Strike up the brand: how to market your value to the rest of the world

Information Outlook, May, 2004 by Jill Strand

A future librarian finishing her MLIS was fielding questions from her husband's colleagues at a company Christmas party. When asked where she hoped to work after graduation, she stated "in a corporate library." Three different people in three different instances all mulled her response before coming back with the same reply: "You mean like a law firm?" (Apparently it was the only type of corporation they could think of that had books.)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Another young librarian, hired for her first position out of graduate school, soon found that her responsibilities had less to do with professional librarianship than with clerical tasks and keeping her non-librarian boss organized.

The SLA website has a page dedicated to the value of the information professional. Among its collection of statistics, it refers to a study conducted by SLA which found that 85 percent of the companies ranked in the top 100 on the Fortune 500 list employed information professionals. By comparison, less than 50 percent of the companies ranked in the bottom 100. (http://www.sla.org/content/learn/ipvalue/index.cfm)

One could infer from this that a library or information center makes an important contribution to the successful execution of an organizations' strategy, whether it is in a government agency, non-profit, law firm, or corporation. Yet, many people, including top managers, still don't get it.

How Did We Get Here?

This is all the more disconcerting considering how hard information professionals work to promote their value to our clients, managers, and organizations. In 1990, James M. Matarazzo and Laurence Prusak published the first of two studies that sought to understand how libraries in U.S. corporations are valued by their senior management. They interviewed the managers (typically people at the director or vice president level who were not librarians) to whom the library manager reported. More than 160 organizations participated, including Marriott, 3M, CocaCola, and Wells Fargo. Among the findings: "There is little managerial consensus on how the library adds specific value to the firm's performance or how the value should be measured."

A follow-up study in 1995 noted in its introduction that despite the rise of the Internet and a growing assumption that every employee could become a knowledge worker, only a little over 20 percent of senior managers surveyed listed reference services as the most valued service the library performed. The reality reflected in these studies played itself out during the recent economic downturn when many corporations, viewing their libraries as cost centers, cut their budgets to the bone or dissolved them entirely.

Today there is no shortage of resources (books, articles, and workshops) teaching us how to translate our value within our organizations. Yet despite our best efforts to follow this expert advice, misunderstandings about what we do continue to persist. Many people still appear confused when they hear that many of us gained a graduate degree to build upon our skills. Too many companies and executives are unsure where to put librarians on the organizational chart, and too often our salaries do not reflect our level of training or experience. After a decade of reassessing our roles and working to communicate the value we contribute to our organizations, what else can we do to change these misconceptions?

The answer may have less to do with the message than with target audience.

The Time Is Ripe

Recent announcements of library closings on the solo librarians' online discussion list (http://www.sla.org/division/dsol/discussion.html) prompted a few listserv members to ask what could be done to change misguided perceptions of our profession. One thought that there could be more advocacy activities on a national level. Another suggested creating a marketing institute that could help librarians demonstrate their value.

Now may be an excellent time to promote our profession. In addition to the August 2003 Challenger, Gray & Christmas study identifying "corporate librarian" as one of three top hot jobs for 2004, local newspapers have begun to write articles on such libraries as those at Boeing and Monsanto. (See sidebar.)

Sam Richter, director of The James J. Hill Reference Library in St. Paul, MN, is frequently asked to speak to business, and organizations across the country on library value and where to find quality business information. "People want this information," he says, "but they just don't know where and how to get it."

When will the time be better to tell decision makers how our skills can save them time, effort, and money?

The Experts Weigh In

There are many in our profession who address the value of information professionals and how they can market themselves to their organization's senior management. Mary Ellen Bates of Bates Information Services recently joined the discussion on the solo librarians' listserv. She noted that we not only need to "add value but to surface that added value so that our patrons/clients/users and upper management are aware of what we do besides manage information." She'll expand on those views in an article scheduled for the May issue of Searcher magazine as well as a white paper titled "Marketing for the Info-Entrepreneur: Top Techniques to Build Your Business," available from Free Print in May. (See sidebar.)