Military Librarians Workshop, 18-20 Nov 97, Dayton Marriott Hotel, Dayton, Ohio

It is a great pleasure to speak here at the Military Librarians Workshop (MLW). As a member of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) since the early 1970s, I have always learned from working with special librarians, and I did work in special libraries, primarily science and technology libraries, for many years.

Today I want to talk with you about trends I see emerging through a look at our changing roles, to relate these trends to the SLA competencies, and then to discuss briefly some challenges for us in shaping the future of our field. My discussion of trends and our changing roles is based on the Srygley Lecture I presented at the 50th Anniversary of the School of Information Studies at Florida State University. The paper I presented there is posted on the School's webpage.

Trends: Our Changing Roles

The roles of librarians and other information professionals are changing in many ways, in part due to increased economic pressures on libraries, to a growing understanding of the value of libraries in our networked, global society, and to very rapid changes in information technology. These changing roles can be described in many ways, and I have chosen to describe them under ten, somewhat arbitrary and, of course, overlapping categories. These categories are: 1) managers, 2) resource procurers, 3) creators/producers, 4) preservers of culture, 5) organizers of information, 6) researchers/retrievers, 7) educators, 8) students, 9) experts/advisors, and 10) advocates.

1. Managers

The context in which we manage has changed significantly over the past few decades as the demography of our country has evolved into a much more culturally and ethnically diverse society, with a greater number of seniors. We are living in a rapidly shrinking global village which enriches our lives and leads to a better understanding of other cultures. This evolution also places demands on our collections and services as we expand to include materials in other languages from other countries and provide services to meet more diverse needs.

Within this context, as managers we are managing our greatest resource: people, increasingly a more diverse workforce. Styles of management have changed as organizations and their work have evolved. Teamwork, matrix management, and fewer middle managers have resulted in greater emphasis on communication across divisions (and often across organizations and national boundaries) and on teamwork. Librarians are working more closely with archivists, records managers, marketing experts, engineers and other technical staff, and many others as members of development and planning teams. Negotiations skills have become more important for teamwork and for the numerous services contracted out. As libraries join consortia and the role of the consortium for purchasing, licensing, and other cooperative ventures expands, these negotiation skills take on even more importance.

In part due to increased economic pressures, accountability has become of even greater significance. How well are we doing compared to other departments or similar organizations? How do we determine objectives and measure the outcomes of our work? How well are we meeting the needs of our users (often referred to as customers)? Are we central to the mission of our organization and how do we best demonstrate that we are? These and other questions of accountability demand responsible answers from us.

We must manage not only a growing and changing information technology, but also ensure that staff are trained to embrace the technology, all while balancing print and electronic collections and services. Decisions about what technologies to purchase or lease; whether to provide service centrally or decentrally, within the organization or contracted out; when to introduce technologies; and how to ensure that organizational priorities are clear before deciding how to use technology to meet those priorities are enormously complex and time-consuming. Careful planning, good teamwork, effective communication, patience, and a sense of humor are all needed to balance the demands and make the best possible decisions.

As managers, we are often called upon to be leaders, and the two do not always go together; not every manager is a good leader and vice versa. We must assume more responsibility as leaders, putting forward a clear vision, communicating that vision effectively, and working to implement what should become a shared vision. Of course effective communication is central to good management, even though it becomes more difficult as responsibilities and pressures are added on to an already overloaded day. Taking on the expanded role of a good manager is essential to our success, whether we are managing a small department and one staff member or a larger agency or organization.

2. Resource Procurers

Originally, I had thought to call this category, "Fundraisers," but I decided that was too narrow, because the resources needed go far beyond just dollars. Every agency, organization or corporation needs sufficient resources (budget, people, technology, and other support) to fulfill its mission and meet changing demands. As we work to grow our budgets--whether through increased appropriations, additional hard money funding, grants, or contributions, we must raise not only funds, but also "friends." This longer term cultivation of supporters takes a great deal of time and demands communication and negotiation skills of the highest order.

Recruiting and keeping the best and brightest for our organizations is a huge challenge because of the enormous demand for information professionals. If any organization is fortunate enough to get the staff needed, providing ongoing training and keeping the people from getting stolen away by higher paying jobs that offer sweeter benefits packages and signing bonuses is a great challenge.

Universities are fortunate in being able to attract donations of equipment and software. This is not always possible for corporations or government agencies, but there may be alternatives through partnerships. Procuring technology and software needed becomes increasingly important, and many libraries are joining or expanding consortia to increase their leverage and reduce costs.

All of this resource procurement work must be done within the context of rising expectations. As soon as equipment and software are acquired there is a demand for a newer, better version of software, faster hardware with more peripherals. One highly trained staff member raises expectations that all staff will be as expert. The addition of one new electronic databases increases demand for many. Rising expectations are good if they result in increased support, but this is not always the case.

3. Creators/Producers

We have traditionally referred to users and nonusers of libraries, but over the years (and, due in part to the growth of access to the Internet and the World Wide Web), the people who use libraries, especially those with access to the Internet, can now do much more. They have always been able to create, manage, disseminate and preserve information, but information technology has made all of this much easier. From senior scholars to elementary school students, individuals can explore information space, discover, learn and interact with a wide range of resources in minutes. They can create new multimedia resources for use in teaching, in the workplace, or for pleasure.

This ability raises issues of how to evaluate information on the web and how to protect the integrity of information. Also, how do we balance the rights and responsibilities of intellectual property holders with those of users? Librarians, themselves, are creating more information, from electronic newsletters, to electronic pathfinders, to information resources of all types. This role both places demands on and creates opportunities for librarians.

4. Preservers of Culture

Another growing role for librarians is as preservers of culture, one that librarians have filled for thousands of years. While we must continue to protect print resources from the "slow fires" that are destroying them, we must also protect against the "fast fires" destroying electronic information. The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has released an informative film "Into the Future" in two versions (one-hour, and one-half hour) on this very serious problem. It is too easy to hit the "delete" key and eliminate early versions or texts or important records, and finding ways to preserve information in electronic form is critical to maintaining our cultural record. Our colleagues in the archives and records management field are working on guidelines to ensure that we protect the important records of the actions of our society considered to be of enduring value.

Preserving multimedia information on the web is a serious challenge. Just as one "never steps in the same river twice," the web is never the same twice. What was on a website last week (or even this morning) may not be there this afternoon. Cooperation among creators, archivists, records managers, historians, museum curators, government officials, and many others will be needed to preserve our culture for future generations.

5. Organizers of Information

The role of organizers is one that dates back to the beginning of librarianship and to related specializations of encyclopedists, indexers, and early documentalists. Building on all this expertise, librarians are developing enhanced knowledge and techniques to organize electronic information, working with metadata projects across types of organizations and national borders. This expanded role helps enhance the understanding of the value of librarians to society.

It also brings to mind changes in the responsibilities of professionals and paraprofessionals and the resulting flattening of organizations, including librarians. Much work formerly done by professional catalogers and classifiers is either being contracted out or being done by paraprofessionals. We need to continue to re-examine and redefine these responsibilities and roles.

6. Researchers/Retrievers

Helping people to explore information space, identify what is relevant, evaluate it, and provide this in a form needed are even more challenging than ever. Originally librarians worked to sift through available information, select what was appropriate for the community served, organize it within the collection and make it available within the library, "Just in Case" it was needed. As we learned, much of the collection was never used. Over time, in part through the use of technology and shared cataloguing, digital resources, etc., libraries have been able to provide "Just in Time" services. With the growth of the number of people who grew up with videogames, interactive media, and multimedia, expectations for information services customized for individual users will increase. We are making strides far beyond "one size fits all" interfaces, and much remains to be done to deliver true "Just for You" services.

7. Educators

Educators are not only those who work in places called schools or universities. All librarians are educators as they teach others about information services. With the high demand for more information professionals, we all need to help attract the best and brightest into our field. Speaking at high schools and college career events about our profession, and talking with paraprofessionals about opportunities, as well as working with our alma maters to provide support for students can all help in bringing high quality future colleagues into our field.

8. Students

As well as educators, we are also all students. This field is moving so rapidly that we must all be lifelong learners. Participating in workshops like this and other continuing education programs is important to help keep up with our field as well as to help us see the bigger picture. Little more need be said.

9. Experts/advisors

As our roles continue to grow and expand, we are called upon for expertise and advice, both within and outside our agencies or organizations. Increasingly, a growing number of people are recognizing the value of librarians. I am optimistic that this will enhance the value, both real and perceived, of our profession, and result both in greater demand for librarians and in greater rewards.

10. Advocates

Librarians have long been advocates for their libraries, their organizations, the profession, and many policy issues, such as intellectual freedom. With greater accountability, demands more economic pressures, and increased demand for limited resources, librarians will need to be even stronger advocates. Learning how to communicate clearly and forcefully becomes even more critical.

Examining these ten roles is simply one way to look at our evolving profession. Each person may see these roles differently, but, however you describe librarians, it is important to examine how our responsibilities are evolving and will change in the future.

SLA Competencies

Another way to examine our roles is through competencies, and one excellent set has been developed by SLA. Descriptions of the competencies are available in full on SLA's website. They have divided these into professionals and personal competencies. Appendix 1 lists these competencies.

Comparing the Roles and Competencies

In comparing the ten roles to the competencies, nearly all the competencies relate to one or more of the roles. Appendix 2 shows the competencies linked to the roles. None of the competencies refers to the important role of Preservers of Culture, and I believe that this should be incorporated when SLA revises its Competencies. I also think that the Competencies should explicitly include the ability to work effectively in an increasingly multicultural society and, even more importantly, the competence to lead in helping to build a diverse workplace and a multicultural society.

Empowerment

Combining the perspective of the ten roles with the SLA competencies provides a good framework within which to examine our profession. It also helps us understand why we are in this field, which in my opinion, is to empower ourselves and others to: explore information space; discover; learn; interact with people and information; create; publish; develop applications and Just-for-you services; preserve, organize, evaluate, and use information; and educate and train. We must keep asking the question, "What difference does what we do as librarians make in the lives of individuals?" Are we truly empowering people or are we presenting barriers? We have great responsibilities and opportunities. This is, indeed, an exciting time to be in our profession.

Challenges: Shaping Our Future

These changing roles, the competencies needed, and the opportunities to empower people present several challenges for the future. Among these are: meeting increased expectations, handling economic pressures, harnessing the right technologies, building partnerships, and ensuring that we act ethically.

Meeting Increased Expectations

As discussed above, expectations continue to grow for faster, customized information services from our libraries and for expertise in many areas from us as librarians. Meeting all the expectations is probably impossible, but meeting many of these is not unreasonable. As long as we continue to ask why we are doing what we are doing, how we can provide the best access and add value, and how well we are doing, we are on the right track to meet, and even raise, expectations.

Handling Economic Pressures

Economic pressures are not going to go away, and will probably get worse. As managers, we will manage existing resources as well as possible, providing greater accountability. As leaders and advocates, we will work to procure additional resources, to add value to information resources and services, and to provide the best access we can to information resources. Partnerships, consortia, and other cooperative ventures should help cut costs, strengthen services, and expand opportunities. These should also aid in the provision of Just For You Services in the future.

Technology

Keeping up with all changes in technology is impossible, but we must do our best to understand major developments and ensure that we have needed experts to provide specific expertise to make the right choices. As we build, preserve, disseminate, and manage multimedia resources, we will need to continue to update our knowledge and skills and also to build teams with expertise in the hardware and software, aesthetics, education (particularly how different people learn and use information), other areas of cognitive science, and information content.

Education and training are essential, ongoing, components of successful management and the use of information technology to achieve priority goals. Information technology must be incorporated as one of many tools to achieve goals -- a means to an end, but not an end in itself -- with the many other tools, such as efficient management, adequate financial support, and others, into a strong whole. Demands for technology will continue, and we will also have to keep one foot in the print world and one in the electronic world for many years to come. It is not an either/or situation, but one of some of each, with the balance shifting toward more electronic in the future.

Finally, one key solution to meeting the challenges will be to form new partnerships and strengthen existing ones. I believe that stronger partnerships between practitioners and educators are needed to ensure the best education of our future colleagues, to expand research and development (transferring research results into practice and practical experience into education), and to develop true lifelong learning for all librarians and other information professionals. We also must work to develop close ties with colleagues in other specializations (such as, archives, museums, subject specialists, and many others) and with policy makers in government, corporations, and not-for-profit organizations, as well as individual citizens. Building the Global Information Infrastructure will take all of us working together.

Ethics

As we work to fill these expanded roles a great challenge will be to work and live ethically. As information professionals, we have enormous power, and we must be careful to use this power to benefit individuals and society. At our School of Information Sciences (SIS) at the University of Pittsburgh, we introduced a Dean's Forum on Information Ethics over nine years ago and a course on Information Ethics eight years ago. More than 300 students have taken the course and have learned from it how to act more ethically. We have established an Information Ethics Fund, which supports the work of Professor Stephen Almagno and an Ethics Fellow. I encourage you to check our website at www.sis.pitt.edu/~ethics. We're very proud of this work and the fact that other schools are beginning to develop courses on this important topic. Understanding our own sense of ethics, learning how to work from a personal understanding of ethics to situations at work, and how to deal with questions related to privacy, intellectual freedom, management and others are enormous challenges, but ones that are critical to our profession.

Summary

In this brief presentation I have attempted to discuss my views on our changing roles, comparing them to the SLA competencies, looking at how librarians can empower individuals. Also, I have highlighted a few of the many challenges facing us in the future. We are very fortunate to be in such an exciting profession. While I have seen many changes in the more than 35 years I have been in our field, I believe that the best is yet to come. Thank you.

 1.1    Has expert knowledge of the content of information resources,
        including the ability to critically evaluate and filter them.

 1.2    Has specialized subject knowledge appropriate to the 
        business of the organization or client.

 1.3    Develops and manages convenient, accessible and cost-effective
        information services that are aligned with the strategic 
        directions of the organization.

 1.4    Provides excellent instruction and support for library and
        information service users.

 1.5    Assesses information needs and designs and markets value-added
        information services and products to meet identified needs.

 1.6    Uses appropriate information technology to acquire, organize
        and disseminate information.

 1.7    Uses appropriate business and management approaches to communicate
        the importance of information services to senior management.

 1.8    Develops specialized information products for use inside or
        outside the organization or by individual clients.

 1.9    Evaluates the outcomes of information use and conducts research
        related to the solution of information management problems.

 1.10   Continually improves information services in response to
        changing needs.

 1.11   Is an effective member of the senior management team and a
        consultant to the organization on information issues.

 2.1    Is committed to service excellence.


 2.2    Seeks out challenges and sees new opportunities 
        both inside and outside the library.


 2.3    Sees the big picture.


 2.4    Looks for partnerships and alliances.


 2.5    Creates an environment of mutual respect and trust.


 2.6    Has effective communication skills.


 2.7    Works well with others in a team.


 2.8    Provides leadership.


 2.9    Plans, prioritizes and focuses on what is critical.


2.10    Is committed to lifelong learning and personal career planning.


2.11    Has personal business skills and creates new opportunities.


2.12    Recognizes the value of professional networking and solidarity.


2.13    Is flexible and positive in a time of continuing change.

 1.     Mangers (1.3, 1.5, 1.7, 109, 1.10, 1.11, 2)

 2.     Resource Procurers (1.7)

 3.     Creators/Producers (1.3, 1.5, 1.6, 1.8)

 4.     Preservers of culture

 5.     Organizers of Information (1.1, 1.3, 1.6)

 6      Researchers/retrievers (1.5, 1.6, 1.9)

 7.     Educators (1.4)

 8.     Students (2.10)

 9.     Experts/advisors (1.1, 1.2, 1.9)

10.     Advocates (1.7)

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