This is frequent question asked by David Shumaker, a fellow member on the PR Advisory Council. David is a clinical associate professor in the School of Library and Information Science at Catholic University and this year’s recipient of the Rose Vormelker Award. He usually poses this question just when we need to stop what we’re doing, take a step back and re-focus on our original goals.
So why is the association pursuing a name change and what do they hope to accomplish? If we can take a step back from our own thoughts about the name, we are reminded that the association's job is to promote and advocate for its members and for the profession we practice. This job includes looking down the road and anticipating the needs of the marketplace as well as the membership. As advocates for the information profession, their challenge is to look to the future, investigate what these changes mean for us as individual members and the profession as a whole.
Another mentor of mine is Dr. James Matarazzo, Dean, Emeritus and Professor at Simmons College in Boston who has long been studying how special libraries are valued by their organizations. His research and writings have always inspired me to be mindful of how my role and library are perceived and to make sure I knew how to keep it relevant to the organizations goals. Part of doing this means understanding how my direct managers and organizational leaders think and the language that will best convey the library's value to them.
Alignment Key Finding: Information professionals should promote rather than defend value-driven benefits. Language that points out the value of information professionals - rather than language that emphasizes the shortcomings of "do it yourself" research - is more effective. Much as you may be tempted to tell them, your customers do not want to hear that the information they put together using standard search engines is a waste of time. However, they may be receptive to learning about the additional tools you have mastered that will enrich and expand upon their findings, and the professional network available to you as an information pro.
Do leaders and managers survive and thrive by describing their operational job functions or by defining how they contribute to their organization's strategy and success? The Alignment research revealed that value-driven language versus functional language is more effective in communicating the important role and value of information professionals to key audiences.
“Information” while accurate, is a functional, static descriptor. When static information is connected to the concept of “knowledge”, it becomes a richer and actionable concept that more effectively communicates the value that information professionals provide. Testing further revealed that “knowledge” more effectively positioned the association more broadly now and well into the future. Key audiences of this testing included corporate, academic, health care and government sectiors as well as employers or potential empoyers of information professionals. For a full breakdown of the demographics, job functions and sectors tested, see page 2 of “Alignment Ambassador Q&A” on the Alignment Wiki at http://wiki.sla.org/download/attachments/33587698/Alignment+Ambassador+QandA.doc.
Before coming to a decision based on one word or acronym, at least consider the true meaning behind all the words in the proposed name: *Thanks to Stephen Abram for finding these definitions.
Strategic - "Highly important to or an integral part of a strategy or plan of action."
Knowledge - "The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered or learned."
Professional - "A skilled practitioner; an expert."
Even if there are times when you don't feel particularly strategic, knowledgeable or professional, it doesn't matter because whatever your role, organization you work in or industry you serve, you are all of these things. For instance, a government librarian provides knowledge that helps lawmakers or agency leaders make better strategic decisions. Or as David Martin, President of the Iowa Chapter who works in the Pomerantz Business Library at the University of Iowa recently wrote to me in an email:
“I am an academic librarian and I think almost every academic library in the country has an “ask a librarian” link or something like that. Why would we do that? We want our users/customers to ask us. Why? Because we have the knowledge that will save them time (and money in some cases) to get the information that they need to complete whatever project they are working on (a paper, a research article, a class presentation, looking for a job). That to me is strategic - so the idea of a strategic knowledge professional makes some sense to me.
We also use our knowledge to teach our users to find information on their own; we teach them and share our knowledge so they can learn, find, discover, think, and use it. If that is not strategic then I’m not sure what is. We have librarians on our campus now who do not work in a specific library physical place - they are “embedded” in the department or college and do all the things they used to do - answer reference questions, make collection decisions, teach classes and small groups, interact with their users. Back in 2003, I voted to change our name. This new name might not be the one that I would pick yet I think it does reflect a future direction that we can build on.”
Wouldn't it be great if everyone understood that “strategic knowledge professional” applied to all librarians working their magic in non-traditional settings in non-traditional ways? We have a solid and respected history as librarians and could have an even more solid future together as strategic knowledge professionals.
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