Austin, Texas
May 18-20, 1994

The Research Library the Day After Tomorrow

A Special Library Perspective

Miriam A. Drake
Georgia Institute of Technology

Special libraries come in all forms and all sizes. They include government libraries, museums, newspapers, corporations, trade associations, professional associations, law firms, consulting firms, and the specialized libraries in universities and public libraries. The libraries themselves may employ one person or hundreds. The solo librarians division of SLA has more than 800 members. Many special libraries have no paper collections other than a few reference books. They rely on online services. Michel Bauwens, the librarian for BP Nutrition and the European Special Librarian of the Year, is one person with one computer and one modem. Michel serves many people and creates and innovates with one person, one computer and one modem.

When SLA was founded in 1909 the Association adopted the motto "putting knowledge to work." The founders of SLA viewed themselves as people who went beyond bibliography. The roots of SLA are focused on results. In 1911, D.N. Handy, in discussing the value of special libraries, stated, "...it is power to furnish required and necessary information where it will do the most good at the right time and in the right shape, with a minimum expenditure of time and energy on the part of those whose business it is to use the information when furnished."1 Handy's statement clearly recognizes that in business, time is money and that the job of gathering, evaluating, synthesizing, and summarizing information within the user's context is the job of the special librarian. Andrew Bostwick, in 1915 discussing the administrative problems of special libraries, said, "We ourselves are obliged in most cases to perform for our patrons the work that is left to the public, in a general library. We ourselves must take these books and this miscellaneous material, extract the desired information, and submit a concise summary or report."2

Today, I want to talk about corporate libraries. Recently, I talked informally with eight librarians from Fortune 500 companies. During the last two years I have talked with hundreds of corporate librarians in my chapter visits for SLA. The goals and operations of these libraries often are in sharp contrast to academic libraries. They are not concerned with collection building, scholarship, or preservation. They are concerned with customer satisfaction, the corporate bottom line, earning revenue to meet the budget, just in time delivery of information, efficiency and user education.

Corporate libraries have been downsized, rightsized, reengineered, outsourced, and eliminated. In some libraries, functions, such as document delivery, cataloging, acquisitions or literature searching are being outsourced. Many libraries have been through TQM and are continuing with it.

The position of librarians in corporations vary from vice president to five levels below the president. Librarians at the vice presidential level often have other duties related to information or administration. Librarians may report to a research division, marketing, legal, information services (IS), management information services (MIS), administration, finance, or human resources. A corporate library may be called information services, information center, technical information, research information center, or technical library.

Librarians working in most companies have been very nervous. Every company and every company library has been affected by down-sizing. A Fortune 500 company library has had a 50 percent reduction in staff, a flat budget for 15 years, and a 400 percent increase in demand for services. This library charges back to company departments millions of dollars for information services.

Almost all corporate librarians report that the demand for information is increasing while corporate support is decreasing. Library services, in most companies, are valued and highly regarded. Management is beginning to realize that information is a competitive and strategic asset; however, it does not show up on the balance sheet. Computing equipment is listed on the balance sheet and is visible and tangible. Because information is intangible people often confuse systems with information.

Librarians in most corporations have great difficulty in communicating directly with senior management. Information provided by the library is filtered through several layers of middle management before it reaches the top. When the information reaches senior managers, they do not know that it came from the library. In one company, the librarian maintains competitive data and other intelligence on 300 companies. This information is used by everyone in the company. The top people may not know that the information was gathered and synthesized by the library.

SLA has been concerned with research which demonstrates the value of information and provides tools for our members. Joanne Marshall was funded by SLA in 1991 to study the impact of the special library on corporate decision making.3 The study was conducted in five financial institutions in Canada. After receiving services from the library or information center, managers and executives were sent a brief survey. There were 299 usable responses from a sample of 390. Most of the managers and executives, 84 percent, reported that the information from the library contributed to better informed decision making. The information received helped executives decide upon a course of action, improve the image of the company, improve relations with a client, exploit a new business opportunity, save time, avoid a poor decision or avoid loss of funds. Cost avoidance also is an important benefit. Several years ago, a corporate librarian reported saving more than three million dollars for his company because he did a patent search at the right time. While these results are positive respondents complained that the library was not accessible by email, the librarian had only superficial knowledge of the industry, and that the library was poorly located.

Many corporate libraries are overcoming the location problem by working with information systems or MIS to bring information to the desktop. Some corporate libraries are acquiring and managing technology in the library. Some companies are having great difficulty in implementing networks and online systems within the company because there are no company standards. Different divisions bought what they wanted and did not worry about whether the equipment and software would talk to anything else. A company with separate business units has five different email systems which are accessed by the head librarian every day. In some companies the libraries located in the U.S. and other parts of the world are not networked. Other companies have had internationally networked libraries for several years. The librarian in one company told me that the MIS folks are considered gurus and the MIS function is being outsourced. In that company and others MIS spent a lot of dollars for main frame hardware and did not pay much attention to software or delivering usable information to the desktop. MIS and information technology appear to have more prestige in some companies but they also are responsible for many more complaints. Distributed computing is a definite threat to MIS and IS departments. Distributed computing means loss of control and probably loss of power and budget. In these companies, the library's prestige is rising, especially when the library is using and managing technology.

Despite the difficulties there is an increasing amount of information being delivered to the desktop. The information ranges from internal data and reports to external databases made available through local mounting of tapes or CD-ROM. More and more companies are providing Internet service for their employees and company libraries are providing accounts with external online vendors for end-user searching.

Through quality improvement and process reengineering librarians are changing their customer services. They are verifying customer requirements, streamlining processes, focusing services, and reducing cycle time. Adding value is a primary objective. There is more filtering, customizing, and analysis. There is continuous feedback from customers through surveys, formal and informal follow-up and focus groups. Yet, marketing remains a major challenge for most libraries.

Many company libraries charge back all or most of their costs to customers. The debate about the nature of library costs and whether they should be direct or overhead continues. Companies flip flop every few years on this issue. Several corporate librarians report the use of Activity Based Costing (ABC) in their companies. One librarian reported that her company abandoned ABC. In this type of managerial accounting it is assumed that costs are incurred to carry out or support an activity. An activity is what is actually done in the company. For example, in my favorite mythical company, Dewey-Cutter, Inc., the manufacture and sale of bubble gum that will not stick to chairs, tables, elevator walls, or floors is one activity. The manufacture and sale of library chocolate bars is another activity. Product development also is an activity. How does a company decide which of its operating costs are incurred for a specific activity? The fundamental criterion is causality, the presence of a relationship between "...a decision, an action or an event and the use of resources."4 The events, decisions, etc. are known as cost drivers. Activity based costing is relatively straight forward in a simple manufacturing operation and more complex in multi-product companies and service companies. Since the library supports activity it is not considered to be an activity by itself. By allocating library costs in an ABC system, the library's services get more visibility, and librarians and their customers get an accurate view of how libraries are supporting various corporate activities and the impact of process improvement.

I want to conclude by briefly discussing why corporate libraries have been eliminated. The stated reason from management's perspective is that the libraries add no value and do not contribute to the bottom line. Many librarians will say that corporate libraries fail because of bad image and the lack of understanding of how important libraries are. Librarians are frustrated by management's short-term thinking and long-term payoffs from information. These perceptions may or may not be accurate in all cases. My observations tend to support the management view. Often librarians mistake bibliography and citations for content. In these days of leaner corporations we need to remember Handy's words of 1911 about producing the right information at the right time and in the right shape. We need to remember that information was scarce. There were no computers or networks. Handy's goals often are not achieved because librarians often fail to understand the context and the mind set of the client. Many librarians do not relate to business issues. They work at the company, not for the company. Understanding business basics, such as product development, production, strategic planning and thinking, marketing, sales, finance, reading a balance sheet and income statement, and competitive analysis are essential in a corporate environment. Corporate librarians need a greater in-depth understanding of technology, how to apply it, and how to manage it. Understanding the company's business, competitive strategies, etc. provide the context for value added services. We know from the Marshall study that corporate libraries can make a difference. This difference stems from strategic thinking, combining internal and external information and working for the company. Despite all the difficulties we have some outstanding of corporate librarians who make a difference in the success of their companies. We have many Dukes of York who are becoming important people in their companies. They are highly valued and prompted one corporate executive to observe that librarians may be America's best kept secret.

References

l Handy, D.N. "The Earning Power of Special Libraries." Special Libraries 2:5 (January, 1911).

2 Bostwick, Andrew L. "Some Administrative Problems of Special Librarians." Special Libraries 6:99 (June, 1915).

3 Marshall, Joanne, G., The Impact of the Special Library on Corporate Decision-Making. Washington, D.C., Special Libraries Association, 1993.

4 Shillinglaw, Gordon and Kathleen McGaharan. Accounting: A Management Approach, Richard D. Irwin, Inc. 1993, 608.