Sheila Corrall, professor of librarianship and information management at the
University of Sheffield, explained the trend: “People argued that information
professionals and IT professionals would merge, and people experimented with
bringing services together. Now, hybrid professionals combine not only strong
information and IT skills but also another area of work. There is creation of
specialist roles at every level, often with dedicated professional bodies.
“We have seen quite a lot of downsizing, outsourcing and offshoring of
specialised information services. At the same time, other professionals are
moving into roles that have a strong information-related component.
“Professionals work at a higher level and need to network more. This creates
a need for continuous upskilling and more specialisation. Librarians are
expected to have cross-functional skills to enable them to negotiate and
communicate with other professionals.”
Specialist professional bodies have created training courses and education
programmes targeted at these new specialists, who have not always followed the
traditional librarian training route. Heath information professionals, for
example, might include not only library and IT professionals but also doctors,
nurses and therapists. The roles of content specialists and context specialist
are overlapping.
Society of archivists
As data sets became very large, so more librarians needed data management skills
to use sophisticated IT and visualisation facilities. The emphasis on data reuse
and open access to data underlying scientific research has bred a new kind of
data management professional.
John Chambers, executive director at the Society of Archivists, said the
society was reaching out to other professional associations to provide training.
The society is running joint training events with CILIP, starting in April with
a course on digital copyright. “If that is successful we will be doing more
joint stuff with them,” he said. “Along with the Digital Preservation Coalition
and the National Archives, we are running six digital preservation training
events this year. We have done ad hoc courses before, but now training in
partnership is more planned.”
Chambers said that legislation was creating a need for professional
development among people coming into the profession for the first time: “When
the Freedom of Information Act came in, there were jobs created and people were
having information management, data protection and freedom of information thrust
on them.”
UKeiG
At the same time as helping librarians keep up to date with
technologies for information access, some professional associations have adopted
Web 2.0 technologies themselves to work with members.
The UK eInformation Group (UKeiG) supports its members with everything to do
with locating, assessing and managing electronic information in the workplace.
Karen Blakeman, UKeiG honorary secretary, said: “Web 2.0 is just one area we
cover, but we make extensive use of it in communicating with members: RSS feeds,
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, discussion lists, Flickr, NetVibes. This
year we’re doing a conference on innovation in e-information.”
UKeiG has also set up an informal intranets forum. It’s free to members and
events are hosted by members. “It gives those involved with intranets an
opportunity to share and discuss experiences,” said Blakeman. “Several members
have expressed an interest in setting up similar networks on other topics and
geographically based networks.”
UKeiG attracts members from many professions, not just librarians. “It is
difficult to say how the job role of our membership has changed because we do
not have a typical member profile,” said Blakeman. UKeiG members work in
information centres, IT, libraries, publishing, marketing, web design,
consultancy and R&D in all sectors.
“The technology we use will always change and so will our job roles,” added
Blakeman. “We do see, though, members moving into other areas within
organisations and changing their job function. A lot of this is down to the
transferable skills they have gained by working with e-information.”
AIIP
Web 2.0 has let professionals communicate and work together virtually
and this is beginning to break down national borders as well as job roles.
The Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) is a group of
information entrepreneurs, mostly self-employed individuals. Most AIIP members
are from North America, but this is changing, said its president, Marcy Phelps:
“What we have in common is that we are all business owners, and we do our
information work on behalf of our clients, rather than an employer.”
AIIP has embraced many new tools such as webinars, podcasts and social
networks to reach members. In 2008 it launched a series of free webinars
covering topics relevant to changing roles. Members who cannot attend a live
event can download the webinar from the AIIP website.
Phelps said the shared experiences and needs of members working as small
businesses transcended borders: “Many members say our private email discussion
list alone is worth the price of membership. It’s a valuable forum to discuss
industry sources and trends, strategise on research methods, share technology
and business tips, and get encouragement and helpful feedback.”
AIIP members receive special pricing arrangements and discounted services
from information providers, including Dialog, Factiva, LexisNexis and Questel
Orbit, which otherwise might be cost-prohibitive for small businesses.
Aslib
As far as Roger Bowes, managing director at Aslib, is concerned,
although the development of the skills and status of the information
professional and information librarian continues to be the raison d’être of
associations including Aslib, there is one pressing issue for librarians just
now. “Increasingly we have a critical role supporting the information
professional in protecting the wider community’s long established intellectual
property rights,” he said.
Bowes said that the role of the librarian was always vulnerable to the
challenges of the technology revolution and global cost accounting: “Twenty
years ago we called for more hybridisation – an additional string to one’s bow –
but I do recall being pilloried by the library head of an American university
for suggesting that they might like to think about training in order to be able
to widen their role within an organisation.
“Information professionals experienced the full force of the cost accounting
drive as we went through the 90s, as they had to prove the value of their
department’s contribution to the bottom line. More or less everywhere
information professionals lost their defined community, the information
department, and have been subsumed into another department – legal, financial,
production or even administration – or they lost their job.”
Bowes’ main worry is that it is all leading to the death of the librarian:
“If one had hybridised, so much the better, but the overwhelming problem for the
information professional and the organisation itself was that dispersion often
meant that information management as one of the pillars of professional
competence within an organisation disappeared along with the budget heading.”
CiG
Nowhere has the impact of the recent economic downturn been felt more keenly
than in the City. Suzanne Wheatley, who took over as chair of specialist
professional association City Information Group (CIG) at the start of this year,
said: “Despite the initial panic, along with the rest of financial sector,
information roles have been greatly affected in some companies and not in
others. There doesn’t seem to have been a uniform cutting of jobs.”
She added that there was evidence some information professionals were being
approached directly as employers start to look at who is available as a result
of the changes: “This brings us back to the importance of knowing your value in
your company and the market, and being able to communicate that and build your
own networks.
“It is vitally important to us to give our members the seminars and events
that will help them develop professionally and personally. For example, there is
a loud cry for practical job hunting skills, how to complete applications and
CVs, identifying and demonstrating skills, interview technique, presentations;
it is all about self-development, how to make the best of yourself and your
skills.”
CIG too has turned to Web 2.0. “We have revamped our website,” said Wheatley.
“We now have an exclusive members area and by having an online community space
we hope to encourage discussion on our forum on topics of the day and also after
events.”
She sees a role for librarians as Web 2.0 evangelists: “It is great to see
some information professionals assimilating and making new use of technologies
such as wikis and Twitter to better capture, obtain and share information within
their organisations and also with the outside world. However, resistance is
often met at management level and also at a cultural level some organisations
and companies are slow to adopt new technology and find it difficult to relate
to non-fee earning activities. It’s up to us to show that the technology is not
only easy to use and engages with employees at all levels but is also essential
to effective and successful business.”
There is no doubt that specialist professional associations have blown the
dust off their image and are making themselves invaluable to library and
information professionals looking to specialise to survive in an increasingly
challenging landscape.
Computeractive
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