Corporate library

Last updated

A corporate library is a special library serving the staff at a corporation. The information services provided by corporate libraries save employees time, and can aid in competitive intelligence work. [1] An information strategist supports the work of an organization through the corporate library.

By offering a corporate library to employees, the corporation is able to encourage learning and give people opportunities for growth and development that may not be offered elsewhere. Corporate libraries also offer the opportunity for employees to share ideas in regards work related tasks or special projects needing to be completed.

Corporate libraries may act as an agent for fulfilling certain needs in the business, patent, personnel, and safety areas of the corporation. A corporate library may be structured as a vital service for research, providing necessary materials on business and marketing, management and personal development, and safety procedures. Corporate libraries may also help employees develop basic knowledge, provide reference for existing research, and prevent employees from wasting time on unproductive research. Also, corporate libraries may provide the corporation with books, periodicals, patents, articles, and general information services. [2]

Corporate libraries were created in the early twentieth century, around the year 1900, as a response to a rapidly changing corporate and commercial environment. Two major developments of the corporate and commercial environment, research infrastructure and the scientific approach to management, were the main contributors that spurred the creation of corporate libraries. The rise of systematic industrial research and the management revolution, which accompanied the implementation of scientific management, benefited from corporate libraries who acted as adjuncts to those changes. [3]

When corporate libraries first appeared in the early twentieth century, the names of those libraries may have differed from one corporation to another (alternatives names included Central Technical File, Information Bureau, and Intelligence Department). Those who worked in such organizations from the early twentieth century onward were not invariably called librarians. Professionals in such roles were referred to a wide variety of names such as systems librarian, technical services librarian, knowledge center manager, computer science librarian, information specialist, director of information strategy, and director of database research. [4]

Information science was born from professionals within corporate libraries. Mortimer Taube and Brian Vickery are two corporate librarians who helped develop information science via academic writing and conference participation. [5]

One major issue in corporate libraries relates to the difficulty of putting a dollar value on the intangible services the library provides to its parent company. [6] The librarian at a corporate library should be prepared to justify the return on investment of an organization hosting such a library. [6] In terms of size, they are seldom very large, and most library departments employ fewer than five full-time staff. [7]

Related Research Articles

Corporate titles or business titles are given to corporate officers to show what duties and responsibilities they have in the organization. Such titles are used by publicly and privately held for-profit corporations, cooperatives, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, partnerships, and sole proprietorships that also confer corporate titles.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or another organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.

Management is the administration of organizations, whether they are a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administration respectively. It is the process of managing the resources of businesses, governments, and other organizations.

Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products. It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."

Intellectual capital is the result of mental processes that form a set of intangible objects that can be used in economic activity and bring income to its owner (organization), covering the competencies of its people, the value relating to its relationships, and everything that is left when the employees go home, of which intellectual property (IP) is but one component. It is the sum of everything everybody in a company knows that gives it a competitive edge. The term is used in academia in an attempt to account for the value of intangible assets not listed explicitly on a company's balance sheets. On a national level, intellectual capital refers to national intangible capital (NIC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Librarian</span> Profession

A librarian is a person who professionally works managing information. Librarians' common activities include providing access to information, conducting research, creating and managing information systems, creating, leading, and evaluating educational programs, and providing instruction on information literacy to users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medical Library Association</span> Nonprofit, educational organization of health-sciences information professionals

The Medical Library Association (MLA) is a nonprofit educational organization with more than 3,400 health-sciences information professional members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EBSCO Information Services</span> Distributor of digital media, founded 1984

EBSCO Information Services, headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a private company headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. EBSCO provides products and services to libraries of many types around the world. Its products include EBSCONET, a complete e-resource management system, and EBSCOhost, which supplies a fee-based online research service with 375 full-text databases, a collection of 600,000-plus ebooks, subject indexes, point-of-care medical references, and an array of historical digital archives. In 2010, EBSCO introduced its EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) to institutions, which allows searches of a portfolio of journals and magazines.

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) is an international professional association for library and information professionals working in business, government, law, finance, non-profit, and academic organizations and institutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grey literature</span> Documents and research not produced for commercial or academic journal purposes

Grey literature is material and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels. Common grey literature publication types include reports, working papers, government documents, white papers and evaluations. Organizations that produce grey literature include government departments and agencies, civil society or non-governmental organizations, academic centres and departments, and private companies and consultants.

Corporate communication(s) is a set of activities involved in managing and orchestrating all internal and external communications aimed at creating a favourable point of view among stakeholders on which a company depends. It is the messages issued by a corporate organization, body or institute to its audiences, such as employees, media, channel partners and the general public. Organizations aim to communicate the same message to all its stakeholders, to transmit coherence, credibility and ethics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Special library</span> Library providing resources on a particular topic or discipline

A special library is a library that provides specialized information resources on a particular subject, serves a specialized and limited clientele, and delivers specialized services to that clientele. Special libraries include corporate libraries, government libraries, law libraries, medical libraries, museum libraries, news libraries. Special libraries also exist within academic institutions. These libraries are included as special libraries because they are often funded separately from the rest of the university and they serve a targeted group of users.

Symbolic behavior is "a person’s capacity to respond to or use a system of significant symbols". The symbolic behavior perspective argues that the reality of an organization is socially constructed through communication. Symbolic messages are used by individuals to understand their environment and create a social reality. When faced with uncertainty, individuals continually organize themselves within their group-based reality and respond within that reality.

In marketing, a company’s value proposition is the full mix of benefits or economic value which it promises to deliver to the current and future customers who will buy their products and/or services. It is part of a company's overall marketing strategy which differentiates its brand and fully positions it in the market. A value proposition can apply to an entire organization, parts thereof, customer accounts, or products and services.

The National Library and Information System of Trinidad and Tobago is a corporate body established by the NALIS Act No. 18 of 1998 to administer the development and coordination of library and information services in Trinidad and Tobago.

The employee value proposition (EVP) is a part of employer branding, in that it is one of the ways companies attract the skills and employees they desire and keep them engaged. It is how companies market themselves to prospective talent, and also how they retain that talent in a competitive job market. The EVP is meant to communicate the values and culture of the organization, as well as take the focus off remuneration as the sole reason for working there. The benefits, when done correctly, are a more committed, happier, and productive workforce at a cheaper cost, which are the main goals of any employee-centered strategy. It may also have the side benefit of improving the company's perception in the eyes of consumers.

A guerrilla librarian is a person who may or may not be a professional librarian, but has otherwise taken up the stewardship of books or other material. This stewardship is usually outside the acceptance of authority figures, hence the guerrilla or underground nature of the action taken. Guerrilla librarianship can be politicized and occasionally controversial.

Employer brand is branding and marketing the entirety of the employment experience. It describes an employer's reputation as a place to work, and their employee value proposition, as opposed to the more general corporate brand reputation and value proposition to customers. The term was first used in the early 1990s, and has since become widely adopted by the global management community. Minchington describes employer brand as "the image of your organization as a 'great place to work' in the mind of current employees and key stakeholders in the external market. The art and science of employer branding is therefore concerned with the attraction, engagement and retention initiatives targeted at enhancing your company's employer brand."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">State Library of Iowa</span> Library Service in the U.S. state of Lowa.

The State Library of Iowa is a library service in the U.S. state of Iowa. Founded in around 1840, it is based in Des Moines and is run by the Iowa Department of Education. The State Library supports local libraries in the state and it itself acts as a resource for the state government and its citizens. It is funded from local taxation.

References

  1. ↑ Keyes, Alison M. "The Value of the Special Library: Review and Analysis." Special Libraries 86, no. 3 (1995): 172–87
  2. ↑ SPINDLER, D. C., & Spindler, D. C. (1982). Management looks at the corporate library. Special Libraries, 73, 251–253.
  3. ↑ Black, A., & Gabb, H. (2016). The Value Proposition of the Corporate Library, Past and Present. Information & Culture, 51(2), 192–225.
  4. ↑ Black, A., & Gabb, H. (2016). The Value Proposition of the Corporate Library, Past and Present. Information & Culture, 51(2), 192–225.
  5. ↑ Black, A., & Gabb, H. (2016). The Value Proposition of the Corporate Library, Past and Present. Information & Culture, 51(2), 192–225.
  6. 1 2 "The ROI of Corporate Libraries & Research Solutions - White Paper". Support - EBSCO Help. EBSCO Industries. 28 June 2016.
  7. ↑ Prusak, Laurence, and Matarazzo, James M. "The Value of Corporate Libraries: The 1995 Survey." SpeciaList 18, no. 1 (1995): 9–15
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.