Take a leap from being a librarian to becoming an information consultant
Abstract:
Some of the key issues of the migration process are outlined: information professionals – educated within the LIS field – later in their professional career either rise above or fall into information consultancy. It is emphasised that the opportunities for librarians to be key players in the knowledge management processes are immense but they have to make a fundamental shift in thinking and acting in their intermediary roles in organisations. The concept of cultural orientations is discussed along with the problem of professional identification and the need for more career-driven programmes at LIS institutions. Differences in the perception of relevant skills and competencies are presented on the basis of international studies.
Doing things differently
The general trend is that an increasing number of independent information consultants do not have a librarian background but they are educated in other related fields. Librarians are ‘native’ in the large and heterogeneous population of professionals who can be hardly classified as information professionals – associated with different occupational groups and affiliated with many different kinds of organisations. The information professions have many potential domains in common for their activities. At the same time, the range of skills they exercise and the functions they perform are different. Their activities move through and stretch across many academic disciplines and fields of professional practice.
Professions, like ecological niches, are dynamic. In this view, they are capable of supporting a number of related species without leading to the state of competitive overlap. This is a useful way to understand the term ‘information professional’. The idea of competitive evolution also influences librarians. Their previous status and somewhat monopolistic role in providing information is shrinking today as new IT fundamentally changes the conditions of access and use of information. In this new heterogeneous information marketplace, librarians – like many other professionals – must be flexible in meeting the demands and challenges of the environment.
For many years, Davenport and Prusak have expressed their admiration for librarians and have been heartened by the role they have begun to play in knowledge management. In their book Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know (1998) they emphasise that the awareness and application of knowledge have always been at the centre of the librarians’ work; therefore, it is important that companies exploit the skills of people within librarianship with competence in organising and retrieving information and published information backgrounds. But they also say that librarians ‘… need to change some things about how they do their work’.
They argue that librarians – those whose responsibility is information service – often operate under the wrong conceptual model of what an information service should be, suited to today’s corporate needs and constraints. They call this outmoded concept the ‘warehouse’ model in which they offer a wide range of information. The suggested alternative concepts are the ‘expertise centre’ and the ‘network’. One of the critical issues of a changed concept is the integration or even the cooperation between other information-oriented groups and experts in the organisation, e.g. information system developers, market researchers, executive assistants and finance.
This contribution aims at pointing to some of the key issues implemented in the above statement, and the nature of the ‘leap’ from being a librarian to becoming an information consultant.
Assessing the demands for the information professional
One of the reasons why businesses and government organisations routinely avail themselves as consultants is the benefits of just-in-time procurement of expertise. Rapid changes in the business environment are continuously addressing the demand of information-seeking, compiling and presenting skills and competencies. Since it would be impossible to keep on their own staff the range of skills needed, to hire a specialist or external consultant is often the most ‘natural’ solution. Other reasons are that the consultants come with a fresh perspective (without institutional or professional blindness) and they bring experience from many other contexts. Being free from internal political interests and traditions, they can often see things that no one else in the organisation can see. Sometimes consultants are also used as communication devices for managers to sell their own ideas in the organisation. In certain situations it is a practical and smooth way to get across personal and organisational barriers in launching strategic and tactical decisions.
For more information on the demands on which information consultants reflect and their possible roles, see Chapter 1.
Skills and competencies
Librarians establish the collection of resources. The information consultant seeks the resources after identifying their client’s needs.
Deriving the knowledge from the client’s business functions
The opportunities for a basic librarian in knowledge management are immense. But they have to make a fundamental shift in thinking about what organisations do with their information resources. They have to be alert in the market themselves, finding new and urgent activity domains and demonstrating how their own competencies can be utilised in the strategic management of knowledge. Linked up to the management’s strategic apex, they often have to identify and reach out to various experts who can contribute to a project or establish well-defined activities involved in the day-to-day operations of a team.
If librarians grasp the reality of their core competency and learn to use their skills to address not only information (particularly printed information) but knowledge, including who knows what, who knows whom and where the knowledge resides, they can easily plunge into a venture of information consultancy.
Information auditing, as a means of identifying the information needs of an organisation and matching them against existing services and resources, is a process which usually has been promoted by information professionals. Although the term ‘audit’ implies elements of counting, information auditing also implies the examination of how the information resources are used, by whom and for what purpose. By mapping the information flow within an organisation and between an organisation and its external environment, this process identifies the gaps, duplications, bottlenecks and other inefficiencies in the existing flow. It is an established management methodology that addresses several key issues related to the services of LIS professionals. Experience shows that mainly external consultants have been used for this task – as a first step in the development of a knowledge management strategy.
To make the leap from the traditional searching information for specific questions to information consultancy – a higher level of advice-and-guidance variety of discussions with involvement in the managers’ strategic decisions – requires also another status in the client relations.
Cooperation with other information professionals
Experience has shown that professionals who have already expanded their activities by moving from the traditional information sectors to areas of integrated information activities generally have successful careers and play interesting roles in their environment in all parts of the world. Previously unheard-of new roles seem to constantly appear in the information field. For well-educated professionals a growing market in all sectors of the economy exists. It is an ongoing dynamic process where cooperation plays a very important role: information professionals with different backgrounds and from different organisations interact to build the necessary bridge that links demands for information with resources, wherever they may be.
Managing an entrepreneurship
As the information professional is mainly independent, they have to be successful on their own. The required entrepreneurial skills include:
being able to stick to the point (and not fall in love with the researched subject; do not extend your engagement beyond the prospect’s requirements as the client will not pay for it);
For more information on business practicalities, see Chapter 4.
Special attention to librarians becoming independent information professionals
Balance between accuracy and timeliness, as traditionally the concept of quality of librarians focuses merely on accuracy.
In task or person culture (see Table 9.2), contrary to role culture, all the tasks which can be fulfilled by a subcontractor more efficiently have to be contracted out; this attitude focuses more on the internal core competence.
Table 9.2
Possible cultural orientations of information professionals (cultural orientations of Handy,2 based on Harrison)
| Type of culture | Main character of organisation |
| Role culture | Based on external control, it is authoritative bureaucratic. Power derives from a person’s position and little scope exists for expert power. Controlled by procedures, role descriptions and authority definitions. Predictable and consistent systems and procedures are highly valued. |
| Task culture | Based on internal control, it is flexible, the borders are faded. Teams are formed to solve particular problems. Power derives from expertise as long as a team requires expertise. It is all a small team approach, who are highly skilled and specialist in their own markets of experience. |
| Person culture | Based also on internal control, it is flexible, the borders are faded. The cooperation among individuals is based on current interest. Some professional partnerships can operate as person cultures, because each partner brings a particular expertise and clientele to the firm. |
Understanding the value of their own work, because librarians do not work for direct payment.
Culture makes the difference
Several institutions, organisations, companies, associations have libraries. A great number of them employ civil servants as librarians; these professionals work in a semi-monopolistic island within the national or even international market of information. The civil servant position offers greater security of work, and as they do not require the continuous struggle for clients, they do not necessarily require highly developed marketing or entrepreneurial practice. Although there are distinctions among cultures and countries, the shrinking of the above-mentioned islands seems to be an international trend. Factors in this process include:
the strive for greater efficiency;
involvement of new IT equipment and solutions;
These circumstances urge librarians to defend their positions or work, demonstrating their abilities as an income-or knowledge-generator or as a serious time-saver. These differences in attitude have more components which can be demonstrated within the shift between organisational cultures.
Not all aspects of the cultural orientations affect the efficiency of information professionals. The masculinity-femininity or the assertiveness is irrelevant in this aspect. Table 9.1 lists the orientations which influence the competiveness.1
Table 9.1
Competitive attitudes within stable and challenging environments
| Attitudes within stable working environment | Attitudes within inspiring environment |
| Fitting into hierarchies | Acting in professional’s network |
| Attention to the past and heritage | Attention to future and challenges |
| Attention to close colleagues and players | Attention to the wide scope of players |
| Being proud of the qualities of own group | Watching own group qualities within wider context |
| Avoiding uncertainties | Handling uncertainties |
| Attention to processes | Attention to outcomes |
Table 9.1 is based on the competitive cultural orientations of the typology of Hofstede, Trompenaars and the GLOBE. (This table uses the orientation’s names converted into the purpose of this chapter. The original names are: power distance, future orientation, institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, performance orientation.)
Not all professionals react to challenges actively. Some of them are frightened in such environments. In this case these attitudes are stable – and the consultant profession is not advised for them.
Librarians work overwhelmingly in role culture or orientation; information professionals work in task or person culture.
The concept of role orientation implies not only the actions but also the expectations. Since the expectations of the LIS field are traditionally low, it is a widely held view that information professionals (the term is used indiscriminately) will remain committed to libraries as institutions, in which they aggregate, contain and provide access to the recorded knowledge of mankind. Certainly there will be some who will continue to play this essential but limited role in the future information society. But, in order to survive in the employment game, many of them will gradually turn into the function of information and knowledge manager, and become more involved with the production, distribution and communication of information and knowledge assets.
Expert practitioner ‘falls into’ consultancy
To illustrate some real-life situations in the career pattern of information professionals and to show the many different ways people can ‘fall into’ consultancy or special professional roles, we refer to a panel discussion which took place at the SLA Annual Conference in Denver in 2007, organised by the Competitive Intelligence Division.
In fact, I had been practising CI [competitive intelligence] skills for many years until it truly became clear to me that I had taken a major plunge from info pro into the fascinating world of competitive intelligence. Although this may sound naive, there is an easy reason for my failure to easily grasp the reality of my core competency.
Directly stated, I took the plunge as part of the job that simply required CI skills under the functional job title of ‘Information Research Professional’. Although it was never officially spelled out, I had indeed many years devoted to various aspects of competitive intelligence.
Gamlek3 points out that since acquiring information is indeed the desired goal of CI practitioners, the CI task often falls within the corporate information centre or to staffers who have MLS (Master of Library Science) degrees. The ability to conduct professional research and report relevant findings is an expertise which is essential for a successful CI group. Together with the additional participation of subject experts and bearers of specialised technical and analytical skills, the librarians or information professionals have an important role in intelligence-gathering. Therefore, many librarians are attracted to the CI competence. Those who are able to adapt the various analytical frameworks available (and learn to provide analysis) can build a successful career within CI.
The migration from the expert searcher to a CI professional or information consultant can have various paths: job opportunities, additional training or learning the core CI skills from colleagues are the usual elements of progress. Gamlek emphasises that the dynamic mix of various expert skills and competencies within an eclectic CI team is offering the best opportunity to get the necessary on-the-job experiences to make this major transition.
Expectations and perceptions in professional education
A great need exists for a broader scope of training, reeducation and continuous learning programmes – based on the idea of interdisciplinary interaction. The challenge for educators and educational institutions is to maintain diversity in career paths in the curriculum design and to design them in a more flexible way. There is a need for more breadth and depth in educational programmes across the dimensions of technology, information, business and human relations. It is also a serious appeal to the university accreditation bodies and professional groups that provide curriculum guidelines, to allow more freedom in curriculum design.
To successfully address the required new skills and competencies of modern information professionals, there is a need for strategic pragmatism. The development of the profession needs the synergetic effect of cooperating activities as well as an interdisciplinary holistic appeal in order to find viable solutions for information problems.
The new career-driven programmes for information professionals are placing new demands that often are beyond the capabilities of what can be offered by a single, discipline-oriented academic department within a university. The design of more relevant curricula will require cooperative efforts and multidisciplinary approaches that cut across university departments or even colleges. The future scenario of information profession education forecasts a variety of mechanisms that could be explored to achieve these goals, e.g. a joint degree or combined undergraduate/ graduate degrees.
Based on empirical data and experiences gained by information professionals – educated within the field of LIS and later migrated to information consultancy – we have collected individual viewpoints among our colleagues pointing to those essential changes this migration implies.
There is a common mismatch between the expectations and perceptions of the key players of the labour market (employers, students and educators):
Employers believe that educators are not developing the appropriate qualities (e.g. flexibility, commitment, reliability).
Educators seem to believe that they are developing the appropriate qualities.
Students appear to believe that they do actually possess these qualities.
The lack of relevant work experience was another important issue of the recognised mismatch. Although there appears to be a match between curricular objectives and outcomes in education on the one hand, and recruitment criteria and training needs in employment on the other, there is in fact a hiatus between them. It may be, therefore, that there is a gap between ‘rhetoric’ and ‘reality’ in the professional education, which needs addressing.
In a recent study carried out by an international research team, the educational perceptions of requirements of the information profession in China were analysed.4 The central findings also demonstrate a mismatch between the perceptions of employees with an information science/information management background and those of employers concerning central work functions, actual positions, importance to and status in institutions and enterprises. Information professionals are primarily employed for their information retrieval skills, but are also used in clerical work. In contrast, employers perceive market analytic skills and industrial expertise as most central for the profession.
To be credible, not only information professionals or consultants should build their own business according to their market requirement, but also LIS education and training should focus on their ‘clients’.
Ways of repositioning the librarian profession and schools
There are advantages and disadvantages of former librarian information consultants. One of the advantages is that in their image they are less likely to use unfair business methods. Apart from this, there are other aspects which consider positioning.
With or without the ‘L’ (librarian) in their title, information professionals must find a niche with special tasks that permit them to utilise their skills. To do so, they must operate with and/or compete with others in the large crew of professionals who develop information systems and services.
The information profession grew out of librarianship, but some feel we have grown far beyond the designation of a librarian. Some feel that the LIS profession should remove the ‘L’ from library and information science to make greater recognition of the profession and develop a better image for the labour market. Indeed, a number of LIS schools have changed name in the last two decades and rebadged themselves as ‘information studies’ or ‘information school’. Many are of the combination of ‘information something’ variety, qualifying ‘management’, ‘science’, ‘systems’, etc.
In some cases these changes in nomenclature are largely cosmetic, while in others they signal a significant shift in terms of organisational structure, asset concentration and academic orientation.
In any event, many librarians perceive such actions as an abandonment of professional values as core curricular concerns. Some schools consciously attempt to achieve a balance between centrism and peripheral engagement. On the website of one of the leading LIS schools in the US, the following statement is given as a mini manifesto: ‘The School’s faculty believes strongly that librarianship and newly emerging related fields must be held together to prevent libraries from becoming obsolete and other fields from being unconcerned about issues of access, privacy and service.’5
As the information studies and information school domain expands, traditional LIS programmes will come under threat. It seems likely that some of the more robust LIS schools will progressively abandon the core competence areas of LIS in favour of the peripheral ones, as the periphery over time becomes a new centre of intellectual gravity. It is predicted that ‘a distinct population of schools will emerge over the next few years, who will be boundary spanners, balanced delicately between the old and the new world. The rest will be a Lumpenproletariat [deprived, poor, unemployed] of schools lacking the resources, imagination and will to reposition themselves for the twenty-first century.’6 This terminology may be a strong provocation, but the underlying argument is hard to rebut.
This kind of repositioning strategy is characteristic for the development of the domain of the field all over the world. The generalist concept of the librarian is becoming more and more obsolete and will ‘wither away’ in the light of the great demand of a cadre of information professionals with special skills and knowledge, who can also add special value to information – by facilitating access, filtering and selection, analysis and synthesis, packaging and presentation, teaching and advising and using a whole series of interpersonal skills. In this process there is naturally an excess of old skills and a dearth of new skills in information-handling. Focus is shifting towards a more value-adding and user-oriented service concept.
In this new information landscape, therefore, it is natural that many librarians are becoming information consultants and utilise their special skills and competence on an entrepreneurial basis. The information professional who will assume the function of information manager must possess adaptability, logic, accuracy, analytic capability, etc., in addition to the necessary personal qualities.
Chapter 9 checklist
Assess your working environment according to cultural attitudes (see Table 9.1).
Which segments of your (LIS) education contributed or were neutral to your business development?
Which information profession competence was offered in professional education?
2Handy, C.B. (1985) Understanding Organizations. 3rd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
1Bakacsi, G. (2007) [Culture and economy/wealth – The correlations of economic developing and development and Globe cultural dependents] Kultúra és gazda(g)ság – A gazdasági fejl
dés és fejlettség és a GLOBE kultúraválto-zóinak összefüggései. Vezetéstudomány. Vol. 38, Különszam. pp.35–45.
3Gamlek, V. (2007) Intelligence Insights. The Bulletin of the Competitive Intelligence Division. Post-conference issues of the CI Division program in Denver 2007. The conference highlights, and other content. pp. 12–13.
4Guoqiu, L., Fuling, L., Xun, L. and Ingwersen, P. (2010) Educational perceptions of requirements of the information profession in China. Journal of Information Science. August. pp.1–19
5Cronin, B. (2002) Holding the center while prospecting at the periphery: domain identity and coherence in North American information studies education. Education for Information. Vol. 20, No. 1. pp. 1–25.
6Ibid.