Institutional Memory and News Librarianship
A few months ago, a professional colleague asked me to read a paper he wrote about his role as an information specialist within a news organiztion. In it, he mentions keeping “institutional memory” casually as a task of news librarians. I’ve been pondering this task ever since. I do a poor job of recording institutional memory. Archiving the finished product is one thing, but recording what the institution does, like procedures and how we do certain things and why, is something I need to work on. In my previous job, there were detailed guidelines for doing even the most routine things. I’m sure much of that is because it was a temporary position—a student job that would last 1-3 years—and my predecessors and followers and myself were all very aware of that. We were very conscious of the fact that we needed to record the knowledge in our heads for the benefit of the next librarian. I don’t think as much about that now. And I often find myself in situations where I try to remember how I did something a year ago or track down why my office did something a certain way. If someone else took over my job tomorrow, what would happen? Is there some way I can set time aside in my already too full schedule to record what I do?
