On
February 20th, a group of MLIS students were fortunate enough to
attend tours of three special libraries in Toronto.
I really
enjoy tours: Getting to experience the physical space and talk to an
information professional in their natural habitat is more tactile and practical
to me than just exchanging emails. I jumped at the chance to tour these
information organizations and delve into the world of special libraries. Here
are some of the things I learned on the journey:
- Legislature libraries are non-partisan: This
is a big deal. The library staff cannot be political in order to retain library
neutrality.
- It is closed stacks, and most of their
questions are virtual or over the phone.
- Their users are members of parliament, their
staff, journalists, and the public.
- They are open until the house closes which
could, potentially, be very late.
- They capture party websites during elections.
This is something not many libraries do and it is an interesting evolution in
digital collections.
- HANSARD is the official record of the debates of
legislature and standing committees. It is published by the legislature and
available online in PDF and HTML. There are several librarians devoted to
running this massive publication. You can learn more about how it works at the HANSARD
Society.
Thank
you to Wendy and all the other library staff who spoke about their roles in the
legislature.
- I had never heard of competitive intelligence
before this tour and now I am fascinated. If you do not know what it is, look
it up because it is a growing LIS field.
- It is a fast paced environment and their
practice encompasses so many different areas that it is never boring. Reference
questions could be about anything and answers are needed right away.
- They have a plethora of business and law
databases that I have never heard of! So if you are interested in working in a
library like this, it is time to get better acquainted with SEDAR, Capital IQ, Bloomberg, QuickLaw, and MergerMarket.
- Marketing yourself within the law firm is important, make
sure they know you are unique and have a good value.
Thank you to Christine and
the other librarians who were able to shed some light on how corporate
librarianship works.
- Staff in many departments work in LIS related roles. Librarians fill roles in tax law, website management, marketing, and knowledge management.
- Some staff work on the internal intranet site for employees. They ensure clear navigation, functionality, do content management, content editing, and aid in file sharing. Pretty different than your average reference library jobs.
- PWC has it is own social media platform. That is definitely an interesting feature to me, and I think is a great way of creating employee participation and interaction among each other to build strong teams.
- They train other staff in the company on how to do their own research. Did not expect to see much teaching in the corporate environment, so this was of interest to me.
I felt
like these tours gave me insider knowledge into the role information plays in
corporations. In fact, writing this article felt like sharing secrets that I
probably shouldn’t even be privy to. However, the biggest takeaway for me was
learning how diverse each of these special library roles are. There is so much
potential for non-traditional library jobs and these companies are just a small
fraction of what is out there waiting for MLIS students and graduates who are
interested in trying special libraries.
Click this link to view more in-depth notes about our Toronto Trip!
Christine Pinkney is originally from Calgary, Alberta, and started the MLIS program through online courses via the University of Alberta's School of Library and Information Studies. She is now working to finish off her degree at the University of Western Ontario as an aspiring information professional in digital and metadata-oriented librarianship.
This was a great and informative article! Thanks for all your work, Christine :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for filling us in on how the trip went, Christine!
ReplyDelete