Professional associations stand up for librarians

Library and information professionals have to wage a war on two fronts. The scepticism of the Google generation about the value of libraries puts them under mounting pressure to justify their budgets, while at the same time they need to evaluate a tidal wave of new electronic information and information tools.

Librarians have been looking to specialist professional groups for support in this transition. In turn, the associations have been responding faster than ever to the shift to specialisation. They have offered new products and services and in some cases partnered with bigger professional groups such as CILIP.

Today’s librarian needs to take on a number of roles, both specialising and hybridising. Librarians increasingly share specialisms with their market. For example, the work of legal librarians overlaps with that of professional support lawyers.

Sheila Corrall, professor of librarianship and information management at the University of Sheffield, explained the trend: “People argued that information professionals and IT professionals would merge, and people experimented with bringing services together. Now, hybrid professionals combine not only strong information and IT skills but also another area of work. There is creation of specialist roles at every level, often with dedicated professional bodies.

“We have seen quite a lot of downsizing, outsourcing and offshoring of specialised information services. At the same time, other professionals are moving into roles that have a strong information-related component.

“Professionals work at a higher level and need to network more. This creates a need for continuous upskilling and more specialisation. Librarians are expected to have cross-functional skills to enable them to negotiate and communicate with other professionals.”

Specialist professional bodies have created training courses and education programmes targeted at these new specialists, who have not always followed the traditional librarian training route. Heath information professionals, for example, might include not only library and IT professionals but also doctors, nurses and therapists. The roles of content specialists and context specialist are overlapping.

Society of archivists
As data sets became very large, so more librarians needed data management skills to use sophisticated IT and visualisation facilities. The emphasis on data reuse and open access to data underlying scientific research has bred a new kind of data management professional.

John Chambers, executive director at the Society of Archivists, said the society was reaching out to other professional associations to provide training. The society is running joint training events with CILIP, starting in April with a course on digital copyright. “If that is successful we will be doing more joint stuff with them,” he said. “Along with the Digital Preservation Coalition and the National Archives, we are running six digital preservation training events this year. We have done ad hoc courses before, but now training in partnership is more planned.”

Chambers said that legislation was creating a need for professional development among people coming into the profession for the first time: “When the Freedom of Information Act came in, there were jobs created and people were having information management, data protection and freedom of information thrust on them.”

UKeiG
At the same time as helping librarians keep up to date with technologies for information access, some professional associations have adopted Web 2.0 technologies themselves to work with members.

The UK eInformation Group (UKeiG) supports its members with everything to do with locating, assessing and managing electronic information in the workplace.

Karen Blakeman, UKeiG honorary secretary, said: “Web 2.0 is just one area we cover, but we make extensive use of it in communicating with members: RSS feeds, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, discussion lists, Flickr, NetVibes. This year we’re doing a conference on innovation in e-information.”

UKeiG has also set up an informal intranets forum. It’s free to members and events are hosted by members. “It gives those involved with intranets an opportunity to share and discuss experiences,” said Blakeman. “Several members have expressed an interest in setting up similar networks on other topics and geographically based networks.”

UKeiG attracts members from many professions, not just librarians. “It is difficult to say how the job role of our membership has changed because we do not have a typical member profile,” said Blakeman. UKeiG members work in information centres, IT, libraries, publishing, marketing, web design, consultancy and R&D in all sectors.

“The technology we use will always change and so will our job roles,” added Blakeman. “We do see, though, members moving into other areas within organisations and changing their job function. A lot of this is down to the transferable skills they have gained by working with e-information.”

AIIP
Web 2.0 has let professionals communicate and work together virtually and this is beginning to break down national borders as well as job roles.

The Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) is a group of information entrepreneurs, mostly self-employed individuals. Most AIIP members are from North America, but this is changing, said its president, Marcy Phelps: “What we have in common is that we are all business owners, and we do our information work on behalf of our clients, rather than an employer.”

AIIP has embraced many new tools such as webinars, podcasts and social networks to reach members. In 2008 it launched a series of free webinars covering topics relevant to changing roles. Members who cannot attend a live event can download the webinar from the AIIP website.

Phelps said the shared experiences and needs of members working as small businesses transcended borders: “Many members say our private email discussion list alone is worth the price of membership. It’s a valuable forum to discuss industry sources and trends, strategise on research methods, share technology and business tips, and get encouragement and helpful feedback.”

AIIP members receive special pricing arrangements and discounted services from information providers, including Dialog, Factiva, LexisNexis and Questel Orbit, which otherwise might be cost-prohibitive for small businesses.

Aslib
As far as Roger Bowes, managing director at Aslib, is concerned, although the development of the skills and status of the information professional and information librarian continues to be the raison d’être of associations including Aslib, there is one pressing issue for librarians just now. “Increasingly we have a critical role supporting the information professional in protecting the wider community’s long established intellectual property rights,” he said.

Bowes said that the role of the librarian was always vulnerable to the challenges of the technology revolution and global cost accounting: “Twenty years ago we called for more hybridisation – an additional string to one’s bow – but I do recall being pilloried by the library head of an American university for suggesting that they might like to think about training in order to be able to widen their role within an organisation.

“Information professionals experienced the full force of the cost accounting drive as we went through the 90s, as they had to prove the value of their department’s contribution to the bottom line. More or less everywhere information professionals lost their defined community, the information department, and have been subsumed into another department – legal, financial, production or even administration – or they lost their job.”

Bowes’ main worry is that it is all leading to the death of the librarian: “If one had hybridised, so much the better, but the overwhelming problem for the information professional and the organisation itself was that dispersion often meant that information management as one of the pillars of professional competence within an organisation disappeared along with the budget heading.”

CiG
Nowhere has the impact of the recent economic downturn been felt more keenly than in the City. Suzanne Wheatley, who took over as chair of specialist professional association City Information Group (CIG) at the start of this year, said: “Despite the initial panic, along with the rest of financial sector, information roles have been greatly affected in some companies and not in others. There doesn’t seem to have been a uniform cutting of jobs.”

She added that there was evidence some information professionals were being approached directly as employers start to look at who is available as a result of the changes: “This brings us back to the importance of knowing your value in your company and the market, and being able to communicate that and build your own networks.

“It is vitally important to us to give our members the seminars and events that will help them develop professionally and personally. For example, there is a loud cry for practical job hunting skills, how to complete applications and CVs, identifying and demonstrating skills, interview technique, presentations; it is all about self-development, how to make the best of yourself and your skills.”

CIG too has turned to Web 2.0. “We have revamped our website,” said Wheatley. “We now have an exclusive members area and by having an online community space we hope to encourage discussion on our forum on topics of the day and also after events.”

She sees a role for librarians as Web 2.0 evangelists: “It is great to see some information professionals assimilating and making new use of technologies such as wikis and Twitter to better capture, obtain and share information within their organisations and also with the outside world. However, resistance is often met at management level and also at a cultural level some organisations and companies are slow to adopt new technology and find it difficult to relate to non-fee earning activities. It’s up to us to show that the technology is not only easy to use and engages with employees at all levels but is also essential to effective and successful business.”

There is no doubt that specialist professional associations have blown the dust off their image and are making themselves invaluable to library and information professionals looking to specialise to survive in an increasingly challenging landscape.

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