Journalist-turned-librarian Katie Dayani recently spoke with Maida Rubin, global Customer Community Manager for Softlink’s Information Centres division, to discuss how librarians can leverage changes in technology and promote their value within the companies they provide services to.

Why do you think it is essential for libraries that are focussed on internal staff services, to provide an online library management system?

Today’s workforce is so mobile. You might have a staff member working at 10 o’clock at night in a hotel room on the other side of the country because they have just spent the entire day at an important conference, or they have a really important client meeting in the morning that they are preparing for.

Technology like Liberty extends the reach of the library so people who can’t come in to the library or phone up to ask for help can still access services.

They can log on to the catalogue and say “great, we have this resource I can use” and with Liberty there is the ‘more like this’ functionality, which directs them to similar articles they might not have known about otherwise.

When you have a spreadsheet-based catalogue, possibly living on an Intranet, it might be hard for those users to access or discover the resources that are on offer, so they put the library in the too-hard basket.

Online library management solutions are key to guiding users down the path of self-discovery rather than relying on the library staff for everything. Library staff are then free to work on more complex research requests or other business-critical projects.

So do you think the role of the company librarian is moving away from the more traditional tasks like lending and cataloguing?

In my current role, I have recently been joined by an intern who is looking after tasks like populating the catalogue, so there is still a need for that side of librarianship. But when librarians have solutions that work to reduce those administration tasks, and library users can confidently take charge of their own research, then yes, I believe that librarians can extend themselves outside of those traditional boundaries.

Having technology that allows staff to be in charge of their own research allows me to focus on library strategy and engaging with other external and internal parties on projects that support the broader goals of the company.

That’s an interesting point. We sometimes hear librarians expressing concern that the companies they serve aren’t making full use of the resources and skills they can offer. What can librarians do to embed the library’s value in the minds of the company?

I recommend building a reputation as someone who is willing to partner with others on projects. Internal networking to get champions is really important and the Information Technology team can be a great place to look for partnering opportunities.

They are well placed to highlight things that librarians don’t think of. For instance, my IT team recommended we look at using Single Sign-On technology for Liberty. Coming from a library background, I just didn’t even think of that kind of thing but it’s ended up making it even easier for our staff to access the online library catalogue.

Over the last few years, I have put a lot of emphasis on building my internal networks and it’s been exciting to see people getting excited about the library, acknowledging the library, thinking of me and to bring me in on projects to see how our resources could best help them.  Now when discussing a new product or project they are thinking about the library first, which is a big win.