RSS feedsIf anyone understands the way that large US organisations work, it must be Rachel Kolsky. Not only does she work for a major US insurance company, she also heads up the European branch of the Special Libraries Association.
In both roles, Kolsky has to liaise closely with colleagues in the US. It is clear that this kind of transatlantic collaboration comes naturally to her. Kolsky is manager of information resources at the London office of global financial services firm AIG .
She is familiar with the world of financial services, although previous jobs have taken her to different parts of the market. Her first job in the City was at SG Warburg, followed by 10 years with the J Rothschild group, where she was library manager.
New York-based AIG employs 97,000 staff. Kolsky and her colleagues in the
information resources team form part of the corporate research and development
department, which provides AIG staff around the world with an essential business
information service.
AIG’s core business is insurance. As Kolsky points out, many people think of insurance as somewhat dull, but the sheer range of AIG’s business means that Kolsky and her team deal with ever-changing requests for information. “The topics are always different,” says Kolsky. “Anything that exists can be insured. We get asked about everything.”
Recent queries handled by Kolsky’s team range from how many UK window cleaners have broken a leg, to the mortality statistics for horses in the UK according to breed. On a more corporate level, another recent query probed the universe of US quoted companies, split by market sector and market capitalisation, in order to compare class actions.
These queries demonstrate the breadth of information needed by the R&D
team, which services the whole of AIG and provides the information that people
require to make business decisions. The department has three key divisions: the
desk researchers who are the bedrock of the R&D services; a team of
analysts, who
collate and present information in reports; and a primary market research team,
which carries out interviews and surveys in a wide range of areas.
In addition, R&D includes a legal information centre, AIG’s global contracts team and a dedicated IT team. “The systems are the other key part of what we do,” says Kolsky. “R&D maintains the internal systems of AIG, including the client management system and the market information system, as well as the links to external databases, such as Dun & Bradstreet . So what we do is not just about the data, but also about maintaining those systems.”
As a department, R&D is well integrated into the company, says Kolsky.
Part of the success of that integration lies in ensuring that the desk research
team does not become too specialist. “We pride ourselves that the desk research
teams are
generalists,” she says. Kolsky’s own European team – five staff in the London
office and one in Paris – exemplify this approach.
“Of course, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and we use those to benefit the team, but we like to think that anyone can turn their hand to anything,” says Kolsky.
She is also proud of the stability of her team. Kolsky herself has been with
AIG for almost 10 years and most of her staff have similar long track records.
“It is not bad going,” she says. “It is a very stable team, which definitely
benefits our internal
clients, and it is partly because the work is very interesting. There are a
few regular searches but on the whole there is very little repetitive work.”
As Kolsky ruefully acknowledges, being an information professional in an insurance firm sounds like a dire combination to those ignorant of what is actually involved. “These are two industries with a poor image,” she says. “But both are fascinating.”
One of the challenges of running the R&D European team for AIG is the increasing complexity of enquiries from internal clients.
Kolsky attributes this to the general availability of desktop search tools,
which means more straightforward information can now be sourced directly by
users, who turn to the R&D team for more complex data. “We are constantly
having to look at
industries we have never looked at before,” she says.
Another challenge is the pace of change within AIG itself and its global spread. The company has grown fast in the past decade. It operates in 130 countries and prides itself on taking on the ethos of each of those local countries. For the R&D team, this means dealing with a great many different ways of doing things.
“As well as getting to grips with being part of a large US corporate, we then have to deal with all these different country cultures,” says Kolsky. “That applies particularly to our team, because we service the whole of Europe and the Near East, as well as Africa, Australia and New Zealand.” In addition, Kolsky’s job managing the European team demands constant liaison with her colleagues in the New York office.
Kolsky believes she and her team have retained their stability as the
company has grown and changed. They have recently integrated a new member into
the European desk research team – not necessarily an easy matter, when an
existing team has worked together for a long time – and coped with management
changes. Kolsky reports to the manager of the European R&D division, who in
turn reports to the manager of the global R&D division.
AIG also has an interesting approach to providing its users with information tools. “We don’t roll out desktop products as such,” says Kolsky. “We view R &D as a personal service. Some things do go onto people’s desktops, but they are carefully targeted. It is a different sort of approach. So if someone says they are interested in one thing, I might ask them whether they know we also have something else. It is my job to demonstrate those capabilities and to convince people of what they need. If I don’t convince them, so be it. We don’t impose anything.”
The ability to provide information and the appropriate information systems to
internal clients across AIG requires constant liaison with the IT team, which is
based in New Hampshire, but does not require indepth technical IT knowledge. “I
don’t need to be a technical person, because we have got an excellent team of
programmers who respond to our users’ needs,” she says. “But as information
professionals, we are used to interrogating databases and know how things
interlock. We do need to know about complexity and about databases and
it is all about the interaction between what we do and the programmers,
whose role it is to program. We regularly send over ideas to the team.
Sometimes they fly immediately; sometimes we have to wait a bit.
Obviously, we have to work within the constraints of our resources, but if it is a change in functionality, there is no extra cost. The programming team is there, to make use of, and it is up to us to prioritise needs.”
Kolsky’s other responsibilities include looking after AIG’s document management system and the online catalogue on the company intranet.
GLOBAL PROFESSIONAL
It is a professional life that would keep anyone busy, but Kolsky is also a
keen supporter of membership organisations for information professionals and
joined the US based
Special Libraries Association when she first joined AIG. Kolsky’s
then manager suggested she join the SLA and it makes sense to Kolsky to
be in a US-based body rather than a UK organisation such as Cilip.
“We are a US company and I am in constant daily contact with my
opposite number in New York, so the fact that the SLA is a US organisation
made sense,” she says. Having joined the European chapter of the SLA,
Kolsky then found that the SLA structure – it has industry divisions as well as
regional chapters – provided her with an invaluable support network.
“In one swoop, I found I was part of a network of information professionals
in Europe and also within the insurance industry, so it was a wonderful
networking
opportunity,” she says.
The European chapter of the SLA has now rebranded as SLA Europe and being
part of the organisation has given Kolsky valuable insight into both industry
and information professional issues. “I felt very much at home in the
organisation from the start and was asked to join the board of SLA Europe,” she
says. “Most people on the board are at a managerial level, so we tend to work in
similar ways, even if we work for very different organisations. There’s very
much a feeling of let’s make
things happen, such as the rebranding as SLA Europe.”
Until recently, when she became president of SLA Europe, Kolsky’s job was
looking after membership, a task she relished. “We have worked closely with SLA
HQ in making the organisation more visible in Europe,” she says. “Most
information
professionals are already a member of their national organisation and it isn’t
about competing with that, it’s about how we can persuade them to join both
organisations. We offer differentthings. We have the global reach, which these
days is so important for any information professional and particularly so for
those who may be running solo.”
This may run counter to the concept of the SLA as a large organisation with
appeal to those within corporates, but Kolsky points out that many information
professionals work in much smaller organisations, often on their own in terms of
providing information services. “The benefits are that they can find other
information professionals in a similar industry and they can find people out
there
dealing with similar issues,” she says.
Kolsky points out that the membership of SLA Europe has increased every year
for the past five years. Continuing to raise the profile of SLA Europe is a
major focus for her, as president, and for the rest of the board. This includes
achieving a
higher profile for SLA Europe within the organisation as a whole – it is very
pleased that two SLA Europe board members now sit on the main SLA board.
Other activities include a stand at the Online Information exhibition and running a series of events. “Some of the feedback has been that our events have been somewhat UKcentric,” acknowledges Kolsky. That issue is now being addressed with support for events outside the UK, such as a recent breakfast meeting in Prague.
Finding the time to participate fully in a voluntary organisation, in
addition to doing a demanding job, is always a challenge. “Everyone on the board
gives a lot of their time,” says Kolsky. There are monthly board meetings and a
lot of other activities,
including a newsletter and a website to run. But Kolsky says people are happy to
give up their own time to support SLA Europe. “You just juggle,” she says, “and
we are all very supportive of each other, but it is fair to say that there is a
lot to cover and we are also constantly trying to push out the boundaries.”
Recently, for
instance, the organisation launched a new initiative to make itself better
known to information professional students.
SLA Europe is not the only organisation with which Kolsky is involved. In
what remains of her spare time, she is a Blue Badge Guide, leading walking tours
round
the City of London and other parts of the capital. “It is very demanding and you
are only as good as your last tour, but London is my passion,” she says.
SLA Europe
The US-based Special Libraries Association (www.sla.org) does not see itself competing for information professionals with country-based organisations such as the UK’s Cilip, but as an additional membership organisation with a global reach.
Founded in 1909, the SLA now has several thousand members in more than 80 countries worldwide. It slots members into both regional chapters and industry-specific divisions. There are 25 such divisions, ranging from military librarians (289 members) to business and finance (3,115 members). SLA Europe (www.sla-europe.org) has existed for 25 years. It runs regular events, a discussion list, website and regular newsletter, and also offers mentoring services. Read 10 reasons to join SLA Europe at: www.sla-europe.org/membership/top10_reasons.pdf
All
del.icio.us
Digg this
reddit!
