Cycling for Libraries Day 2 - I Could Be Talking to Corporate Staff
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

As the second day of the Cycling for Libraries "unconference" progressed, FreePint's director of research, Robin Neidorf, talked to one of the participants and considered how information centres across all sectors are facing common challenges.

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"The biggest challenge is helping them understand the full range of options and service we offer," Dirk Bogaerts said to me as we puffed up yet another hill in Norway.

He could be a corporate information professional, speaking in reference to the many information users and knowledge workers throughout his organisation. In fact, I've had that conversation many times.

Staying Relevant

Instead, as we took part in the Cycling for Libraries event, he was telling me about the challenges and opportunities he faces as a librarian at the Artevelde University College in Ghent, Belgium.

"It used to be that if a student or faculty member wanted information, they had to come to the library. We controlled that relationship [between them and information]. Now they have lots of options, and we have to find a way to stay relevant and be a valued part of their system."

Dirk serves a wide range of audiences, each with different needs and expectations: students, faculty, alumni and even local businesses. He and the others on the staff support five campus locations - Dirk himself works at three of them, one of which does not have a library space.

To accommodate this environment, and also to meet his audience where they are, he is careful to be physically present at all the different locations. He brings print and digital materials with him, including a laptop on which he can show students specific resources of interest, based on the questions he asks.

Shifting Focus

His comments about his audience and approaches to meeting their needs are familiar to those of us who focus on the corporate world: how do we shift the thinking of users from old notions of the scope and value of an information centre in a world when anyone can be a searcher? 

"I recently completed a short report on the library's role in the institution," Dirk adds. "The conclusion we drew is that we are generating knowledge. This is a new area for us, which means we need to think differently about what we offer, how we offer it, and the skills we are asking our staff to have. It's a very different proposition, but potentially a more valuable one."

If graduates come out of university with a better understanding of all the ways information professionals can help them, that can only be good news for future employers in any industry.

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