For the past 14 months I’ve been consumed with the concept of the value of the information and library profession. Today when I came across this post “5 Reasons the Corporate Workplace Needs Librarians” by Stephen Abram I gave it a read thinking I might get something useful from it.
What I got instead was point number five sticking in my mind as a contribution to the perpetual devaluation of the information profession. Points one through four of the post had me nodding my head in agreement and then I come to number five and I said out loud to the boys “What? How can one of the leaders of the profession be so short-sighted?”
So let me explain my dismay and dislike for Abram’s insistence that the reason a corporate workplace needs librarians is because we are cheap and dedicated and don’t require recognition.
Nobody goes into the information profession for the money. Instead we choose it because it allows us to practice our skills to help people find what they need. To do this well, we stay up-to-date with developments and are in touch with a network of peers.
We don’t require high status, fat bonuses or even thanks (much of the time) to stay motivated, which is just as well. Many corporate information professionals earn a fraction of the salaries earned by colleagues of similar experience. Frankly, we’re a bargain.”
While Abram’s points about the salary level of the information professional have some validity, the assertion that information professionals are a bargain deserves a bit of scrutiny in the bright light.
Information professionals in the corporate library, and in fact in any environment, deliver services that add value to the bottom line in a myriad of ways: risk mitigation, content delivery, information and knowledge management and more. This is no bargain. The fact that any thought leader in the information profession would perpetuate the perception of information professionals as cheap bargains should be asked to rethink their statement. The profession may suffer from a discrepancy in salary levels as compared to other professions, but I would argue we are not cheap.
Information professionals must get out of the “woe, is me” mentality and embrace the reality of you get what you demand and earn. When a project is done well, the information professional can easily say, “Thank you please let you colleagues know how I was able to assist you.” Instead, many prefer to say “Oh it was easy. Anytime”
I would argue that it we should never say “it was nothing”. We have advanced degrees. Our knowledge and experience, combined with that education, makes it easier for you than the requestor, as it should. And that my friends is the first level of high value you deliver.
All of the work we do to collect, maintain, organize and deliver information is what makes it easy for our corporations to do the business at hand better. If we, as professionals don’t understand and embrace that simple fact, how can our stakeholders?
We make the users of our services happy daily. Unfortunately, it is rarely our users that are the decision makers within the corporate halls. We are not a bargain. We are professionals who have undervalued our own contributions to the corporation and we must begin embracing our professionalism with our stakeholders and our end users. If we do not do this, we may indeed be perceived as bargains.
I would opt for perpetuating the view-point that information professionals are necessary in corporate libraries because we are a high quality investment that delivers excellent value across and throughout the organization.
Constance Ard
January 5, 2015
Thank-you Constance for this spot on counterpoint to Abram’s analysis. I agree wholeheartedly!
Constance: Sadly,one would think a librarian would know the difference between my post linking to a post on CILIP and confusing it as one that I wrote as my personal position before choosing to criticize me personally as the author of the post! Sadly, we can’t depend on librarians knowing the difference between a link and determining who is the author. If you choose to criticize the actual author’s position, I suggest that you follow the link (the web works this way!) and place your criticism to the actual author and on the original post. I link to a lot of articles, blog posts and research reports, etc on my blog (as many bloggers do) and this in no way implies that I agree wholeheartedly with everything I read or link to but usually means I think it is worthy of reading and discussion. You also might want to update your post to link to the original post and author and not ascribe authorship incorrectly to me. Just to be clear every single unflattering reference to my name in your post is dead wrong.
Stephen
Stephen,
You are correct, I should have noticed the “link” that you included on your repost of another author’s work on your blog. Unfortunately, I did not. Your post did not include a statement of your view and I mistook the content on your blog to be yours. My apologies for assigning a motive to you that was not yours. It would be wonderful to have your response to the actual statements made in both posts.
Truly sorry for the misunderstanding of the original posts’ author, but not the content of my statement.