Swedish corporations value information - International News - Column

Information Outlook, Feb, 1999 by Margareta Nelke

Concerned about the future of special librarians? Worried about the roles that information professionals will play? If you need reassurance, a recent study by Swedish librarian Margareta Nelke should make you feel comfortable. Published by Tekniska Litteratursallskapet (The Swedish Society for Technical Documentation, P.O. Box 55580, 102 04 Stockholm, Sweden, http://www.tls.se), Knowledge Management in Swedish Corporations: The Value of Information and Information Services details how important information management is in the corporate world.

Nelke's objectives in conducting the study were to try to quantify the value of information and look into the management of information, to show the role of the corporate library in the information management process, and to classify what will be important in the future for knowledge management. As part of her job as manager of the Research Intelligence Library at Tetra Pak Research & Development AB, Lurid, Sweden, Nelke surveyed nine corporations, five of which had an established corporate library. The corporations covered a wide range of industries, including medical, food, chemicals, tobacco, energy, and automotive.

Nelke's questionnaire went to 239 people in marketing and research and development departments within the nine companies. With a respectable response rate of 45 percent, she was able to quantify the value of external information within a range of 20,000 to 120,000 Swedish kroner ($2,500 to $15,000) per used document.

Significantly, end-user researchers identified two major areas in which the use of information generates direct revenues. New product ideas develop and new markets open up. More specifically, Nelke's respondents told her that information is valuable when it provides the answers that would otherwise be gained through extensive experimentation, when it prevents patent infringement, and when it facilitates investigations into the business environment, markets, competitors, and customers. Most SLA members know this instinctively, but Nelke puts the numbers to our intuition.

Nelke found the time devoted to handling and assimilating information to be quite high. The reading time cost far exceeds the handling cost for all document types, with the exception of electronic documents. Her figures include an average reading cost of 500 Swedish kroner ($62.50) for a journal article and 5,000 kroner ($625) for a book.

Follow-up interviews to the questionnaire revealed a strong interest in desktop delivery of information. Interviewees, however, wanted this information to be selective and relevant in order to decrease the amount of information they received and cut down on paper storage. Encouragingly, almost every person Nelke contacted affirmed the importance of having a formal corporate library. Advantages include money saved by not duplicating work, by making data available in a structured, retrievable manner, and by offering help in accessing relevant information.

The arrival of Intranets has made feasible the virtual library. Gradually, Swedish libraries can minimize their purchasing, circulating, and collection maintenance activities. In Nelke's view, the virtual corporate library must be proactively engaged in the information strategies and structures of the companies with which they are affiliated. The future tasks of the corporate library include engaging in the development and use of corporate intranets, acting as consultants in developing business intelligence systems, and following the progress of automated tools for the retrieval and handling of information. Working cooperatively with the corporate IT department to achieve goals is important as well.

Nelke concludes by saying, "I am strongly convinced that one of the most important tasks a corporate library can undertake to motivate its existence in the future is to make selected, relevant, and reliable information and information sources available at the desktops as well as making good tools available and train the clients in using them. The path ahead is narrow, winding, and thorny, but the reward will be that the library at last can play the strategic role it aims to play in the company."

Although the study was limited to Sweden, it provides excellent benchmarking examples for special libraries worldwide.

Nelke is chief, Tetra Pak Research & Development AB Research Intelligence Library, Lund, Sweden. She may be reached via e-mail at margareta. nelke@tetrapak.com. For more information on International News or to contribute to the column, please contact Marydee Ojala (marydee@xmission.com).