The LONE STAR LIBRARIAN
Summer 1995 Issue
by Renee Daulong Information Resource Services, Inc.
In an eye-opening presentation, attended by nearly 40 Austin area librarians, the speaker described how students and practitioners of other related and possibly competit ive professions view the collection and distribution of information. The author of t his review offers her opinions and reactions to the controversial ideas. -- ed.
The Austin LPG sponsored an afternoon with Tom Davenport, co-author of Blow U p The Corporate Library. (with Larry Prusak). He writes the Management Agenda column for InformationWeek. Mr. Davenport is the Curtis Mathes Fellowship Professor and Director of the Information Management Pr ogram at the University of Texas, Austin. His Aug. 16th talk at SEMATECH focused on his Information Eco logy model, that is, how organizations use and distribute information. The primary focus was on the use of internal information, but the discussion addressed the role of the corporate librarian wi thin the model.
The Information Ecology model suggests that organizations need to assess what information they require and what information they already have. Companies generally have a grea t deal of information that is not used. To resolve this, organizations must change their corporate culture to encourage the use of information and they must begin to use existing information. Mr. Davenport believes that to be successful, organizatio ns need to reward employees based on their effective use of information, not on their past successes obtained through blind luck. Companies need to concentrate less on the technolog y of information, and more on the human needs. We must also realize that the internal information environment is affected by the organizational environment as well as the external environment; that is, information is part of a very complex system which cannot be easily modeled.
The model for the future provision of information, he suggests, will be what he called the Television Support Model -- an analogy of information seeking behavior to television viewing behavior. The features of this model are:
The means of conveying information will become less prominent as we no longer focus on baud rates, but concentrate more on adding value and presenting information in a user-friendly manner. So, how do librarians fit into this model? According to Mr. Davenport, librarians may or may not be a part of his model of information provision in the future. He asked his UT Business School students to rank the capabilities of information systems (IS) people, management accountants, marketing people, and librarians in the following categories:
Predictably, the students ranked marketing as the best positioned to become the information czars of the future. Librarians came in last. He suggested that the perception of librarians is that they like books more than people and are generally not technologically advanced. When members of the audience suggested that perhaps his students are not familiar with the capabilities and job functions of corporate librarians, Mr. Davenport dismissed the comments saying the old perception exists.
Many of us were angered by Mr. Davenport s comments and his seeming lack of willingness to hear what we do and how we do it. But, his comments were a loud wake up call to all of us. He was absolutely correct - the perception of librarians as gatekeepers to stacks of books is prevalent. The challenge for all of us is to destroy this 1930 s stereotype. Does the upper management in your company equate you with a room of books or do they see you as a valuable source of information?
Mr. Davenport did acknowledge that librarians must become boundary spanners, but he said that the trend in library education of renaming library degrees to reflect the technology orientation of many programs is not necessarily helping librarians get jobs. If the title of a degree is not self-explanatory, it will be difficult to explain what you do -- if you get a chance to explain.
Mr. Davenport is a popular speaker as well as a consultant and UT professor. He has the attention of managers and teaches the future business leaders. He has reminded us that we must actively and consciously work to change the perception of who we are and what we do. I hope that all of us accept this challenge.
Davenport, T.H. and Pruzak, L., Blow Up the Corporate Library, International Journal of Information Management 13 405-412 (1993).
SOUND OFF !! Comments on Davenport s presentation or any other topic are welcome as Letters to the Editor. Fax or e-mail to 512- 356-3083 Dell.Johnson@Sematech.org
by Erika Mittag
The 1994 (Fall) State-of-the-Art Institute on the National Information Infrastructure was a very stimulating experience. The cast of speakers included leaders in our profession as well as representatives of government agencies and the information industry. I came away with the feeling that there is much promise in the concept, that much work remains to be done and that librarians have a vital role to play in shaping the cyberspace terrain for usability and equal access. A copy of the proceedings is available from the SLA publications department or I am willing to loan my copy to interested Texas SLAer's.
February 15th was the Texas Library Association's State Legislative Day and I was part of delegations to several state senators and representatives. Funding of state and school libraries were important concerns in the new Education bill. A suggestion was also made to increase the salary offered to the new State Librarian on Bill Gouch s retirement. The legislators were sympathetic for the most part, but warned that the budget was extremely tight. Texas joined a number of other states this year in offering daily legislative updates on the Internet at its Gopher site: capitol.tlc.texas.gov.
In March, Internet action, spurred by Jamie Love of the Taxpayer Assets Project (TAP) and others, was responsible for deletion of the "West provision" from the Paperwork Reduction Act. This provision was seen by many as essentially turning over government information to private enterprise in such a way that even the government itself would have been forced to pay to get back its own information.
Also over the spring and summer, the two omnibus communications bills in the house and the senate ( HR 1555 and S 652) have received enormous press and lots of bitsand bytes on the 'Net. Both bills have passed their respective houses and await conference committee action when Congress returns from its summer recess. These large, complex bills include provisions relating to deregulation of the telecommunications, broadcast and cable industries, equitable access to the "infobahn," censorship and similar issues. To see the various versions of these bills telnet to thomas.loc.gov for the Library of Congress's Thomas system. To see a variety of viewpoints on the issues try http://cdinet.com/benton for views from the non-profit, public interest community.
I have been on a number of discussion lists tracking all of these issues and the volume of information has been overwhelming. The ALA Washington Office list has been very helpful. To subscribe send to: listserv@uicvm.uic.edu, "subscribe ala-wo your name" (without quotes). The TAP list has also been informative. To subscribe send to: listproc@essential.org, "subscribe tap-info your name" (also without quotes).
The remainder of the congressional session is sure to become more heated as and bytes on the 'Net. Both bills have passed their respective houses and await conference committee action when Congress returns from its summer recess. These large, complex bills include provisions relating to deregulation of the telecommunications, broadcast and cable industries, equitable access to the "infobahn," censorship and similar issues. To see the various versions of these bills telnet to thomas.loc.gov for the Library of Congress's Thomas system. To see a variety of viewpoints on the issues try http://cdinet.com/benton for views from the non-profit, public interest community.
I have been on a number of discussion lists tracking all of these issues and the volume of information has been overwhelming. The ALA Washington Office list has been very helpful. To subscribe send to: listserv@uicvm.uic.edu, "subscribe ala-wo your name" (without quotes). The TAP list has also been informative. To subscribe send to: listproc@essential.org, "subscribe tap-info your name" (also without quotes).
The remainder of the congressional session is sure to become more heated as we move into the election season. Please let me know if you have any questions relating to government information issues and also any ideas you may have about establishing a legislative action network. For those interested, I can pass on selected e-mail messages at your request. I can be contacted via Internet at ecmittag@mmm.com
by Renee Daulong, Chair
In early July, Gail Wilson asked me to chair the committee and focus on promoting the profession and our unique skills to the outside world. Marketing and public relations are a daily part of my life as the owner of a library and information services company, so I accepted. So far I have recruited two excellent committee members - Pam Hanners from SEMATECH in Austin and Tina Byrne from Knight Ridder / Dialog in Houston. I need a committee member in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area to help round up media contacts and let me know if librarians receive any local press coverage. Please email rdaulong@aol.com or phone (512) 320-8354 if you would like to volunteer!
Marilyn Redmond has arranged for the Texas Chapter to have a booth at SEMICON Southwest, October 24-25 in Austin. Our goal is to promote the profession and to remind attendees that information professionals add value, and save time and money. The booth will be staffed by SLA members from semiconductor and other high tech companies. SEMICON is a semiconductor industry trade show featuring semiconductor equipment, materials and services. Events include several conferences, workshops, and meetings, in addition to an exhibit hall featuring more than 750 exhibits. The show draws more than 8,000 attendees from around the world. Show admission is free if you register before Sept 18.
As Public Relations Chair I am also charged with increasing cooperation among library groups. My first attempt was successful - Micheal Harper, the Austin LPG Chair, and I sent fliers for the August meeting featuring Tom Davenport to the State Agency Libraries of Texas members and to the Austin Law Librarians Group. We got several attendees and one new SLA member! I plan to get announcements for the Fall meeting out to as many other library groups as possible. So, let me know if you have any ideas about how to promote librarianship or if you would like to volunteer!
By Micheal Harper Employment Committee Chair
In today's uncertain times many of us are continually on the lookout for a new job. Many people find that preparing their resume and getting their professional wardrobe together is the easy part of job hunting. Finding out about potential employment opportunities is often the most difficult task. Starting in this issue of the Lone Star Librarian and in the next three issues I will be discussing some of the places and resources available for hearing about your next job. In this issue I will discuss the SLA Texas Chapter's Employment Program. In future issues I will discuss what is available from SLA s National headquarters, some electronic means for gathering job information and other less "technical" ways of finding out about job openings.
The Texas Chapter Employment Committee serves as a clearinghouse for those seeking employment in the special libraries /information services field and employers seeking candidates for such positions within the geographical area of Texas Chapter. (Texas Chapter SLA Procedures Manual)
The procedures for using the service are:
What you get in return:
All jobs that are sent to participants are professional in nature. Some are part- time, some are contractual but all are professional.
It s hard to believe that summer is over, the kids are back in school, and football is upon us once again (with or without the Oilers in Texas!). How I long for the time when I actually wondered how I was going to spend those three months of leisure! Perhaps with many schools going on a year-round basis, business should consider a nine month school schedule and give the old folks a break!
The planning meeting held in July yielded a plethora of ideas for programming that hopefully will find their way into the schedules of the local planning groups, the chapter and the Southwest Regional Conference. A second session designed to generate ideas for promoting the Texas Chapter and our profession was equally successful as we charted the image and information we wished to project. As the keeper of the marker and flip chart it was often difficult to keep up with the rush of ideas! No shy, retiring librarians we!! Thanks to Pixey Mosley and Renee Daulong for facilitating these sessions.
A Very Big Thanks goes out to ALL of the board and committee chairs who obviously put a great deal of thought and preparation into planning for 95-96 year. Each of the chairs has been charged to prepare goals and steps to accomplish these goals as they relate to the strategic plan of the chapter. As members, I encourage you to have a say in the workings of the chapter - to offer constructive criticism and suggestions as well as support for jobs well done, and to volunteer to serve on a committee that is of interest to you. In addition to traditional chapter activities, we are actively involved in the planning for the first Southwest Regional Conference to be held during October of 1996 in Albuquerque, NM so there are plenty of opportunities for everyone. We are in a stimulating and indeed challenging era for information and our profession. Jobs are being created, expanded, and sadly eliminated as companies vie for competitive advantage. As a group we have a great deal of strength. Even if you work alone as many of us do, it is not necessary to feel like the Lone Ranger (even he had some help!....Lone Ranger indeed!).
We have a wonderful new directory thanks to the diligence of Leslie Campbell - use it to communicate and share concerns, successes and to brainstorm ideas with those in your area. Attend local and chapter meetings - I assure you that you will seldom leave without a bit of information or a new contact that will prove to be of value in the future.
I appreciate the opportunity I have been given to preside as president for this year and hope to make many new acquaintances at upcoming events.
There is an opening on the advisory council for an Affirmative Action Liaison . If anyone is interested in this position, please contact Gail Wilson at 713-756-241 6.
Mark your calendar for SLA's 1996 Winter Education Conference, Technology an d Tools in the Information Age," to be held January 28-30 at the Stouffer Tower City Plaza Hotel in Cleveland, OH. Additional information will be available in September. Tracy Lofty, SLA's Mgr Prof. Development, (202) 234-4700, ext. 649; tracy@sla.or g.
Please send items for Member News to Dell.Johnson@Sematech.org or fax 512-356-3083.
Meg Ketron faxes from Sweden. She and husband John are both working for Erics son Radio Systems. She manages the massive amounts of information they produce to support their mobil e phone products. Meg says she travels so often, including trips to the US, Canada, Europe and Austral ia, that John has put her photo up on the dining room table because he s tired of eating alone. J Meg a sks all her friends to send her e-mail at era.eramrke@memo.ericsson.se or fax her at +468 751-4722 in Sto ckholm.
The fall conference of the Texas Chapter will be held in Houston on October 27, 1995. The featured speakers will be Eugenie Prime from Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, CA and Dr. Larry Enoch from MCI Communications, Inc in Dallas. Eugenie has been the Manager of Corporate Libraries at Hewlett-Packard Company since 1987. Previously, she was concurrently Director of the Medical Library at Glendale Adventist Medical Center and President of CINAHL Corporation, publishers and producers of the Nursing and Allied Health Index and database. She has a Masters Degree in History, an M.S. from Drexel University in Library Science and an MBA from UCLA.
Her session for the morning The Promised Land - Is It Ours promises to be an exciting venture into the future of our profession. We will actively explore the promised land , what it is, and what proactive responses we can take to meet the challenge.
Dr. Enoch is the Manager of the networkMCI Library, Manager/owner of Enterprise Information Services and Adjunct Faculty at the School of Library and Information Sciences - University of North Texas.
Larry has been working with electronic information systems in libraries and corporations since 1986. He manages a state-of-the-art electronic library with physical locations in Dallas, Washington and Colorado Springs, serving more than 10,000 users in more than 100 different geographic locations.
His afternoon program will focus on the virtual library. How to build one - the underlying technology, What does it take?, Who can do it?, Future directions and a demonstration of the technology.
This is a must attend program for all of us who hope to not merely contend with the changes being thrust upon us but proactively seek to be the leaders in this era of change.
President Gail Wilson called the SLA Texas Chapter joint Board and Business meeting to order at 12:45 p.m. with Executive Board members Susan Yancey, Dell Johnson, Peggy Shaw, Connie Bihon and Rob Ruliffson in attendance. The minutes of the March 24th meeting were presented and Susan Yancey moved to accept the minutes as printed; this motion was seconded by Dell Johnson and approved. Then the Board s recommendation of Peggy Shaw as the Second Vice President Elect was approved.
Susan Yancey, First Vice-President, urged members to help with the programming for upcoming meetings. Doug Smith is program coordinator and the meeting schedule is: Fall--October--Houston; Spring-- Austin; Summer--Houston, Fall, 1996--New Mexico-- SWRC (Southwest Regional Conference).
Dell Johnson, Second Vice-President announced that advertising for the Chapter newsletter was being carried over to the forthcoming issues since there had been a lapse in publishing. Copy for the next issue is due in mid-August. She has asked for help with the lead articles from the Austin group for August, Dallas group for November, Houston for February and San Antonio for May. All copy needs to be submitted in electronic form.
Bob Ruliffson, Treasurer, presented the budget. Gail explained that there will be an expenditure of $1000 (billed in two $500 invoices) as seed money for the Southwest Regional Conference but the conference is expected to break even and the money will come back to the Chapter. In a discussion of LPG allotments, Bob explained that the Chapter receives $10 per member from SLA headquarters and $8 of that goes to local planning groups as their budget for the year. In answer to Una Gourlay s question about the small income from conferences, Gail pointed out that the object as a non-profit organization is to not make money; on the other hand, meetings are not in the budget because they are expected to pay for themselves. Gail also explained that student liaison travel pays for students to travel to meetings and covers hotel expenses. Lynn McBee suggested that the budget proportioning needs to be presented in some graphical form. The Chapter President agreed we need to look at the budget more in depth and determine priorities and a committee needs to be formed to handle this task.
Andrea Greer, Strategic Planning Chair, pointed out that the cost of conducting a membership survey would be about $5,000 and requested that the Long Range Planning expenditures be increased by an additional $3000. The budget was amended to include this extra $3000 and the $1000 seed money for SWRC. Margaret Carroll moved to adopt the amended budget and it was seconded by Andrea Greer. The amended budget was approved by vote of the Board and Advisory Council.
Marilyn Redmond, Past President, was not in attendance and there was no report. Committee Reports:
Trip Wykoff, Advertising/Vendor Liaison, announced that he plans to go after the maximum amount of advertising allowed per issue of the chapter newsletter and to target the smaller publishers.
Affirmative Action Liaison is currently an open position. Bylaws Chair had nothing to report. Chapter archivist was not in attendance but Gail reminded outgoing committee chairs and officers to send archived materials to Denise Hampton. There was no report from the Consultant Chair.
Micheal Harper, Employment Chair, reported on number of job seekers (42) and number of jobs since March (4--one each in Irving, Stafford, Dallas and Houston). She noted that she and Mel Boggins at U.T. worked together to get letters out to employers about the service. Micheal pointed out that the positions should be on the professional level and urged anyone who recommends her to an employer to follow up with a notice to her so she is alerted.
Una Gourlay, International Relations Chair, said that she attended the SLA International Relations Committee meetings and the SLA International Information Exchange Caucus and that a document on further internationalization of SLA has been presented to the Board. Una reported that these SLA groups are interested in having a database of all the various book collecting projects for disadvantaged areas and groups seeking specific materials. She pointed out that we can donate magazine subscriptions to disadvantaged areas through SLA. She said that there was feeling expressed during these meetings that SLA should network more with library associations in foreign countries; on the other hand, some people complain that the association doesn t do enough for current members.
Leslie Campbell, Membership Chair, noted
that 560 copies of the membership directory were
mailed; the approximate cost was $3.00 each.
Updates will appear in the newsletter.
Andrea Greer, Strategic Planning Chair,
reported that inquiries to consulting firms on a
Membership Survey resulted in an estimate of at least
$5000 and quotes were even as high as $10,000. She
asks that members please send her any membership
surveys that they might have for her to use as samples.
She also asked that all committee chairs and officers
look at the long range plan and let her know the
accomplishments in relation to the goals. Gail
reiterated this action is to be taken by the October
meeting. Blaise Turney will assist Andrea in
preparing a model survey for the Board in October.
Gail read some pertinent statements from
Denise Chochrek, SWRC Coordinator. A hotel
contract has been signed by the Rio Grande Chapter
who is handling local arrangements for the October
1996 meeting in Albuquerque, NM. Oklahoma
Chapter is handling vendors and letter are going out
this fall. Budget preparation and logo designs are in
progress by the Rocky Mountain Chapter. The
programming is the responsibility of the San Diego
and Texas Chapters and they scheduled a conference
call on August 2. Contact Denise if you want on the
distribution list as a volunteer.
Nancy Cash and Mike Zimmerman, SWRC
Program Co-Chairs, noted that they were meeting
Monday, July 24, to discuss all the ideas given during
the morning meeting on SWRC programming that
Gail and Pixey Mosley had conducted before lunch.
Leah reminded them to include exhibits as an integral
part of the program.
The only Student Liaison report was from
Ben Toon announcing that he will attend the UNT
kickoff meeting and also that internship locations are
needed in the DFW area for students.
Two Local Planning Group reports were
presented. Nancy Cash & Margaret Carroll talked
about the DFW group activities, Nancy Cash reported
on the February 2 meeting at the Federal Reserve
Bank in Dallas where Dr. Larry Enoch, manager with
MCI Communications, spoke about his experiences in
building the virtual library and on the April 25th
meeting which focused on non-traditional roles for
librarians.. Margaret said there was a summer party
and they are planning a Fall meeting at Frito-Lay
where Knight-Ridder will give a presentation.
Micheal Harper & Zoe May presented a
report on the Austin LPG activities. They have already
scheduled two meetings for the 95/96 season: August
16 - Tom Davenport, Director of IS Management at
U.T., will discuss corporate libraries moving from
warehouses to expertise centers ; January 10 - Susan
Ardis, Head U.T. Engineering Library, will present a
short class on intellectual property. Other plans
include The Future of Libraries and a Christmas
party.
Gail announced that Mindy Klein will
be recipient of the Texas Star award to be presented in
Houston at the October meeting. Nominees are
solicited for next year, but the award does not have to
be given out every year.
LPG name change was discussed; finally, Dell
Johnson made a motion to take suggestions via the
newsletter for a name change to replace LPG
following the city name. Elizabeth Halliday-Reynolds
seconded the motion and it was approved.
On the matter of selling the membership
directory, Barb Denton made a motion NOT to sell the
directory but to exchange with other SLA chapters on
a one each basis. That motion was seconded by
Connie Bihon and it was also approved.
Gail closed the meeting with
announcements: Fall meeting in Houston on October
27 with a Board meeting the night before. The
meeting will be open to other groups and press
releases will be sent to them for their newsletters.
Spring meeting in Austin. Newsletter deadlines are
August 15 and then November 15.
The joint Board/Business meeting was
adjourned at 3:15 p.m.
Suggestions Requested
1995 Montreal annual conference attendance set 2 association records:
total r
egistration 6505
(previous record 6348 at 1989 New York City conference) and 435 exhibit
booths,
up from 421 in
1993 Cincinnati.
Professional papers have been published in The Power of Information:
Transforming the World, $25 to members.
The Value of Corporate Libraries by Matarazzo and Prusak, surveying 103
corporat
e libraries
and available to members for $5, describes evaluation tools, valued
competencies
, desired future
services, and trends impacting libraries value to their companies. Call
202-23
4-4700 ext. 643.
SLA s Distance Learning Program Issues Concerning Electronic Copyright
will be
broadcast
in Dallas on 9-21-95.
Texas Chapter
PO Box 200563
Austin, TX 78720
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