Infotoday Blog Archive

As London Online 2009 officially opens its doors this morning, watch for Information Today, Inc.’s roving video crew on the exhibition floor. We’ll be conducting on-the-spot interviews that will appear in this blog during the conference covering the state of the industry from myriad angles.

In yesterday’s blog, we kicked off the commentary about the state of the industry with two information industry experts who shared their insights. Today, we’re featuring two other experts who are offering their perspectives of the past year and what lies ahead.

The commentary from our panel of experts has been excerpted from the front-page article in the December issue of Information Today, which is also available at www.infotoday.com.

Janice Lachance
CEO
Special Libraries Association (SLA)
In recent months, I have spoken to groups of librarians and knowledge and information professionals all over the world. Whether I am in Albany or Ahmedabad, Milan or Albuquerque, if I close my eyes and listen, I am hearing exactly the same thing: The traditional specialist librarian is becoming an endangered species. Corporations, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and universities are on the hunt, attempting to identify nonessential functions and positions they can cut.

At best, many special libraries are experiencing severe budget cuts that challenge their continued ability to deliver the knowledge organizations need in order to make effective decisions. At worst, these libraries—digital and brick-and-mortar—and the valuable professionals associated with them are disappearing.
Exacerbating this unfortunate trend is the misperception that in the digital age, librarians and information professionals are little more than book stackers and (expensive) human search engines. The tragedy is that special librarians are uniquely qualified to deliver what organizations will need most to recover from these hard economic times: actionable knowledge.

In the recovery from this recession, knowledge and information professionals have a timely opportunity to take action and show they are more than relevant—they are indispensable to successful organizations.

Ed Keating
Vice President, Content Division
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Economists believe we have passed through the low point of the current global recession. So what does that mean for the digital paid content industry? Because of the length and depth of the downturn, the digital content industry has fundamentally changed. Segments will be impacted unevenly as some markets shed thousands of workers that they will never rehire, while other markets have lost readership to free online substitutes. Try answering the following questions and determine how they apply to your content:

Q: Are your users looking for “good enough” or “perfect” information?
A: It used to be said that in order to succeed in the information industry, you needed to provide timely, accurate, and comprehensive information. As the price for these products increased through forced bundling and other tactics, consumers sought out substitutes that offered most of what they needed. Customers might trade off some content or functionality for a substantial drop in price. Would you rather provide a CUSIP (Committee on Uniform Security Identification Procedures) license or an EDGAR feed?

Q: Are print and digital managed as separate departments?
A: If they are, you are in big trouble. The same customer reads both print and online content. Organize your editorial, sales, and marketing accordingly. Otherwise expect to suffer through channel conflict and the pain of keeping people on the payroll who still think the internet is a fad. Would you rather be The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal?

Q: What containers are being used to deliver your content?
A: Newspapers and magazines still revolve around the concept of a page, and this is also the metric used for some websites. In the age of Twitter, wikis, and blogs, this notion seems quaint at best. Businesses that are truly poised for success have studied customer workflow and deliver their services via software. Reed Elsevier and Thomson Reuters provide countless examples across different market segments.

I’d venture that content providers in the legal, scientific, technical, and financial spaces will emerge well-positioned after the recession. They tend to provide lean-forward, customer-engaging information that drives a transaction. Moreover, many have started to integrate user-generated content into their offerings because of their decades-long strength in licensing, assimilating and delivering content. Also, because their chosen delivery scheme has migrated from print to electronic to software, they are poised to enjoy years of strong renewal rates and cash flow.

Stay tuned for the final installment of “Weathering Turbulent Times” in tomorrow’s blog.

“These are the times that test men’s souls,” wrote British-born author and philosopher Thomas Paine back in the days of the American Revolution. His words ring true today as they did more than 200 years ago but in a different context.

Today, we can draw parallels from Paine’s writings to the tough economic times that we’ve faced during the past year. In the information industry, belts were tightened, budgets were cut, and tough decisions were (and are still being) made. But are the bad times over, and what will the next year hold?

Paine signed off many of his inspirational essays with the pseudonym “Common Sense.” So we’ll be including some “common sense” from the industry notables for each day of the blog; the commentary has been excerpted from the front-page article in the December issue of Information Today, which is also available at www.infotoday.com.

Anthea Stratigos
Co-Founder and CEO
Outsell, Inc.
During the past year, industry leaders and teams learned where we were strong and where we were weak in people, processes, content solutions, leverage—everywhere. There is only good in that, despite how difficult or painful it is. We were forced to look through the eye of the needle and live our theme: No Guts, No Glory. Reward comes to those who focus, take risks, make changes, make a difference, and live their truth.

As we head into 2010, we continue to enter the age of experience, and the publishers and providers that pick the right markets and continue to offer a better experience at an equal or better value will be those who find the money and grow, thrive, and profit. It’s about execution on all levels.

These are the same traits for the companies that grew in 2009, and they do exist: offerings in mobile, social, and global workflow; qualified leads; a service-oriented and warm and friendly team; CEOs who answer their own phones; sales teams that are professional, knowledgeable, and easy to do business with; content delivered into new environments such as Facebook; and interactive learning. Those will be the differentiators.

As our industry matures from the effect of circa-2000 technologies, delivering value, shedding what no longer works, offering better service, and competing on scale and cost all matter. Technology is now evolving to offer better experiences, not just better analytics or better delivery, but interactive, 3D, portable, visual, auditory, and sensory experiences. It is now a market-share game, and it is about finding new budget pockets. At the end of the day, it’s survival of the fittest, and we will continue to see that play out in 2010.

Carl Grant
President
Ex Libris North America
“Fragile” is the only suitable word to describe the current situation, and “likely to recur” seems a disturbing but more probable description of the future we face.

The end result is, I believe, a sea change event for libraries and information professionals. It’s one that was probably needed for quite some time. It’s unfortunate that it had to be realized via such painful measures. I hope the following has been learned as a result:

The need for focused goals—Ask 10 librarians or information professionals what they think their “value-add” is to information, and you’ll get 10 distinct answers. This must change, since we can’t be all things to all people. We must build toward some common professional goals that are well-defined and universally understood.

The need for funding at the highest levels to support achieving focused goals—As long as information professionals are tied to local (or department) funding, local needs will always override a higher focus, and that’s part of what got us in the mess we’re in right now. Again, we need to have some inspirational, focused, broadly understood goals and speak with one voice in order to assure their achievement.

The need to rethink our profession—Maurice Line, former director general of The British Library, said it best when he said, “Unless we can see our future in a far broader context, we may not have a future. Our territory is being lost while we think we are defending it, because we are defending the form and not the substance, and the substance is changing.” He’s right.

Let’s map out how this new vision contributes value to the people we serve. Only then will we be able to truly recover from what has happened and survive what may recur while being stronger than in the past.