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Changing society, role of information
professionals and strategy for libraries
Hisamichi Yamazaki, Ph.D.
Chuo University
Tokyo, Japan
[email protected] Date 2nd version: 30/08/2006
Meeting: 133 Management and Marketing
Simultaneous Interpretation: Yes
WORLD LIBRARY AND INFORMATION CONGRESS: 72ND IFLA GENERAL CONFERENCE AND
COUNCIL
20-24 August 2006, Seoul, Korea
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla72/index.htm
Abstract
The environment surrounding libraries and information centers has been seriously
altered because of social and technological change with the following four aspects.
(1) Information technology (IT) has made a great advance with popularizing Internet
access and use throughout the world.
(2) The volume of information production has increased to an alarming extent
especially on the Web system.
(3) Striking and unexampled changes have occurred in the use of information and
information systems.
(4) The value of information itself has been enhanced within an organization as well as
in an individual.
From the points stated above, strategic guidelines for libraries and information
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professionals are proposed. These would helpful to overcome the environmental
changes around them and to bring further development and brighter future to them.
This paper is intended to review the key aspects of the environmental changes now
occurring around libraries, information centers and library professionals, followed by a
tentative proposal with the aim of making a breakthrough for them in the digital era. We
will focus our attention on information professionals (IP) in special libraries, information
centers and so on at first. They have been exposing themselves to the risk that the
resources assigned to their libraries would be rather easily reduced, influenced by the
difficulties in finance and the renewal of management plans of parent organizations
mainly due to economic depression. This makes them even more sensitive to efficient
and effective management of their libraries. Therefore, by analyzing them, we are able
to acquire some “leading indicators” in library services management and human resource
management for library people.
1. Environmental change –viewed from four aspects
The environment surrounding libraries and information centers has been seriously
altered because of the social and technological change that took place in these ten years.
Four types of change trends or the four aspects of the whole change process have been
observed which are to be managed and overcome by libraries and library professionals.
They are as follows:
(1) Information technology (IT) has made a great advance with popularizing
Internet access and its use by people throughout the world.
(2) The volume and the variety of information that are being produced day by day
have reached to an alarming extent especially on the Web system.
(3) Striking and unexampled changes have been brought by end-users of
information and information systems; one of which is the fact that end-users of
information have become able to gather necessary information through the Internet
without visiting any libraries or consulting librarians, the other is that end-users' view in
information access has altered from a discipline-oriented one to a problem-oriented one.
(4) The value of information itself has been enhanced in business scenes as well as
in daily lives.
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2. A great advance in information technology (IT)
According to OECD Factbook 20061, information and communication technologies
(ICT) have been playing the leading role for more than ten years with prominent
productivity growth.
In most OECD countries, ICT services have increased their relative share of
business services value added because of the development of telecommunication
services and software industry. This has brought a general shift towards a service
economy mainly because of the achievement of computerization in most industries.
With regard to Internet access, in Korea, Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway
and Germany, more than 60% of households had Internet access by 2004, while in the
Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Mexico and Turkey, only about one-fifth or less had
Internet access by 2004. In general, households with children were seemed to have
Internet access at home in 2004.
From this viewpoint, one may say that the key factors in the development in IT are
the telecommunication and networking service symbolized by the Internet and computers
with the emphasis on software.
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3. A tremendous explosion of information
Table 1 shows long term changes of the sales or the use of various information
media in Japan.
Table1 Production and distribution of information on various media in Japan, 1990-2000
1990 1995 2000 1990 1995 2000
Index number
(1990=100)
Book sales Hundred million yen 8,660 10,470 9,706 100 121 112
Magazine sales Hundred million yen 12,638 15,427 14,261 100 122 113
Newspapers Circulation 51,908 52,855 53,709 100 102 103
Movie theater Ten thousand 14,600 12,704 13,539 100 87 93
visitors
Video software Hundred million yen 3,862 4,050 4,154 100 105 108
(user expenses)
Audio CD Hundred million yen 3,233 5,512 5,239 100 170 162
production
Television industry Hundred million yen 23,967 25,608 29,978 100 107 125
sales
Satellite broadcast Hundred million yen 952 1,300 2,924 100 137 307
sales
Video game software Ten thousand 5,357 7,190 8,126 100 134 152
shipment
Personal computers Hundred million yen 5,859 13,916 21,442 100 238 366
(hardware)
shipment
Software for Hundred million yen 1,486 3,728 7,056 100 251 475
personal computers
shipment
Host computers Thousand 535 8,200 125,888 100 1533 23530
connected with the
Internet(world)
Internet service Hundred million yen 434 1,062 7,067 100 245 1628
providers sales
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Online database Hundred million yen 1,886 1,973 2,916 100 105 155
service sales
Postal matters Million 22,815 25,486 26,531 100 112 116
collected
Home delivery Million 1,125 1,434 2,574 100 127 229
Fixed phones Million 5,453 6,111 5,226 100 112 96
Mobile phones incl. Million 138 1,171 6,679 100 849 4840
PHS
Car navigation Thousand 128 515 1,609 100 402 1257
systems shipment
Karaoke rooms in Number 52,578 146,400 141,000 100 278 268
operation
Mail order Hundred million yen 17,600 21,100 23,900 100 120 136
shopping sales
Public libraries Number 1,984 2,297 2,639 100 116 133
Public library Million 17,498 22,372 28,749 100 128 164
holdings
Source: Dentsu Communication Institute, Inc. “A Research for
Information and Media Survey” 2006 et al.
We see from Table 1 that information produced through various media has been
increasing in volume. Traditional media such as “Book sales” and “Magazine sales
marks the index number approximately 110, while audio-visual media(analog) and what
are called “complex media” show a little more higher growth of information. Digital
media represented by Internet access have been growing very rapidly. The similar trends
could be observed in most countries.
The most important point of this argument is that people are now familiar with such
digital information media and can employ such media to send and receive various sort of
information every day. They keep their hands on much larger amount of information
than ever.
4. A behavioral transition in the end-use of information
4.1. From where do they gather information? -- transformation of
information gathering activities by end-users
Before the Internet became familiar, end-users had gathered information at libraries
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and consulted librarians to have access to information resources. The popularization of
the access to information resources on the Internet encouraged end-users to search and get
necessary documents through Internet providers by themselves without any assistance of
librarians. McDonald, Peter compared this phenomenon to the transition from
“Ptolemaic” View to “Copernican” View.2 The libraries have now fallen to the local
nodes in the information network, while they occupied the central place in the center of
the information universe in the past.
This clearly shows that end users live in the environment that enable them to enjoy
more varied and spontaneous options in seeking information than ever.
4.2. What kind of information do they seek for?—the change of scope
in information seeking
The character of our society is becoming more and more complex. This means
that the problems or issues we are confronted with become of complicated nature. In other
words, the problems or issues that could be solved with the help of knowledge within a
single discipline may decrease, while the knowledge to be obtained by the connection or
coordination among plural disciplines will be requested to solve most problems.
Therefore, multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary information will be needed for
problem-solving.
For instance, if we have a problem in the field of physics and wish to solve it, we
will refer to the documents and journal articles in physics. Thus, we are able to find a
solution of the problem by making use of the knowledge in physics. In other words, we
can solve the problem with the information within a single discipline.
On the other hand, if we are going to build and start a day service center for elderly
people to realize social care of the aged, we can hardly expect all information necessary
for this project to be found in the documents within one single discipline, as we did for the
problem in physics. There will be the need for multidisciplinary approaches to it as
shown in the following diagram.
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Medicine Nursing
Psychology
Area development Social care of
the aged
Architecture
Sociology Accounting
Information engineering
Fig. 1 Multidisciplinary approaches to “social care for the aged people”
Librarians are not experts in a single discipline except in library and information
science. They are non-professionals in most disciplines and subjects, yet they have
universal and homogeneous knowledge throughout most disciplines as they are walking
classification schedules such as DDC and UDC! They are used to grasp the nature of the
situation of various current problems from multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary points of
view to find some solutions for them.
5. An enhancement of the value of information
Nowadays both on business and in the home, we spend information as a kind of
valuable resources like money and energy. We may say that the value of information
for individuals and organizations has enhanced to the level beyond the extent we have
ever experienced.
There is enough evidence to show that the fact is true. From the macroeconomic
viewpoint, the ratio of the investment to information devices and tools to Gross
Domestic Product in Japan was 1.74 in the first quarter of 1985, which sifted to 3.35 in
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the first quarter of 2000. On the microeconomic side, the corporate rating service
industry including Moody’s and S & P has grown up to an influential and powerful one
in the business world. It can be classified into information service industry. The
downgrading by each of such corporate rating services may destroy the companies
themselves.
Most of industrial products we consume every day include so-called information
cost within their prices. Consider a T-shirt for example. We call a T-shirt “a textile
product.” What does it mean? Do we pay money for the piece of cloth? The prime
cost of cloth prepared for a T-shirt is estimated only 5-10 percents of the selling price of
the T-shirt. The most part of the cost is devoted to the designers’ fee or royalties on a
copyright. In truth we pay expenses for information instead of cloth through the action
of buying a T-shirt. There are other numerous examples of “information-based” or
“information-shifted” products.
Failure in information management brought reputable companies to a crisis. Some
major companies were in an impasse due to illegitimate accounting, unanticipated
outflow of confidential information and the loss or less retrievability of important
documents. On the other hand, home delivery services and a chain of convenience
stores are profited by enterprise information systems that treat information elaborately
and timely. These cases lead us to the conclusion that information management is a key
factor to success in these days.
6. Strategic guidelines for IP
From the points stated above, I would like to suggest some strategic programs as a
set of guidelines for libraries and information professionals as follows. These would
helpful to overcome the environmental changes around them and to bring further
development and brighter future to them.
6.1. Begin strategic planning after an insightful conceptual model.3
It is obvious that a library is an organization with various kinds of managerial
resources like a company. This fact indicates that libraries should be managed through
strategic planning process.
The matrix shown below is an example of a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats) Matrix which makes one of the key factors in the whole
process of strategic planning for libraries.
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Strengths Weaknesses
Elaborative knowledge and skills to order Not deep knowledge and judgment in an
and organize information individual discipline or on a subject
Rich experience in reference and Difficulties to understand end-users’
information service and searching various information needs completely
databases
A bird’s-eye view to the present disciplines
and subjects
Opportunities Threats
Explosion of information End-user searching
Problem-oriented access to information Decrease of bibliographic databases
Multidisciplinary approach well-indexed
Higher cost to search commercial databases The development of search engine services
New rights on databases on the Internet
Fig. 2 The SWOT Matrix for Information Professionals
Through making this chart, we realize the present position where IPs are situated on.
6.2. Coordinate existing commercial information services, databases and
e-journals to develop a new service from the library
We must redesign our service menu for our customers through thinking functionally.
Under the present conditions where the Internet has become very popular for everyone to
have access to necessary information, it is important for us to concentrate the service
focus to the services which can be served only by libraries or information professionals.
For this purpose, we are requested to clarify our service concept and invent a set of new
services.
It will be practical to coordinate existing commercial information services,
databases, e-journals and IT applications to develop a new product or service from the
library. For that purpose, it is needed to refine our eyes to value various IT devices and
information services available and examine which can be employed to present an
effective library service.
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6.3. Examine cost-effectiveness of an individual activity and/or service before
determining a service menu.
When information professionals decide the menu of information services to be
offered to users, they should make comparative studies on the balance between the
end-users’ benefit obtained through the service and the necessary cost for the execution of
the service to select the more cost-effective set of services to offer. For that purpose,
they may make such kind of table shown below.
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Table 2 The characteristics of individual information service
to be carried out
A B C D E F G H I J K
Benefit that Educational effect ○ � � � ○
users receive Problem solving � � � � � �
through the Idea generating � ○
support by Choosing a future course ○ � ○ ○ � � ○ ○
IP Information search ○ � � ○ ○ � �
Resources Personnel Expertise ● ▲ ● ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲
that have been expenses Working Service ▲ ▲ ● ● ● ▲
spent by hour Preparation ▲ ▲ ● ● ▲ ● ● ●
libraries and Monetary resource: Direct cost ● ●
IP Equipments ▲ ● ● ▲
A Reference and information service
B Referral service
C Library use education
D Printed guide for users
E Online database search service
F CD-ROM database search service
G Readers’ advisory service
H Current awareness service
I Learners’ advisory service
J Community information service
K Information and referral service
Note: ○considerably beneficial �beneficial ●extremely resource intensive
▲resource-needed
Also a rating service on various websites in academic and professional subjects and
consultant-like services based on higher expertise to their customers are also effective and
worth examining.
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6.4. Consider carefully what types of documents or information can be served
successfully and effectively.
There are quite a few types of documents or information to be used for
decision-making of a company and other organizations. They can be grouped under
many kinds of factors, while two of them are adopted here to show the necessary
information for “product development.” One is about the descriptive manner of
information: numeric information, non-numeric information. The other is about the
place or location where the documents and information are produced and circulated:
produced inside an organization, published outside an organization.
The table below shows the four kind of areas (A-D) divided with above two factors,
where some example documents or information are classified using this schema.
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Table 3 Examples of documents and publication needed for new product development4
Non-numeric information(text) Numeric information
Produced (A) (B)
inside Business diaries Sales data of related products
an organization Reports by branch offices including POS data
Engineers’ memoranda Financial statements
R & D reports Cost accounting data
Trouble settlement reports Cash flow data
Call center reports (customer-contact Market research
systems) Product tests
Customer order sheets
Unfitted orders
Patent documents
Reports by test marketers
Published (C) (D)
outside Financial statement Government statistics
an organization Annual reports Industry statistics
Patent specification Sales data of related products by
Various kinds of standards competitors
Product catalogs
Economic and industrial paper
articles
Economic and industrial magazine
articles
Trade paper articles
Industry magazine articles
Science and Technology information
(articles and reports)
Patent information of competitors
Public opinion polls
Among them, the documents in the area “C” have long and traditionally been
collected and served to the users by special libraries, while the documents in the area “A”
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are now attracting attention due to effective introduction of knowledge management and
the reinforcement of intellectual property management in an organization.
Limiting the argument to a special library or an information center, its mission can
be stated as “seeking and acquiring widely and exhaustively documents and information
on the conditions and details of the external environment surrounding the parent
organization to provide them to the top management, staff and experts inside that
organization.” This explains the critical importance of the documents that are located in
the area “C.”
6.5. Define the social function of libraries and IP and appeal to people outside
Fig.3 shows the function of libraries and associates
Inquiries Libraries Queries for search
End-users Databases Information
Information Internet Documents retrieved resources
search
engines
Fig. 3 The function of libraries, databases and Internet search engines
As shown in Fig.3, Libraries stand between end-users and existing information
resources to act as an agent for end-users to seek and acquire documents or information
they want. In this sense, libraries can be compared to intermediaries in information flow
process as databases and Internet search engines can be so. What IPs in libraries provide
end-users with is a strong support on the basis of a skillful and elaborative method of
subject access which seems difficult for end-users to realize by themselves in their
searching activities on the Internet.
In addition to this, IPs have usually rich experiences in indexing and searching
databases, which have made them, at the same time, skillful searchers and careful
indexers. This kind of experience in work may become the basis of building elaborative
in-house databases for the internal and managerial needs of the parent organizations to
carry out knowledge management and share information among the staffs inside.
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What is important is to apply such skills and experiences to the knowledge and
document management inside the organizations. This means that IPs are capable to
enter into the management of the documents and information in area “A” in the Table 3 if
they want and are required. To support problem-oriented or phenomenon-oriented
approaches to the text information inside of the organization, it is helpful to construct and
introduce a thesaurus for in-house use to gain the capability and performance of indexing
and retrieving similar to that of commercial online databases.
6.6. Clarify the characteristics of IP on the basis of human resource
management.
The Special Libraries Association (SLA) has released “Competencies for
Information Professionals of the 21st Century Revised edition” in June 2003, which
included core competencies, professional competencies and personal competencies.
Core competencies are as below:
I. Information professionals contribute to the knowledge base of the profession by sharing best
practices and experiences, and continue to learn about information products, services, and
management practices throughout the life of his/her career.
II. Information professionals commit to professional excellence and ethics, and to the values and
principles of the profession. 5
Professional competencies include “A. Managing Information Organizations,” “B.
Managing Information Resources,” “C. Managing Information Services” and “D.
Applying Information Tools and Technologies.” As for personal competencies, it is
recommended to keep positive and challenging attitudes to work.
Corrall, S and Brewerton, A proposed a professional competence model, which
consists of six parts that include (1)generic personal skills(communication,
problem-solving, etc.), (2)professional/specialist information skills(collection
development and management, knowledge organization, etc.), (3)IT skills, (4)business
and management skills(accounting, budgeting and costing, marketing, etc.),
(5)organizational knowledge and subject understanding(culture and climate, terminology
of the field, etc.), and (6)personal work behavior(achievement/results orientation,
leadership/initiative, strategic perspective, etc.)6.
An experimental curriculum shown below reflects this competence model. It is to
be well applied to post-graduate students.
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Introduction to information centers(special libraries)
Management of information centers(special libraries)
Accounting
Cost accounting
Financial statements
Research & development
Marketing
Information system development
Networking
Information retrieval
Databases
Knowledge management
Information service
Project design
Project management
Decision making
Language representation
Subject access and indexing
Fig. 4 A model curriculum for post graduates
McDonald stated that:
I am librarian, and my profession is at a crossroads. I see ahead a changing landscape, and the
going is uncertain. In truth, I am not sure that my profession will even survive the revolution that is
ahead without reassessing how we go about our business.7
It will be indispensable that information professionals in the near future are
endowed with ability of efficient communication, basic knowledge on business process
and literacy on computers and networks. Besides, they are expected to be leaders like
conductors of symphonic orchestras to carry all the members working together with to a
single goal. Information professionals are requested to find optimum solutions in the
library service and information management after analyzing the present conditions both
inside and outside the organizations. At the same time, they should put through needed
reform permanently with full conviction and bravery. This would certainly suggest
brighter future for libraries and information professionals.
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References
1
OECD (2005), OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard, OECD,
Paris. http://titania.sourceoecd.org/vl=5200851/cl=13/nw=1/rpsv/factbook/index.htm
(Source OECD)
2
Macdonald, Peter. “Science Libraries of the Future: Research in the Electronic Age.” Food
Technology, April 1995, p.95
3
Steiner, George A., “Strategic planning: what every manager must know.” Free Press.
1979, p.16.
4
Yamazaki, Hisamichi. “A review of the methods and tools to organize information and
documents in companies: a case of product development.” Records Management (Journal of
the Records Management Society of Japan). No.39, 1999, p.7-p.13.
5
“Competencies for Information Professionals of the 21st Century” revised edition, June
2003 http://www.sla.org/content/learn/comp2003/index.cfm
6
Sheila Corrall, Antony Brewerton. “The New Professional’s Handbook: your guide to
information services management.” Library Association Publishing, 1999, p.289-p.291
7
Macdonald, Peter. “Science Libraries of the Future: Research in the Electronic Age”. Food
Technology, April 1995, p.92
