Full Sylabus in Adobe PDF format (340 KB)

PURPOSE OF COURSE

The orbit of specialized information agencies includes, but is not restricted to, the domain of what has been called the "special library." Some such agencies may be library-like in appearance and philosophy. We should not limit our thinking, however, to any particular or traditional four-walled, institutionalized model. The staff of some library-like organizations, even those with an MLS, will not think of themselves as "librarians" at all but rather as "information specialists," “information managers,” “information professionals,” or similar titles. Some of these folks provide a range or combination of services (e.g. archives management, records management, business intelligence services, research support, environmental scanning, information products) well beyond the limitations of any single type of position. It may well be that a new model is emerging, one we call the Integrated Information Manager.

The course assumes student completion of the SIS core requirements and thus the student's prior study of basic information management and technologies activities. In our course, then, rather than retrace these basics, we ought to attempt to introduce and define the types, purposes, functions, and characteristics of specialized forms of information services. Description of a corporate information focus in the SIS curriculum is available at http://www.sis.utk.edu/~pemberton/corp.html

This course, once called "special libraries," now reflects a greater focus on corporate information systems and services. “Corporate” is a term covering both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations (e.g., IBM, federal agencies, Boy Scouts of America, TVA). This shift has developed because the population in corporate information organizations is among the highest in the “special libraries” category. In a sense, the general battle cry of the corporate information manager is indicative: "the right information to the right person, at the right time, in the right amount, in the right format, in the right order, in the right quality, at the most reasonable cost." Public, school, and academic libraries tend to serve individual users (or "customers" or "clients" or “patrons”) while the special library tends to serve the information resources needs of persons in their functional relationship to an organization’s objectives.

The course is also “environmental” in the sense that rather than try to train students to work in one particular type of workplace--which one would that be?--we must focus on those trends, issues, functions, problems that one is likely to confront in any specialized or corporate information agency or service--rather than single type of organization or skill-specific or craft areas (e.g., cataloging, reference, acquisitions, web-mastery), which, hopefully, you have covered in other courses and which are often less critical as a professional-level task in many of these types of organizations we will take as our domain. Many of these functions in a smaller library must be outsourced or performed at the clerical/paraprofessional level. The professional-level staff shoulder management-level responsibilities.

The student will quickly understand that in some cases a specialized knowledge of some area (e.g., subject [e.g., medicine, music], formats [e.g., maps, manuscripts, archival collections], service constituency [e.g., physicians, engineers, physicists]) may be required to function effectively in almost any specialized information agency. If one wanted to work, for example, in a large medical- information service environment but had no background in life sciences, health, or medicine--this course cannot address that need.

What, then, are some of the generalizable concerns in the specialized library/information environment setting? SEE SLA document at Billboard. SLA’s statement on education provides, not exhaustively--suggestions about areas in which the graduate needs knowledge:

1. Packaging/re-packaging of information to meet specific demands (may include publication on an intranet),

2. Selective dissemination of information (SDI),

3. Analysis and interpretation of information,

4. Selection, configuration, and evaluation of individual systems to meet client needs,

5. Development and delivery of new services as client and external demand requires,

6. Design and development of information “products,” and

7. Exhaustive database searching.

What do these concepts and activities mean?

In terms of application of these skills to specific services, a corporate information specialist might have responsibility for services which might include (but are not limited to):

- Development of information products/services for internal use and, occasionally, for external markets

- Current awareness services,

- Research support (e.g., marketing)

- Knowledge management and the corporate library

- Customization of information for special groups

- User education for in-house systems as well as external information providers (e.g., via Internet, World Wide Web, Lexis-Nexus)

- Competitor/business intelligence

- Environmental scanning, trend analysis, strategic information services

- Development of “push” technology services

- Consulting on development of new filing systems and database design

- Research/corporate reports maintenance and data mining

- Inactive records centers/archives,

- Document management services (including scanning, imaging, document control),

- Proprietary information control.

Another of our sub-themes is the relationship of “management” (e.g., planning, organizing, staffing, budgeting, marketing) AND “information services.” It is not unusual to find a one-professional special information unit with 1 to 2 clerical staff or even a one-person operation altogether. So, there may be no one to perform management services for you. You do it all. We should, from time to time, then, zero in on the language and functions of management as used in the corporate environment.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES

By the end of the term, the student should be able to:

- Define "corporate library," "information center," and similar terms/concepts in his/her own words,

- Discuss trends, issues, problems facing the corporate library/information agency, and

- Discuss/explain the nature, problems, concerns associated with student-chosen specialized information agencies,

- Better understand one’s possible or optimal niche in this domain

TOPICS

Through readings, discussion. possible guest visits we should hope to cover most of the following topics:

- Introduction and definition; sources of information for organizations (internal and external); the information life cycle construct; twin paradigms of information services/systems; tasks vs. tools, etc.

- Opportunities in specialized information agencies.

- Starting the specialized information agency--planning, marketing, facilities, etc.

- Managerial aspects of the specialized information agency.

- Developing and marketing an information services menu.

- Information dissemination.

- Facilities and equipment.