Last night I awoke in the middle of the night (technically morning) and was astounded that one of the thoughts that drifted through my semi-conscious mind was related to the shift in library roles and functions and what the future of library staffing really is destined to be.
The management, organization and teaching of information is what librarians do in a nutshell, no matter their affiliation. Special librarians in corporate environments are faced with bringing corporate knowledge into the mix of information in order to maximize resources and allow for good decision making without reinventing the wheel.
The technologies available to provide enterprise search work but most of them need a lot of tweaking. The tweaking has to keep in mind, regulatory requirements, user security roles and user experience levels to name a few.
Will the responsibility of helping tweak these federated solutions fall to IT, HR or the Library? How will librarians guarantee a seat at the table? Librarians are well equipped to understand the nuances of user roles and capabilities. Keeping organization structure and goals in mind is a sure-fire way to allow information professionals a major role in these continued developments. Just as a few years ago, law firm librarians were able to establish themselves as the leaders in KM efforts as the importance of knowledge use evolves, librarians can and possibly should be the leaders.
My advise, prepare your arguments, assert your knowledge and claim your seat.
