Looking Inward to Expand Library Services Outward

Libraries are always looking for ways to offer more services without increasing their workload, which often means making more use of existing products and services. In fact, special libraries have reported that librarians should market services that align themselves with the essential needs of the parent organization, which has proven to be one of the best ways to prevent downsizing and cost cutting during a recession. Where could we find a new service that we could market to the organization, while addressing the priorities of senior management? Special libraries should look within for inspiration, because information about their own firms’ staff - information more valuable than all of its books and journals combined - can be found there. Special libraries can help achieve their firms’ business objectives by providing senior management with the ability to identify such expertise.

Most special libraries have the potential to offer a new service at little to no additional cost without realizing it. The product of many libraries is access to organized information, which is stored in the catalog in the form of books, journals, etc. Your library may have already expanded the catalog to include a FAQ, competitive intelligence, continuing education courses, etc. There are obviously many uses for a catalog, in terms of providing access to information, that your parent organization needs. The distinguishing factor for expanding into these areas is the realization that your organization is already using other products and services, other vendors, and may even have internal departments set up to manage such information. Special libraries should compete to be the provider of these other uses for information. Senior management, if we are successful, should be left turning to the library as their first choice.

The thread that ties all these uses of information together is people. Whether it is circulating a book to a borrower, or conducting research on behalf of a patron, special libraries know a lot about the most valuable resource in an organization – their staff. At a minimum, your library probably has the name and contact information for the employees within the organization. Many special libraries are set up to receive an import from HR or IT departments to keep their borrower records current. Very few special libraries have made any effort to make their borrower records available on their intranets or internal portals.

While there is already a system in place for HR, these systems are rigid and defined for their application, which is to support payroll, medical benefits, and manage work performance. As librarians, we can see a much bigger picture when we look to social networking sites, such as LinkedIn and Facebook where individuals and organizations describe their expertise to market their services outwardly. There is an equally strong demand within any organization to know who the best person is for a particular job or client, but this is usually left to an informal process, such as the judgment call of a manager, which is more difficult in large organizations with many offices spread out across other divisions, such as language, time zones, etc....

There is a more detailed article by SydneyPLUS International in the January 2010 issue of LibraryWorks