Should Librarians Do All of the Searching?
Shimon’s comment the other night provides a nice segue into a post I’ve been mulling for a while, but haven’t had the time to write. A few weeks ago, some librarians and I were talking about the premise of whether “it’s okay” for people in an organization besides the librarian to do the searching. Some librarians insist that they do all the searching for their clientele. Others are fine with their clients doing their own searching.
Sometimes this conversation comes up in the context of whether newsrooms give access to certain paid databases to journalists or just the librarians. Many news organizations have found that it’s less expensive to provide access only to the librarians, who then perform the searches for journalists or require the journalists to use a computer in the library for such searches.
Some of my coworkers prefer to do their own searching while others frequently ask me to do it for them. Some librarians think I’m jeopardizing my job by "letting" my coworkers do their own searches. I see it instead as an opportunity for me to do other portions of my job, especially those portions that require particular skills I have. If I did all of the searching for everyone in my office all of the time, I would never get any work done. (That’s meant to be humorous because helping people with research is indeed part of my job.) It’s not like I’m sitting idle when I’m not doing someone’s searches. As long as my coworkers know I’m available to them as a resource to assist them with their searches, I feel that "letting" them do their own searches is fine. Sure, it might be more cost-effective for librarians to do all of the searching, but how practical is that in reality?
I’ve done one-on-one and group training sessions for my coworkers. Some of them come to me regularly when they get stuck and a few come to me before they do their search to get some tips. I want my clients to feel like they’re empowered enough to do at least the basic searches on their own. For some people, that’s really important.
(I put "letting" in quotes because I don’t have any real control over whether people do their own searching or not. I don’t control the access to the databases or the Internet. I think it would be silly for me to start insisting that I do all of the searching.)
July 7th, 2004 at 6:18 pm
Yes, I’m jumping in a bit late here, but…I’ve a couple of points to raise:
1. If a database is easily accessible to a certain group of or all employees, how can a/the librarian grant or withhold permission to search it? If permission IS REQUIRED, password control is the obvious tool to maintain it.
2. Times have changed from the old days (pre-GUI and windows) when the online database was a strange, foreign realm and data was magically conjured up by wizards who typed commands (”se dan$ w/2 quayle”) after a command prompt. Now, anyone with a modicum of Web experience can figure out how to use nearly any commercial database out there. Our database accounts see considerably more traffic now than they did in, say, 1993. The reporters coming to us already know the basics of database searching and are likely to already be familiar with at least some of the products we use. In addition to managing our accounts, we librarians act as coaches and trainers and, in those cases where time is tight, we DO still do the basic searches if asked. Frankly, our library staff doesn’t have the time to do each piece of datamining that is required to put out our product on a daily basis. Along with the technology which makes searching easier has come additional digital archiving products/technologies which have actually, in some cases, created work for the library (this is a GOOD thing as it allows us to digitize all of our content including text, photos and page images). Nearly all of the simple searching we now do for our reporters and columnists is done for a very narrow demographic within the newsroom. I won’t specify exactly what traits members of this group share, but let’s just say that they began their news careers using Olympia typewriters.
3. As regards cost: Many companies and organizations, especially HEAVY users of database products, pay flat fees for usage (as do we for our present product of choice, Factiva). If you are paying transactionally for data and your account is NOT password-protected, ye shall reap accordingly.
July 7th, 2004 at 8:23 pm
Excellent points. Alan.
(I appreciate comments on my blog and don’t consider any of them to be “late.”)