A Guide to Excellent Creative Business Libraries and Business Centers

Adriana Trujillo Gonzalez, Vincci Kwong, Julie Strange, and Julie Yen, Guest Columnists

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I had the opportunity to view the work produced by the American Library Association’s (ALA) Emerging Leaders at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim. While I was impressed overall with the quality of work produced by these rising stars, I was drawn to the research that one group presented as a poster session. This project related to identifying best practices of innovative business libraries and business centers. Since I believed that these findings would be of interest to a broader audience, I invited the group to submit an article on their project for this occasional column.—Editor

Leslie Burger, 2006–07 American Library Association (ALA) president, initiated the Emerging Leaders program. This program provides an opportunity for new librarians to serve the profession in a leadership capacity. Emerging Leaders participate in problem-solving workgroups, network with peers, and gain an inside look at the organizational structure of ALA. Beginning in December 2007, our workgroup from the 2008 Emerging Leaders program took on a project sponsored by the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) of RUSA. The goal of the project was to create a guide to excellent creative business libraries and business centers to provide examples of innovative and best practices. To better understand the current practices of business libraries and business centers, we conducted a Web-based survey to identify innovation and best practice. The findings from the survey are discussed in this article. Note that we have used the term library to designate both business libraries and business centers.

Literature Review

Given that none of the authors are business librarians and lacked in-depth knowledge about business librarianship, we began with a broad literature review. Our review of the literature on business librarianship expanded to include current practices, innovative practices, marketing, and collaboration. We found a paucity of literature on current practices and nothing concrete on best practices.

Abels and Magi reported on current practices and trends in twenty top business school libraries.¹ While their research focused on academic libraries, their findings apply to other types of business libraries as well. They found that, despite the organizational structure of these academic business libraries, the needs of patrons drive the delivery of services and resources. Listening to patrons’ needs and implementing changes to meet those needs are important for continued success. However, budgetary restrictions or constraints may play an important role in the delivery of services and resources. Abels and Magi identified the following trends:

• Library websites offer access to a variety of services and resources.
• Library websites provide access to a variety of commercial online databases.
• E-mail reference service is increasing in popularity and use.
• User education sessions focus on topics instead of specific resources.
• Interactive online tutorials may become more prevalent but will remain as supplements (rather than replacements) to classroom instruction.
• Reference desk hours will most likely remain stable in the short term, but will likely decrease over the next five years.
• Materials budgets will reflect more spending on serials than on monographs.

Abels and Magi also found that a demand exists for in-person reference service. But they acknowledged that the “emergence of new technology will require business school libraries to adjust their practices.”² A follow-up or duplication of this study would be interesting, since Abels and Magi published their findings in 2001.

The goal for this project was to create a best practices guide applicable to various types of business libraries and centers (academic, public, and corporate). More specifically, the task was to identify innovative practices. The question therein lies, what is innovation and how is it defined? Additionally, definition of innovation is required to analyze our survey data. We used the definitions cited by Olaisen, Lovhoiden, and Djupvik in “The Innovative Library” as a guideline. They cited the following definitions of innovation: “an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption”; “any idea, practice, or material artefact perceived to be new by the relevant unit of adoption”; “breaking away from the established pattern”; and the “successful introduction into an applied situation of means or ends that are new to the situation.”³

It is important to keep in mind that there are differing opinions about what is innovative in business libraries today. While one group may consider using e-mail an innovative way to provide reference services, another group may consider e-mail a tool of the past, and instead consider Second Life an innovative practice for reference providers.

Dunsmore maintains that there is a need for continued use of pathfinders or subject guides.⁴ Pathfinders and subject guides have been used by libraries for a very long time. Dunsmore’s study focuses on the use of pathfinders in a Web-based environment. Subject guides are not the most popular reference tool and therefore tend to be underused. Dunsmore concludes that more research needs to be conducted on the usability and instructional role of pathfinders. This research might help librarians understand why pathfinders are under-used. There are several issues this research could address. For example, what is the best way to introduce these guides to patrons during instructional sessions? Do these guides help enhance information literacy skills of patrons? On the other hand, is it innovative to use online subject guides as opposed to print or to use subject guides to begin with?

What have other libraries done to be characterized as innovative? A more recent article written by Janet Williamson demonstrates another way of delivering online services. She explains the need for tailored services by stating that “it is apparent that the proliferation of information on electronic commerce on the Internet is an opportunity for us to foster an increased liaison with the faculty of the School of Business” at the University of Alberta Libraries.⁵ The amount of information available on the Internet is greater than any librarian or faculty member could ever keep up with. Consequently, Williamson and her colleagues at the University of Alberta’s Winspear Business Reference Library recognized the need to deliver information to the business faculty in a more systematic method. Using a corporate library service model, a collaborative effort was made with the School of Business to create an awareness service called E-Commerce Alert. It was tailored to meet the needs of the business faculty, especially in light of the growth of e-commerce courses. This awareness service helped both librarians and faculty keep abreast of the expansive literature on e-commerce and fulfilled faculty members’ expressed need for “readily available quality information on ‘hot topics’ or current trends.”⁶ When this value-added service became Web-based in 2002, the number of subscribers increased substantially, resulting in an increased profile for the School of Business and the library. More than ever, librarians need to rethink and reengineer the service delivery model, delivering service in more creative ways. Additionally, service models should not be restricted to a specific type of library; they need to be applicable in various settings.

Academic libraries are similar to science laboratories— both are open to experimentation. Another example of innovative work is the creation of the Virtual Business Information Center (VBIC) at the University of Maryland (UMD), a collaborative effort by the College of Information Studies, the Robert H. Smith School of Business, and the UMD Libraries. The VBIC is a website that provides “one-step access to both electronic and print resources, along with guidance in selection of databases, general and specific search strategies, and links to e-mail and chat reference.”⁷ The UMD Libraries recognized the value in collaborating with others outside of the library, since “no single unit on an academic campus can claim sole responsibility for developing and insuring information literacy among its students and faculty. This situation argues for exactly the kind of collaboration and cooperation among interested academic units to develop specialized sites that is seen in VBIC.”⁸ Not only did students and faculty benefit from better service as a result of the VBIC, but the VBIC resulted in cost savings (both in resources and staff time) as it eliminated the need for expensive, parallel systems.

Similarly, the Lippincott Library (one of the nation’s premier academic business libraries) of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania devised an online knowledge database called Business FAQ. This database “contains hundreds of questions and answers and thousands of links to resources.”⁹ While technical expertise is required for initial setup, and maintenance of the database is labor intensive, it has proven to be a very effective and efficient way of service delivery, especially if a librarian is not available. The University of Pennsylvania is not the only beneficiary of the online knowledge database model. The software was offered to Columbia University’s Watson Library of Business and Economics in 2004, and nine other academic libraries adopted the software between December 2004 and March 2006.¹⁰ Anello and Bonfield reported that nineteen business libraries were participating in the Business FAQ project as of October 2006.¹¹

While the above examples demonstrate different innovative approaches taking place in academic libraries, it is important to point out that innovation has been happening in other types of libraries and outside the United States. For example, the services of the British Library have evolved to meet changing patron needs. The Business and Intellectual Property Centre (BIPC), a unit within the British Library, was created to provide service to businesses throughout the United Kingdom.¹² In her account of the development of the BIPC, Jackie Marfleet wrote, “The future provision of information services within the British Library will ultimately be determined by the needs of our user population and our response to providing products and services which meet that need.”¹³ At that time, the collection was undergoing transformation as electronic resources were being expanded. Services like Ask an Expert and Information Advice Service were developed to provide consultation services. In addition to workshops, evening events were hosted for business entrepreneurs. To accommodate remote users, online reference services were expanded and the library website was redesigned to improve usability. The British Library did not stop there. Two years later, Neil Infield wrote that users of the BIPC had evolved from being “readers to customers to clients.”¹⁴ As the needs of patrons changed (and their knowledge base grew), librarians at the BIPC had to grow with them. These librarians equipped themselves through continuous professional development. Some business librarians accomplished this through six months of specialized external training to become Business Advisors. The goal, as it is for libraries throughout the world, was to better serve their users. This example demonstrates that innovation does not necessarily mean the development and implementation of high-end technology, but rather an out-of-the-box approach to serving users.

Method

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