most expensive, beause they make a big impact.

Vendors won't always say if there is another installation for the same product in your firm, so try to get all electronic resource purchases to go through the library manager. This allows you to budget adequately and negotiate discounts on multiple purchases.

clipped from www.slalegal.org Strategic Budgeting: Educate Your Management and Own Your Numbers Linda Will, Dorsey & Whitney Presentation LaJean Humphries, Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt Presentation Worksheets How can you work to minimize yearly budget cuts? How can you get new money for resources your users need? By proactively educating your management, one day at a time! Hear how two law firm librarians practice the art of strategic budgeting and ensure the success of their firms. There will be plenty of time for audience discussion and problem-solving.

Blogging SLA Conference 2007

We will be blogging some sessions of the SLA conference. Watch here for updates.