So about that conference…

Corporate librarians who may or may not exist, especially in the mountain states or on the West Coast, should check out the Library Camp of the West. Last I saw, Frontier Airlines prices were looking pretty reasonable. I dither as to whether to go to this or Internet Librarian. If you’re curious how many library camps have happened, someone created a page on LISWiki. Over two years, so not just a passing fad.

My fellow Steve posts about how he, Laura Crossett and Joe Kraus got things off the ground and is looking for advice.

Time to mix up topics more

So here’s my Wordle for this blog:

Looking at it, an awful lot is focused on jobs. Sadly, other topics that would be of interest I don’t really have good advice on. How to deal with IT when you want to try new things? Wasn’t an issue at the last job, not an issue (for different reasons) at the current job. Marketing myself? Not much of a way to do that at the last job, no need at the current job (where there are four or five other people, all of whom know what I do).

I’m not sure how much I can blog about the current job, honestly.

I likely won’t be going to many conferences until my finances improve (though I might lobbycon Internet Librarian). For all my talk about wanting hands-on workshops, I haven’t gotten anywhere on planning an unconference.

So honestly, I’m not sure where the blog is going from here.

One note: Until I can figure out a better solution, I’m addressing my earlier bewailing of the lack of online meeting places for corporate librarians by creating a Room on FriendFeed. People can post their thoughts, or comment on other people’s posts or share links of various sorts.

Corporate librarians vs. corporate libraries

Because I was worried I was misrepresenting her, I reached out to Susan Klopper about her comments at the SLA SAAAC panel. She graciously agreed to take the time to elaborate and to allow me to post her further comments.

I stand by my comment at the student career panel at SLA that corporate libraries don’t exist anymore, but let me add some clarification to my viewpoint. First, it is just my opinion, but one that comes from 18+ years working in a corporate library and personally experiencing the dramatic shift in that market space. That said, of course, many do still exist and will continue in the future to be supported by their organizations. But that number, relative to the market, is small and getting smaller every day. With the commoditization of information that has taken place over the past 8-10 years, I don’t see companies ever being willing (and one could well argue the errors in their thinking) to invest in corporate libraries as they once existed. But if you read the rest of my thought about this in the blog, my stating that corporate libraries are dead was not intended as a final statement, but rather as a challenge to the future librarians sitting in the room to think about what lessons might be learned about their demise and how they might position their skills, competencies and passion for working in a corporate environment in ways that will more successfully speak to the interests, strategies, focus of corporate organizations. When an upcoming librarian asks me about working in a corporate library, I ask them to describe to me how they envision that experience ,what they are doing each day, who they are working with. If that vision is defined by a library in any capacity, I can not in all truth endorse the career path. However, if that vision is focused on bringing the skill sets, knowledge, networking strengths we own into the organization and deploying and embedding them as needed within the organizational structure - then I say YES, that is how we demonstrate our value in terms that the organization can measure. And who knows, perhaps if we work our way through organizations on their terms, holding ourselves up to the business models they value, we may make some progress towards elevating librarians and libraries as a core organizational function.
Just my 2 cents - susan klopper

An interesting panel at SLA

The blog I’m very, very behind in writing anything for, the SLA-IT Blogging Section blog, has notes by Nicole Engard on a career panel at the annual SLA Conference (which I sorely wish I was attending). One interesting quote from Susan Klopper, which mirrors what I’ve found out here:

If you want to work in a library in a corporation - i would strongly recommend you don’t do that because they don’t exist anymore.

Oh, there are still jobs, but they’re not library jobs for the most part. Read Nicole’s post to learn more.

Job news

May 16th I got an email from an acquaintance about a potential job. May 19th we talked on the phone, and a few days after that I sent on a resume, writing sample and references. June 2nd I flew up to meet with him and another person. June 9th I got emailed a more formalized job description, and June 12th I asked for a contract.

Which I received on Friday and mailed signed copies of yesterday.

Three month job, hopefully leading to something permanent. I’ll check exactly what I can and can’t say about it, but it involves both knowledge management and research.

Library job resources

For those of you still looking, College@Home offers over 100 job resources for prospective librarians. Granted, a number of them are oriented towards academic or public library jobs, but even so the list should be useful.

Hopefully I should have some good job news of my own to announce on the blog soon.

More library benchmarking

This has already made the rounds, but the Ark Group is publishing a study Managing the evolution of library and information services (the email I got states you can preorder before May 28th for US $345 plus shipping). The press release suggests a heavy sampling of law firm libraries, but also mentions Adobe, BP America, Xerox (I have a hazy recollection of Carolyne saying something about this somewhere?) and other companies

Anyone have experience with Ark Group publications, or contacted as part of this study and want to comment?

AIIP Annual Conference

Sadly, my plan to find an Asus Eee PC in Pittsburgh so I could have Internet access all the time during the AIIP conference didn’t work out. And there was only one business Internet terminal in my hotel. Note: the website is getting a remodel, so I’ll fix links as needed.

The conference proper ran from Thursday to Sunday, with pre-conference workshops on Wednesday. There were about 100 attendees, out of 600 or so members, and of the attendees about 20 were first-timers (like me!). Activities included guest speakers, round tables, general and concurrent sessions and open board meetins. There was also a very nice paddleboat cruise on the river, and one night a bunch of us had dinner with people from the local chapter of SLA. Much to my surprise, Tambellini’s deep fried lightly breaded zucchini is actually excellent.

One nice touch is that first-time attendees got a ribbon for their badge and a session to attend, where Debbie Hunt and Cindy Shamel got us talking to each other, practicing networking and developing our elevator pitches.

But you want to know what AIIP is and why you might want to go to the conference. AIIP is an association for people who want to start (or have started, or are considering starting) their own information businesses - research and consulting both. The annual conference costs $395 (not counting hotel and pre-conference workshops, and stipends are available in some cases) if you register early, and membership ranges from $50 (for students) to $500 (for a supporting membership). Full and Associate memberships cost $200. There’s a fair amount of overlap in membership between AIIP, SLA and SCIP.

Depending on your level of membership, you can get a listing for your business in the directory, access to a mentor to help you plan and start your business, access to the mailing list, participation in referral and speaker programs, various awards and stipends, and vendor discounts. You can read the full list here.

At the conference, I got lots of immediately-useful, practical advice from people who are successful independent information professionals, from design issues (business cards, website) to networking to planning service offerings to marketing your business. Not to mention some cool sessions on useful gadgets.

Besides that, I met a lot of people from the Bay Area, which is always a good thing. I’m hoping to go to Debbie Bardon’s next informal get-together in the Oakland hills.

I feel a bit guilty that starting my own business isn’t the first thing I tried after becoming unemployed (AIIP’s membership tracks unemployment), but people are there to give advice and pep talks as needed. If you’re thinking about a solo career, and want advice on the pros and cons beyond what you can read in books, you could do a lot worse than a student or associate membership. If you’ve already got your own business, AIIP can get you promotion, referrals and useful tips.

Next year’s conference is in Albuquerque in late March, hope to be there and to meet new people!

See you in Pittsburgh

And really, how often do we get to use lines from classic David Cronenberg movies in library blogs? Not often enough, I say.

I’ll be at the Association of Independent Information Professionals Annual Conference (April 30th-May 4th), so if people want to say hi feel free. My Internet access will be limited, unless I can pick up an Asus Eee PC at a Best Buy there or something. At least my phone will let me check email.

Pittsburgh natives, I’ll be near the 6th Street Bridge, apparently.

I’m really pretty happy with my Associate membership to AIIP - I’ve attended webinars which passed on useful tips, gotten discounts from vendors and learned about valuable resources like ResearchTrail. I’m hoping to get some networking done and get some useful advice towards starting up a business

Beyond blogging?

A rather sensational article by the New York Times has caused quite the to-do in the tech blogosphere. Doc Searls wonders if tech blogging hasn’t become more about flogging, and wonders how to get past that. Setting aside the issue of taking a part for the whole, I’ve got a few thoughts on that.

First, I think some of the issues Doc discusses are part of a larger shift in culture that’s been going on for hundreds of years - the rise of the pundit, of cultural celebrities and of people famous for being famous. I don’t think online interaction is somehow a special case disconnected from the rest of human interaction. I think expecting otherwise leads to situations like Kathy Sierra’s. Specifically, I think it’s dangerous, setting up an argument in which bloggers are judged by their presumed intentions (”I’m trying to inform people, that person’s just seeking traffic”). I freely admit to some bias here, as someone who selfishly wouldn’t mind some recognition who puts stuff out there that’s hopefully of interest and of use to people.

Second, Doc and others ignore the positive aspects: the new voices that have come into conversations, the people who have been able to better their circumstances.

Third, he misses the conversations already online that aren’t blogging - chat, instant messaging, podcasts, videos. Blogging is just the more visible portion of the iceberg.

I follow some of the “top” library bloggers. I also talk to people you may never have heard of in Meebo. I send email messages. I trade IMs. I hang out in Second Life.

So what does this have to do with the library world, and with corporate libraries in particular?

1. We’re trained to evaluate sources - maybe we should work on evaluating tools as well?
2. We constantly seek information outside our organizations.
3. It’s never been easier to learn new skills, in part because of blogs and other forms of online communication. Whether it’s the organizers pulling together the Five Weeks to a Social Library course, or the plethora of Library Camps out there, these would be much more difficult without online communications.

Walt Crawford noted in one of his posts: “I’m inclined to believe that blogging in general may have peaked in 2007, and that liblogs might have peaked then, but that’s just a belief.” I’m not sure on that myself - certainly there’s still lively discussion on, say, a proposed online conference tool. But say that liblogs have peaked - does that mean the useful conversations themselves have ended? Or have they moved to other venues? Perhaps we are beyond blogging after all.

(Note: This isn’t intended as an attack on Doc Searls or anyone else - several posts just reminded me of some things I’d been brooding on for a while)