Musings on the future

15Nov09

I just attended the 2009 Isaac Pitblado Lectures jointly presented by the Law Society of Manitoba, the Manitoba Bar Association and the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba. This year’s topic was on practicing law in the 21st century. (Yes, I was the only law librarian there – these lectures are aimed at lawyers, but the lineup of speakers captivated me!) The closing keynote speaking, Professor Richard Susskind, is the author of The End of Lawyers?, and a major thought-leader on the evolution (or revolution) in the future of legal service delivery. The opening speaker, Jordan Furlong, is the former editor of National, the journal of the Canadian Bar Association, and currently is a partner at Edge International and a senior consultant at Stem Legal. I have been an avid fan of Jordan’s writing at Law21, and was thrilled to meet him in person.

The format of the lectures was a mixture of lectures and workshops. We heard about where legal services would potentially be going in the next ten years. We also heard from Dr. Krista Uggerslev, a professor at the Asper School of Business, who explained the differences in the generations currently working as lawyers. With four generations now practising, it’s no wonder there is friction in the expectations of everyone. As Bruce King, managing partner of Pitblado LLP said (I’m paraphrasing here), “I used to think when I was recuiting students to join our firm, that it was enough to say with hard work, all this can be yours too! After listening to Krista, I realize now that they don’t want to be me!”

From a local perspective, I really enjoyed hearing from Don Douglas, CEO at Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP. This firm has taken the role of managing partner and made it into a full time position to better serve the direction of their firm. We also heard from the challenges faced by rural lawyers regarding succession planning, and strategies the Law Society was undertaking to help deal with this, such as funding students from rural communities who are accepted at law school, with forgiveable loans if they return to their communities after graduation.

The role of technology in future legal service delivery was a huge part of this presentation. Dan Pinnington, practice advisor at Lawpro.com, spoke about all the different technology available to assist lawyers in meeting their regulatory requirements, as well as providing better client service. While he mentioned specific software and hardware, he was also careful to inform practitioners to make sure they spent their money on technology that would work for them. It’s not prudent to purchase all the bells and whistles, when all you need are the bells.

I loved Professor Susskind’s talk. He’s an engaging and entertaining lecturer. I especially appreciated his definition of bespoke (I will never forget the meaning, and my lawyers may hear me using it when I talk about my services at the firm!). He sees the legal services delivery being driven by clients telling their lawyers to do more with less, leading to the commoditization of particular functions, like contract writing. The traditional legal model has had clients pay for junior lawyers to learn how to do the “grunt” work, like document review, at a fairly high rate. Clients are now saying they’re not going to pay for the junior lawyers, and firms have to figure out a new model.

One area I felt was not addressed was the fact that the field of law practice is an apprenticeship model. If the apprentices are not going to be paid for by clients, who is supposed to provide the training? It was mentioned that private law firms spend a lot of money recruiting and training articling students, only to have them jump to corporate counsel at the end of three years, when they’re just starting to become productive. How many private corporations are taking in articling students, and paying for that apprenticeship?

This lecture series raised more questions than it answered. I was thrilled with the demographics of attendance – there was definitely attendance by all four of the generations that Krista Uggerslev mentioned, and there was representation from private firms, government, rural and solo practitioners. I will certainly be using the knowledge I gained to provide assistance to my firm in filling some of the niches that were uncovered. To paraphrase, we live in interesting times. And that’s a good thing.

~ Karen

Filed under: Advocacy, Professional Development   |  1 Comment
Tags: conferences, New Ideas, Professional Development, Technology

iPhone v. Blackberry

11Nov09

The whole smart phone phenomena baffles me. In the area of cell phone connectedness, I am an admitted dinosaur.  I resisted for a long time, but finally broke down and carry around a dumb phone intermittently.

I know a couple of iPhone users and Blackberry users in my small random sample. I make fun of the ubiquitous Crackberry friends,  but they’re not addicted yet. I don’t think they wake up and check it, before going to work. At times, my life is easier when you can check e-mail at last minute or go to GPS to find locations of shops.

A positive factor in the Blackberry is the built in keyboard facilitating the ability to send text easier. If you tweet, then you could live blog with either device. Otherwise it is described as a “fancy pager” for business types, so they are on call 24/7. Unfortunately long documents formatted for Word or as PDFs don’t display in an easy-to-read format.

Both the iPhone and Blackberry may change the way we communicate from e-mails to library catalogues to web sites. I was encouraged to write concise and friendly sounding e-mails as my recipients might be seeing it on the mobile devices. Hmm…food for thought.

Previously there were iPhone security issues for business types, but I honestly don’t know enough to comment one way or the other. Here is an article about enhanced security including nuclear option on iPhones.

And that consumer marvel iPhone is everyone’s darling. My 2 iPhone toting friends are completely enamoured, drinking the Koolaid from Apple. The multifunctionality of  cell phone, internet browser, GPS, and many nifty software applications make iPhone very appealing.

There are no downsides really, sometimes there is a a slow connection to internet. — Danielle

Danielle and I disagree about how cool the iPhone is, and I will soldier on with my basic cell…no Web, no GPS and all of 4 contacts in the address book.

- Brenda

Filed under: Mobile devices, Smart phones   |  1 Comment

The SLA Name Change: My Vote is Yes

04Nov09

(Guest contributor – Emma D-W)

I was really pleased to see “A Student’s Perspective on the Name Change“, in which MLIS student Zoe Fisher explains why she’s voting “yes” on the proposed new name for SLA. Why?

Well, we’ve heard from a lot of library world heavyweights: Mary Ellen Bates, Marcy Phelps, Jill Strand, Guy St. Clair, etc… but aside from tweets (#slaname) and comments in forums, not a lot from the average, lesser-known members of SLA. And those voices are just as important.

I’m voting yes, too, and here’s why.

The short version is this:

a) I think we needed to get rid of the word “library”

b) Even if this name’s not everyone’s idea of the perfect name, it’s better than what we have now. We can’t afford to ignore the market research that the Alignment Project provided, and we certainly can’t enter our second century with a name that’s doing us a disservice.

The much longer version:

When I first heard the proposed name, Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals, acronymized as ASKPro, I felt a bit ambivalent about it. I find “ASKPro” a bit cutesy (and the jokes about pronouncing the “K”? Can I get a Seth Meyers’ “Really!?!”)). The word “strategic” buzz-wordy. But even with those annoyances, over the last few days I’ve come to appreciate the name and am very hopeful that we adopt it.

The biggest reason I like the name is that is has done away with “libraries”. I’ve read a lot of comments about whether this is a good or bad thing. Many people are attached to the name, and with good reason. They worked hard for their degree and are proud of the profession and don’t like being made to feel ashamed of it. Others find the word has negative and inaccurate connotations, ones that are holding us back.

Let me digress for a minute or two. Since graduating with my Library & Information Technology diploma in 2003, I’ve always had a small internal struggle with my “library” identity. In my last job, my title was “library technician” and I worked with a wonderful librarian who had an MLS. I had lots of peers in similar positions and we were all proud to call ourselves library techs. For the most part, our “real” librarian supervisors recognized and appreciated (and in some cases, envied!) our unique skill sets as technicians.

But since I changed jobs last year and became a solo, complete with the title “librarian”, I’ve occasionally felt like an imposter – and know this to be true of others in similar situations. Some people inside the profession are wildly defensive of the title “librarian”. (That’s, of course, a whole other discussion.)

In the end, my colleagues (regardless of degree) and I have realised and accepted that it doesn’t really matter what we call ourselves or what others call us – it’s what we DO that matters. I will always be a library technician and I am proud of my educational achievement, but what I am even more proud of is the fact that I have many users who trust my skills, rely on my assistance, and come to me first when they need research done.

I am thrilled that SLA is recognizing and emphasizing the variety of education and work experience backgrounds its members boast. Obviously, I wouldn’t feel right being a part of an organization that had an unspoken bias in favour of the MLS. I want to be a part of an organization that values competencies – those skills that are always evolving and adapting – not just one particular educational path.

My husband and I debated the name change the other night. He feels that there was a good opportunity to rebrand without a name change – in much the same way as accountants rebranded themselves – very successfully – in recent years. But I think the situation with the accountants was different, because they were linking the profession to a particular certification. My opinion is that an information professional’s – ANY professional’s – best assets are not linked to his or her education. Over the years I have encountered and heard about librarians (and lawyers and teachers and doctors, etc.) who basically stopped learning and adapting once they had finished school. No profession should be using an educational degree that may have been earned 40 years ago and has possibly been sitting dusty on the shelf ever since as a selling point. (I don’t mean, for one second, to imply that the MLS is an obsolete or old-fashioned degree – just that as with any educational certification, the work doesn’t stop when you graduate.) Ultimately I think the name “knowledge professional” conveys a much more proactive idea of what we are all about than “librarian” does. After all, a knowledge professional may have an MLS, but she also may instead have KM or CI certification or any number of other types of training that are just as credible and valuable.

All that was to say that we don’t need the word “libraries” or “librarians” to represent what we do. I truly appreciate the many people who have reminded us that the term “libraries” does not represent a huge percentage of the organization. While I happen to work in a library proper, SLA wouldn’t be any less important and useful to me if I didn’t.

I can’t imagine any name that 100% of the membership would be happy with. And that’s okay, because to me, the organization’s greatest asset is the diversity of its membership – we have so much to learn from each other. To me, this is proven every time I go to an SLA conference: invariably, the sessions I get the most of are the ones sponsored by the Marketing, News, and Leadership divisions – not just the division I’m actually a member of. If I want to connect with other law librarians and get highly relevant, local networking, I’ll do so through a local or national law library association. If I want to learn on a bigger scale about what innovative information professionals are doing lately, I’ll get that at SLA.

As for the new representation of what we are – “strategic knowledge professionals” and not “special librarians” – it may sound buzzwordy to me, but however regrettably, the business world does run on buzzwords. And as SLA’s Strategic Communications Director Maura Kennedy points out, “every employer I have worked for over 30+ years has had a strategic planning process that directed the ways in which they allocated resources.  I don’t think it is likely that strategic, knowledge or professional will change meaning any time soon.”

Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t repeat a point of Fisher’s that really resonated with me:

“I think this is a great example of our association’s fundamental problem of perspective. The name isn’t just for us – it’s for everyone else.”

Well said!

A big thanks to Karen and Brenda for letting me share my thoughts here.

~Emma

Filed under: Advocacy, Marketing, Networks   |  3 Comments
Tags: Alignment Project, New Ideas, Professional Associations

Competitive Intelligence for Every Library

25Oct09

SLA 2009 Conference Round-up

I first heard the term Competitive Intelligence a couple of years ago. I wondered what it meant. Competitive intelligence can be defined as the process of gathering information from a variety of sources, then the data is analyzed and applied to a specific industry, organization, or project (“Competitive Intelligence and Government Libraries,” Roberta I. Shaffer on June 16, 2009 ). The library science term is “information analytics” if you want to read up on it. Admittedly all I knew about competitive intelligence or CI is that it is a buzz word. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Roberta Schaffer was a former law librarian who strongly advocates engaging in CI.  My sense that locally in Toronto competitive intelligence is not on the radar for information professionals.

You might be scratching your head and saying I have enough to do, or be a skeptic and say why is it important? Companies who don’t engage in CI are missing out on opportunities to grow and perhaps become more profitable. Schaffer cites a Trendsetter study in 2002 that studies Fortune 200 companies who adopted CI practices. Those companies that made revenue producing decisions based on CI increased bottom line by 14.2% and at 20% faster rate of growth than those companies not using CI processes.

I see competitive intelligence as looking at facts and trends then forecasting where a company may want to engage new clients or refocus any of their business practices. Some examples of how CI is used include:

• to evaluate core processes like budgeting, accounting, or hiring
• to engage in new research and development initiatives (e.g. skunk works)
• to prioritze new client(s) or sub client groups

At one point Schaffer told us about reading about how Boeing would be shifting to producing more commercial airplanes as a response to less money available from the defence department. Also with auto industry in death throes, some of the auto parts could be re-engineered into medical devices as a new emerging industry. These were some of examples of competitive intelligence at work.

CI practitioners have a lot in common with librarians as they use grey sources like blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 tools. But CI people also rate information on confidence levels ranging from solid to credible but not corroborated to fragmented, low support.  CI also draws on work from economists, futurists, MBAs and accountants, when they throw forecasting, envisioning, strategic planing and business planning into the full spectrum of analysis.

So I left the talk feeling that competitive intelligence was not totally foreign and scary. Although I may not be actively practicing competitive intelligence, now  I have a firm grasp of how to define it and where to go from there.  I have included both full conference notes and other posts to give you a feeling of being there.

- Brenda

More Reading

Full conference notes by Roberta I. Schaffer of the Federal Library and Information Center Committee/Federal Library Network (FLICC/FEDLINK)

7 Emerging Countries for Leadership

Countries to watch for workforce trends, education innovation, and more

Comprehensive Summary by David E. McBee in a Federal government library, Washington, DC

Snapshot of CI Tools in Law Firms and includes survey of why major firms engaging in competitive intelligence

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Tags: SLA2009, conferences, competitive intelligence, business intelligence

Guest contributor

23Oct09

Brenda and I are pleased to introduce Emma D-W. Emma is another library technician who also blogs at Winnipeg o’my heart.We hope Emma will become a frequent contributor, especially when Brenda and I are having trouble coming up with posts!

Welcome Emma!

~ Karen

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How to get to the table

22Oct09

I recently didn’t get invited to a webinar held in my firm, because the people organizing it didn’t realize I’d be interested. I was really annoyed, because it would have cost nothing for me to attend. What’s kind of amusing, though, is I was following one of my colleagues who was tweeting about it as it was going on! So what can I do to make sure the next time I’m included?

Through one of the associations I belong to, Canadian Association of Law Libraries, I have a formal mentoring relationship with a senior library director. I asked her for advice in speaking to my supervising partner. She gave me some great words of wisdom (literally!) that would help me explain what I needed and how my firm could support me to get there. She suggested creating a learning plan, outlining what I need to know to do my job better, and suggesting programs that can help me.

As I thought about how to implement her suggestions, I realized that this comes down to taking responsibility for my career. Through another association I belong to, SLA, I was directed to this article published in Professional Legal Management Week Magazine 2009. Although their members are legal administrators, the issues they face are remarkably similar to the ones I have as a solo. Using both of these sources, I was able to develop some strategies to move my career along and increase my profile within my firm.

I often discuss these types of situations with my library colleagues, and one of them suggested I use this as a brief lunch-time talk with other law library staff. She organized the lunch, and I provided the topic. We didn’t generate as much discussion as I had hoped, but it was a start. It certainly was an auspicious event for me – I was waiting for the elevator with one of our senior partners, and he asked me if I had anything interesting going on. Talk about a great opportunity for an elevator pitch! He was impressed both with what I was doing, and the topic for discussion. I was pleased that he recognized how relevant it was across a whole range of circumstances.

So what am I going to do to make sure I’m invited to the table? Well, to start with, I’m rewriting my job description (I know, I’ve been saying this for months, but now I’m actually going to do it!), and I’m going to look for niches that are not filled here, and figure out how I can take them on. I’ve been networking within my firm since the day I got here, getting to know what each person is interested in, and demonstrating competency to build their trust. I’ll look for opportunities that will help me achieve these goals, and figure out ways to help the firm support me in them.

What’s your plan?

~ Karen

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Tags: Marketing, Networking, Professional Associations, Professional Development

Planning workshops

18Oct09

I had to laugh a little that some things stay the same. As I organize the archives for the local Special Libraries Association chapter, I came across a gem. The local chapter was recognized for its series of programmes called “Closer Relations between the Chapters and Library Schools in their Areas” in 1962. It was a combination of library tours and lectures. But what really caught my eye was the best practices that made it recognized, are still the same ones today. The chapter widely distributed the programme and it proved to strike a balance between enough detail for solid execution and broad outline so other organizers could adapt to local conditions. Inclusiveness was also a feature so the association members were not the same faces, or the same downtown crowd. (Source: “Four and a Half Decades of Putting Knowledge to Work: A History of the Toronto Chapter Special Libraries Association” 1940-1984 by Helen Katz, Donna M. Ivey, editor)

On a lighter note, here is a link to beautiful libraries of the world as an antidote to the decentralized or modern corporate library.

- Brenda

Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario, circa 1940s or 1950s

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Revisiting Vendor issues

24Sep09

I’m fortunate to live in a province that hasn’t been too badly hit by the current recession, (which I am reluctant to say is over, despite Prime Minister Harper’s announcement). And even though I have a reasonably secure private library, I still pay close attention to articles on librarians and vendors, particularly if the focus is on developing the relationship.

I was pointed to this article via Law Librarian Blog  (what a great title: Who Let the Marketing Dogs of War in!).  The authors give vendors a roadmap on best practices for serving their clients. (Now, how do I get the vendors to read it!)

In this harsh economic light, vendors that spend time in the firm understanding a librarian’s pressure and reflecting those growing pains in their own businesses can work with librarians as partners…. Recruiting vendors that listen to business needs and respond with pragmatic optinos will provide leverage to succeed in a firm. (p. 45)

I’d love to be “partners” with my vendors (I think we have more of an adversarial relationship). Help me manage my collection prudently, and don’t feel you have to sell me everything. And above all, don’t send sales literature to my lawyers!

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Tags: Customer Service, Vendors

Sharepoint with Taxonomy

06Sep09

SLA 2009 Conference Round-up

I have been exposed to a Sharepoint demo in its incubation stage before being rolled out.  My intention is to understand more about the nuts and bolts of how it worked going into the SLA Tech Zone workshop. We got to run through some exercises at the Taxonomy and SharePoint session.  The integrated content management system Microsoft Sharepoint is either a blessing or curse, because of the many promises it makes (see More Reading).

Laura Antos and Dan Segal of Dow Jones hosted the play and learn session for this beginner class. Many others were planning to implement SharePoint in the upcoming year. Some of the advantages to SharePoint (SP) are the flat learning curve, because of familar terms like List, Library and View, its navigation, and its interface. For learning purposes we were using out of the box implementation, but you can also customize SP.

Using a simple taxonomy with just four terms, with option for free text tags, I built some columns, lists and libraries then displayed in different view. Some SP terms are intuitive like lists and libraries but other terms have a new twist. Columns, for example, can be anything from a line of text, drop down lists, a calculation from a series of numbers, and even images. The basic material for a web site page is a Web Part. Templates can be defined in Site Columns, then they can be used as a master template assigned to Lists for a consistent look and feel across the site. I felt like a SharePoint geek at the end of the session ready and able to build some more pages.

If it were a real world situation, lists could be populated by importing from Excel 2007 as well as from third party vendors. Although I was impressed by the claim, I shuddered at the thought of importing from third party as I could forsee a big mess with data cleanup as the outcome.

For taxonomists, the vocabulary is flat and the heirarchy tends to topical instead of structural. And for everyone else, there is no need to understand relationships between terms like BT, NT, RT. (Sorry Library of Congress Classification system; but happy days for puzzled students.) If you require more sophisticated taxonomy, it can be enhanced with a thesaurus using XML or using third party add ons for metadata.

As mentioned SharePoint has the ability to be customized to an organization’s needs, instead of going with out of the box implementation. This is where project management, planning, and cooperation between IT, library services and an consulting firm specializing in SP can yield in a successful outcome for the entire organization.

- Brenda

More Reading

Group blog from non profit organization perspective and prefers open source options

SharePoint groupie

Consultancy specializing in SharePoint

If you have interest in taxonomy and everyone should in libraries as it seems central to organizing the digital chaos, check out a new SLA chapter on Taxonomy.

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Tags: SharePoint, SLA2009, Technology

Publishing and more

23Aug09

One of my themes for this blog is learning about, and exploring other industries. Publishing and bookselling is related to libraries, but I don’t often have time to keep up with what is going on. Michael Tamblyn, formerly of BookNet Canada, a new technology incubator for Canadian publishers, distributors and booksellers, gave a humourous presentation that looked ahead to future trends, and also examined how past recessions and innovation intersected in business history.

The mainstream news has been full of doom and gloom with the worst recession in more than 15 years, but as I often say recessions breed opportunity as people are more willing to take risks in adopting technology or ways to sell things. See Tamblyn’s chart of technologies and retailers that launched, like IPods or Starbucks coffee. Coming from the library world, the typical workflow to produce a book was an eye-opener as there are too many players with too many electronic formats. I can appreciate that Tamblyn’s wish list of meaningful XML format is a daunting task. But something that the industry wants to strive for because the outcome will be worthwhile.

Tamblyn made me laugh, when he said that the online book buying process was stuck in 1995. It is true that it has not changed beyond searching then finding a results list, and moving to a shopping cart. But web sites,  like Book Crossing, Library Thing, Shelfari and  author’s sites, have enhanced the browsing experience. I get referrals from friends, or I can see on Shelfari (book club crossed with Web 2.0) what others are tagging. So the world for readers is not 1995, if they are willing to  research. Serendipity online happens in a different way than within the Amazon or Chapters environment.

I will want to check out some of the graphical mashups he mentioned that display book covers. They are not ideal as he is seeking a digital equivalent to browsing a independent bookstore. The Luddite in me will still prefer browsing the stacks at Elliott Bay Book Company and hearing my steps creak on the wooden floor to online book purchases.

Lastly he addresses specialists in an industry and overcoming barriers to adopt innovation in technology. Although he is talking about the publishing world, he could be talking about my corporate library. There is a lot of fear in adopting changes, and there could be a variety of personal, emotional and rational reasons to resist.  Frankly I don’t know where business or libraries are heading, but I am enjoying the ride taking one day at a time, and taking the risk to provide a better service for my customers.

- Brenda

To Explore:
Book Crossing
Library ThingShelfari
Stephen King, unaffiliated with publisher
Neil Gaiman affiliated with  his publisher

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