Book Review: Libraries in the workplace

Why review a book that is already a year in publication? Because this is not just a book. This book confirmed by its appearance in August of 1998 that librarianship as a profession recognized the need to find out more about itself. The implications of this particularly unstartling perception are fairly obvious but worth visiting: a self-conscious profession is more likely to encourage communication between its constituent communities. This is likely to lead to improvements in practice as methods and lessons are shared between different librarian communities. Improvements in practice are likely to increase the impact of information services in their organisations, which will lead to a better external understanding of the utility and benefit brought by employing professional librarians. In the language of the profession I believe it dangerous to use ‘librarian’ and ‘information professional’ synonymously. The first is a subset of the second. This is a different question to the range of librarians’ job titles. The two are, however, related: a change in job title is, sadly, for some a welcome opportunity to relinquish the ‘L’ word; for others it is just a further expression of their professional range as a librarian. ‘Job title’ was not explicitly included in this survey. This is one of the few failings that are not simply a reflection of the fact that this is a first outing for a large, detailed questionnaire specifically aimed at the special library sector. As a first outing, it is a well thought out exercise in data collection. The survey would easily have justified 10 pages of questions, but it was decided not to exceed four. Within that limit LISU has successfully collected information on ‘The organisation’, particularly on information strategies, client groups, and outsourcing, ‘Staffing’ – including qualifications and staffing levels, an extremely useful section on ‘Electronic Resources’, including involvement in LAN management, ‘Interlending’ (not obviously significant, but ‘photocopies from peer organisations’ is a telling measure of networking); ‘Use and Performance’ stands in its own right, and I personally would read the ‘Expenditure’ section just to be nosy. The survey sets out the findings by each of the sectors approached for this first survey, before grossing up data as ‘Whole Sector Estimates, and the final chapter ‘Comparison of Sectors’. This is a book which definitely needs to be read backwards: if for no other reason, the sample questionnaire is at the back. Let us start with ‘Expenditure’ in the ‘Comparison of Sectors’ for some sample figures. Most tantalizing are the figures for expenditure per staff member: submissions were too widely interpreted by respondents to make precise comparisons, but ‘Professional Associations’ exceeded even ‘Consultants’: now you know how the Library Association subscription gets spent. I was most interested in ‘Electronic Resources’ (I am fascinated by the information strategy stuff but what is left of the practitioner in me just has to look at what others are doing). The table for ‘Target users’ desktop access to electronic information’ is fascinating: the ‘Pharmaceutical’ sector leads strongly in the use of CD-ROMs, but the picture becomes less clear for ‘Internet’ and ‘Databases’ with variation in extent of adoption of technologies as well as straight numbers of users. My guess is that this just reflects the pace of change in means of delivery of information as new technologies become more stable and cheaper. A follow-up of this section every six months would be very useful. These kind of data are useful to everyone: vendors and practitioners – the vendor appeal of this survey is obvious, but more practitioners should get a copy: I will not pretend that it will give you clear benchmarks, or even justify increased expenditure (although it would with a little imagination): without further research in this area it is difficult to tell what are momentary conditions and what are trends. I have often written of the privilege of the ‘helicopter view’ of the profession that being an adviser gives me. Nobody could occupy this post without making connections across all of the myriad sectors in which librarians work. But all of the ‘adviser community’ are aware how difficult it was to obtain this perspective when you are running a service – and we desperately need greater self-awareness as a profession. Combined with our professional networks, this survey is a real extension of our professional vision.