Today we talked about:
- Martha Foote's (past SLA Toronto president) day-to-day worked, based on information she provided me with.
In more detail: she is the general manager of the board of directors for LibraryCo. She is the only librarian, but interacts on a regular basis with librarians, stockholders and many others. When asked about what she likes about her daily work, she said that it's varied and interesting, always changing. However, she noted that what she doesn't like is that she has to do all the clerical, administrative and professional work herself - she has no one assisting her. She feels that this takes away from her ability to do more professional work. When asked what problems she felt faced special librarians, she said that often emplyers will cut money from the library because it's "all on the internet", and feel that the money can easily be spent elsewhere. As a result, she believes that companies are effectively dumbing down their information content.
- We also talked more generally about a medical librarian and corporate librarian. Both seem to have struggles with budget cuts, or working alone. The medical librarian primarily does literature searches for clients.
- We then talked about some issues facing special libraries, like proving your worth to your employer by knowing your numbers and your actual value. This can come in handy if someone drops by your library and says "are you a drain on this company?" To which a special librarian who knows their numbers could say, "No, in fact we help save the company money through increased productivity, quality of information etc. Here are the numbers about how much money I save you every day".
- Brent talked about his experiences in a government library for co-op, and how it relates to special libraries
- Candance gave us some information on her co-op in a non-traditional librarian role (in a corporate setting)
- We also talked some politics that surrounds why certain people might want to work for a corporation, or might not. Related to this, we discussed pay rates for different kinds of special librarians, noting that the seemingly very low rates might be affected by librarians working for the not-for-profit sector.
If I missed anything that anyone else would like to add, please feel free to add!
Erin
