de Stricker

Librarians are keepers, right?

The Globe and Mail's 10 February 2007 Focus Section features an Ian Brown piece entitled "The urge to purge" dealing with the challenges of all the "stuff" we accumulate - especially books.  From personal collections his article's focus moves on to library holdings, and he comments how among North American public libraries, there is a trend to get rid of whatever hasn't been used in a certain amount of time. Professor Dilevko of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information Studies is quoted: "When only the most popular books are found on library shelves, the intellectual choices available to patrons shrink and become standardized."  Unfortunately, funding models and space constraints can and do lead to popularity-driven weeding policies that effectively push out great, time-honored authors in favor of current commercial sucesses.

The article does not mention the ongoing legal wrangles over a certain large scale book digitization initiative, but I imagine my fellow librarian readers joined me in pondering the benefits of efforts to preserve electronic access, for all time, for everyone, to all our published heritage - and in wondering why the controversy can't be resoved to everyone's satisfaction.  But that's another story altogether!

By the way: Did you know Toronto's public library system is the "biggest circulating library in North America"?  Hm!!

The cost of thinking "everyone knows"!

"I'll see you for coffee at 3 in Timmie's!"  Now, Canada sports among its coffee house chains "Tim Horton's" and "Timothy's World Coffee"  ...   so you already guessed I waited in the one, she in the other.  We could afford to laugh about how easily small ambiguities lead to tangible consequences (for librarians, no less!). 

In corporate settings, this very phenomenon of "assumed information" is no cause for laughter. It presents considerable risk and waste of time:

- Filings after February last year were coded in a different way so we split the database rather than recode ... everybody knows.  Except the latest-to-arrive team member who for a time could assume there isn't anything before March last year!

- Everyone knows "the way we distinguish between emails and memos" because of the records management system implications. Ah, no, the summer intern can't - if there is not an easily found, clearly defined document setting out the criteria and the treatment rules.

- Two departments have historically had different vocabularies for some similar activities they track.  Over time, staff compensate for such differences by memory ... but as time goes on, it becomes clear we miss relevant documents in each department because of the differences in terminology.

You could add your own myriad examples how "assumed knowledge" is not "universal knowledge" - and how as a consequence investigation is needed and time gets wasted tracking down "why the items from the subcommittee were not included in the list" [because A thought B knew to retrieve them from C database as they were not included in D database owing to the current IT activities].

It is an information professional's contribution to any organization that he or she discovers, and remedies, such "assumed knowledge" risks.  Signage, links, lists, intranet design, database structures, taxonomies, and other coding schemes ... whatever it takes, we information professionals are ready to protect against the corporate cost of "oh, you didn't know  ..." ?

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Worthwhile reminders

Recently I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Ken Haycock of the San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science (slisweb@sjsu.edu) speak on the topic of leadership.  He is an amazing communicator whose subtle humor delivers some zingy truths, including some I found relevant for librarians and other professionals who work in environments requiring political finesse:

- Don't confuse consultation and collaboration (seeking input does not imply future adherence to the input)

- Don't confuse congeniality and collegiality (we can have differences yet still work together to achieve the team's goals)

- With all the attention to ROI, don't forget ROTI (return on time invested)

- and, for all who prepare business cases:  "The budget is the plan."  What is in the budget is what senior management supports ... period.  We need not take it personally if our proposals are not approved ... we just need them to match the overall strategic goals.

Many thanks Dr. Haycock!