"Are we ready for the role of an information intermediary?"
"Information intermediary" used to be Dr. Rajan's buzz word, when we were at, the then INSDOC, way back in 1986. He was trying to inspire the two engineers in our batch to try and put this concept into practice. They did something of that kind but later I lost track of them. I then didn't realise the importance of it. There were no `blog's like this and there was no `Devrai' in our batch!
Coming back to the concept of `information intermediary', there is now more scope and need for such initiatives. Librarians on one hand have several chunks of information to be organized and several new services being demanded, and on the other hand they face severe staffing constraints.
One way out is to outsource certain jobs to a proffessional consortium and get the jobs done. The `cost to the institution' factor comes down and the costs can be met even by departmental funds or paid under the respective project funds.
Some examples of such jobs are - cataloguing the reports generated by an institution, cataloguing and input of new aquistions, preparation of bibliographies & reading lists for forthcoming trainings and events, offering individual/project based SDI or CA services etc.
Many a time, even small organizations require documentation assistance and some help in organizing their collections. Even, starting them with the right way of organising their e-mails goes a long way. Some people tend to name the letters and documents very imroperly, that it it becomes impossible to dig through them later on. Even for these trivial things, using a combination of codes and authority file elements would be immensely helpful.
Now, should we be on the look out for such niches?
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With regards
SUGUNASRI MADDALA
INDEPENDENT INFORMATION CONSULTANT
"Information intermediary" used to be Dr. Rajan's buzz word, when we were at, the then INSDOC, way back in 1986. He was trying to inspire the two engineers in our batch to try and put this concept into practice. They did something of that kind but later I lost track of them. I then didn't realise the importance of it. There were no `blog's like this and there was no `Devrai' in our batch!
Coming back to the concept of `information intermediary', there is now more scope and need for such initiatives. Librarians on one hand have several chunks of information to be organized and several new services being demanded, and on the other hand they face severe staffing constraints.
One way out is to outsource certain jobs to a proffessional consortium and get the jobs done. The `cost to the institution' factor comes down and the costs can be met even by departmental funds or paid under the respective project funds.
Some examples of such jobs are - cataloguing the reports generated by an institution, cataloguing and input of new aquistions, preparation of bibliographies & reading lists for forthcoming trainings and events, offering individual/project based SDI or CA services etc.
Many a time, even small organizations require documentation assistance and some help in organizing their collections. Even, starting them with the right way of organising their e-mails goes a long way. Some people tend to name the letters and documents very imroperly, that it it becomes impossible to dig through them later on. Even for these trivial things, using a combination of codes and authority file elements would be immensely helpful.
Now, should we be on the look out for such niches?
------------------------------------------
With regards
SUGUNASRI MADDALA
INDEPENDENT INFORMATION CONSULTANT
sugunasrimaddala@yahoo.com
____________________________________
Librarians continue to be knowledge professionals. Would you like to communicate to the Principal Blogger of India Librarian directly? email to .- lotus5673@yahoo.co.in .- 1816gbgv
____________________________________
Librarians continue to be knowledge professionals. Would you like to communicate to the Principal Blogger of India Librarian directly? email to .- lotus5673@yahoo.co.in .- 1816gbgv
