{"id":87275,"date":"2015-01-30T08:00:55","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T14:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=87275"},"modified":"2015-01-20T20:15:10","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T02:15:10","slug":"show-our-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=87275","title":{"rendered":"Show Our Value"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Morrison, Senior Assistant, INALJ Alberta<\/a> and INALJ Manitoba<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Show Our Value<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Sarah<\/a>When I first started at library school, I really didn\u2019t know if my previous experiences would be useful \u2013 how relevant will a Master\u2019s degree in a bunch of dead languages and a 3 year stint in retail management (albeit in a bookstore) end up being? However, I\u2019ve come to realize that some of the underlying principles I had to develop through managing a retail business unit are very transferable to the work of librarians and information professionals.<\/p>\n

Transferable Skills are Transferable Skills, No Matter Where You Get Them<\/b><\/p>\n

In some of my introductory classes, I was a bit taken aback by what I perceived to be the hostility toward dealing with the (what I thought were obvious) realities of proving your value. I came directly out of the world of budgets and profit & loss statements and margins and bonuses. It\u2019s not that I expected it to be the same in most libraries, but I kind of assumed that the underlying principle of being able to show what kind of value (sometimes monetary) we bring to an organisation would be a given. Let me tell you, it was not. In my opinion, transferable skills are transferable skills, no matter where you get them from. But I was convinced for a few weeks that one of my profs hated me when I drew a parallel between the skills I\u2019d learned to recommend books to people in a retail environment with the readers\u2019 advisory skills I was being taught. (I still stand by that, by the way. The end result is different, obviously \u2013 a librarian isn\u2019t trying to get someone to buy a book. But it\u2019s unfair to dismiss the honed skills that booksellers can cultivate just because they\u2019re trying to get someone to buy<\/i> the book.)<\/p>\n

I was heartened a bit when I took a Special Libraries and an Academic Libraries course in my second term. The professor for Special Libraries is a special librarian in a for-profit environment himself, and the Academic Libraries course was taught by a former Head Librarian. They talked about what I view as the more pragmatic aspects of being in those library settings, and it was a relief to see that there were people addressing this in my program. This has been reinforced on my co-op placement so far, in a Knowledge Management department of a professional services firm. Sometimes you hear us joking that we<\/i> don\u2019t even know how to define KM, and that is a massive<\/i> problem \u2013 if we don\u2019t know how to express what we do, there\u2019s no way that the budget-makers are going to know what we bring to the firm. My senior manager has been a huge mentor for me in seeing someone being able to articulate what we do, in ways that suit the person he\u2019s talking to. He can bring out the metrics for the budget-conscious directors, and the values for the directors who think that way. Ultimately, he wants to be able to take the skills and principles of librarianship and information management and keep applying them to the firm \u2013 he is just very conscious of the fact that no one is going to just take for granted that we\u2019re doing good work. We have to prove <\/i>it.<\/p>\n

Advocating for Our Value<\/b><\/p>\n

Taking this a bit further, I don\u2019t actually think it\u2019s a bad thing for us to have to speak up for ourselves and advocate for the value we provide, whether it\u2019s to a business, educational institution, or municipality. We<\/i> obviously believe in what we do, or at least I hope so. What we do is important, and necessary. But I think it is very na\u00efve and dangerous to assume that everyone else in the world will also know that. Look at the huge numbers of librarian stereotypes out there \u2013 it is clear that society at large has absolutely no idea what librarians can offer. This is especially true for information professionals. We show up everywhere, often in job titles that don\u2019t contain the word \u2018librarian\u2019, and we can bring a wealth of unique and important skills and viewpoints to the business or organization. We cannot rely on other people knowing what we do, because if we do that, we will<\/i> be misunderstood and overlooked. If we don\u2019t speak up for ourselves, someone else will. We need to take control of the messaging around what we can do and provide, whether it\u2019s in a not-for-profit or a business context.<\/p>\n

I think people who are working in for-profit environments just take this for granted \u2013 if you don\u2019t, you\u2019ll end up without a job. I know I thought this way when I started my MLIS. This is why it concerns me that we\u2019re not necessarily being taught the language of showing our value. We need to be able to assess the organization we\u2019re in and identify not only our value, but how to express it. A knowledge manager in a professional services firm needs to be able to show that what they do actually helps the firm create and maintain business, and revenue. Whereas, an academic librarian needs to be able to take potentially the same underlying value and express it in one way to their immediate boss, and perhaps another way to administration of the university.<\/p>\n

Toolkit <\/b><\/p>\n

When thinking about how to express your value to an organization, keep these ideas in mind:<\/p>\n