Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal August 2007 Volume 5(4)

Conferences: CILIPS Presidential Address

Return on investment

Christopher Phillips gave a thought-provoking Presidential Address at the CILIPS conference in June, urging delegates to constantly ask those challenging questions.

In this article I want to reflect on our conference theme of ‘Customer first: developing people centred library services’; to consider how this approach impacts on the needs of users and library and information professionals; to highlight some of the features on the landscape that we need to be aware of and finally to talk about CILIP in Scotland as our professional organisation pointing out its key role in our future and our key role in its future as we face threats to its survival.

Customer first
Many years ago when I began my training as a counsellor I came across the work of Carl Rogers and the term “person-centred counselling”. Carl Rogers was active in America in the 1930s and 1940s and his book Client Centred Therapy published in 1951 was significant in its influence of the direction of the world of counselling. From his work I think the term person-centred counselling came in to being.

I recall the key features of person-centred counselling thus: the counsellor is non-directive, helps the clients to help themselves rather than tells them what to do; the counsellor helps the clients to make contact with their own inner resources and knowledge; the counsellor needs to be genuine, to have an empathetic understanding and to have an unconditional positive regard for clients.

Do you see the overlap with information work? We don’t tell our clients what to do but help them to find out and learn for themselves; we help our clients to use their own knowledge to contextualise new information; librarians are neutral, empathetic and do not place any value judgment on what information our clients want or why they want it.

Indeed I sometimes wonder whether Information Counsellor wouldn’t better reflect the relationship we have with our clients. Reviewing my notes from those training sessions after 15 years one phrase jumped out at me, “counsellors need to wear their professionalism like an invisible garment”. How true for us as well.

Relationship management
I hope you’ll agree that there are similarities in the way we work and that we can learn from the techniques and values of another profession. But there are important differences too. Crucially librarians do not respond to or work with clients only at their crisis point of need. Part of our job is to build up relationships over a long period. We work to identify, locate or collect and organise information sources likely to be relevant to our known and potential customers. Then we work to promote and interpret that information so that we encourage them to engage and we help them through our crucial role in promoting information literacy better to understand their own needs. This is all about the need to form a relationship with our customers rather than just to make a quick sale, merely giving them the information they want now and letting them leave.

To each transaction with our customers there are three components of the relationship: the assessment of need, the engagement, and the evaluation of the impact. These three are repeated each time we serve customers and the cumulative knowledge we build up from them defines our long term relationship helping us to predict or anticipate need and to be proactive in promoting or offering new sources of information. We have a role to look ahead and around to see what is new on the information landscape and to see possibilities for new paths to explore with our customers.

This is what should be at the heart of reader development within school and community libraries: a reader focused approach, understanding where customers are and walking with them along new paths. We don’t and we shouldn’t deceive our customers with phoney staff recommendations paid for by publishers as appears to happen in some bookshop chains.

Wearing our professionalism like an invisible garment we need to develop better ways of working with customers and not just for them. To understand our customers and to understand our organisations we need to talk. We need to engage with customers in the selection of information, not in the sense of old fashioned book selection committees, but by being transparent and open to suggestion. Customers who feel they have a voice will engage and feel ownership and will return again and again.

Customers have a role in creating information as we have seen in gathering community information, in capturing memories and creating digital content and as the source of that which tomorrow will be the local history of today.
There’s one bit of the relationship we need to develop better, and that is learning what people do with what information they take from libraries – evaluating the impact on individuals and on society as a whole.

Recently we’ve seen a number of studies which try to assess the economic value of libraries. You’ll recall the British Library study Measuring Value (2003). The 2007 report from the Americans for Libraries Council Worth their Weight looks at such valuation studies comparing in detail the methods and results of 17 examples. These consistently show a return on investment for libraries of over 300%. We’ll need to be cleverer about comparing like with like and finding objective ways of valuing the information we give access to. There’s certainly a lot there that’s going to influence my work over the next couple of years.
What the studies find it harder to demonstrate is the value to society and individuals of the use of libraries – the social return on investment. Where is the evidence of how information in academic and special libraries has been used to advance research? Where is the evidence to show how information from health libraries has contributed to patient care or survival? Where is the evidence to show how information from community libraries has improved employability, contributed to individuals’ personal success? How do you measure the value of the sense of place and belonging that community or family history bring, what that does to create stable and confident individuals and communities?

Despite these difficulties we have to learn how to measure and report – we have to develop our techniques, for without the evidence we won’t know that what we are doing is right and we won’t get the political, institutional or commercial support we need to carry on.

Working with our customers as the focus of our attention does mean also that we need to be open to change. For too long in the twentieth century customers got what the library and information professionals provided when they were prepared to make it available. Now there is a shift in society to new models of service. Through my travels this year as President, from the work of the CILIPS Council and as a board member of SLIC I can say without hesitation that there are fine examples throughout our profession of how librarians have embraced and sought out change because they have been in touch with the needs of their customers, delivering new services, exploring new ways of delivery. But we need to make sure that such examples are embedded across and throughout the profession.

I am lucky that I actually quite enjoy change. All my working life I have been about responding to customers’ emerging needs or doing things differently, using new tools so that we can be better, faster and sometimes cheaper. I’m proud to have worked with colleagues who have been as willing to seek out and try new things for the benefit of our customers. For me it’s just part of achieving best value; constantly asking those challenging questions: What are we trying to do? Can we do it differently? Can we do it better? What else is there that we should be doing? What are we doing now that we should no longer do?

I’m not a great lover of management textbooks, especially ones written in America. But I do like a good story and one American management book uses a fable-like story to suggest better ways of dealing with change. I would recommend Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese? The story involves two mice, Sniff and Scurry and two little people called Hem and Haw. The message is simple: change happens whether we like it or not so we are best to anticipate change and monitor it. We have to be prepared to adapt to change quickly and to make and enjoy changes ourselves, and be prepared to change and change again. When I read the book it transformed my approach to change. I wonder how best we should record that impact.

Skilling ourselves as a profession
In exploring the delivery of person centred library services I hope I’ve been able to suggest that in order to make our knowledge as information managers work we need to develop core skills in three areas: people skills, evaluation skills and change skills. We may think that we are open and inclusive and customer friendly, but surveys show otherwise. When asked a year ago customers in Scotland identified that they would be more likely to use their library if staff were more friendly and helpful. For all the emphasis on customer standards we have yet to win that campaign. I’m sure you can hone people skills through learning, but I’m equally sure that they need to be there in the first place.

I’d like to turn now to look at ways we acquire and develop our professional and operational skills. In Highland we’ve been having difficulty for some time in attracting professionals to a range of posts so we’ve been forced to look at other ways of filling vacancies by “growing our own”. This doesn’t just apply to libraries but has been noticeable in other professions such as teaching and social work. By providing additional support and linking with distance learning opportunities we’ve been able to offer the possibility of qualification to people without them having to move away from the area. We do need to explore different ways of getting fresh ideas and new blood if we are to avoid stagnation, but at least we are able to build on local experience and on the investment we’ve already made in our staff.

This approach differs from the single block of formative training that many of us experienced. Perhaps it offers a more relevant option for the 21st century.

Whether it’s public libraries, college or academic libraries, or health libraries, there’s a major re-evaluation of the role of librarians going on somewhere near you. While these may be national exercises they have been locally conducted and it is clear to me that the results of job evaluation have been far from consistent except in the devaluation of our professional qualification. With new competency frameworks supported by national occupational standards the evidence offered by Chartership is no longer seen by Personnel Managers as either exclusive or entirely relevant.

Instead we have the possibility of more focused learning opportunities based around specific needs which in time will build into something comprehensive, but which crucially do not have to be followed all at once. Now, while this is good in opening up new routes for progression, some will begin to question the value to them of CILIP UK if job vacancies are freely web accessible and the Charter is no longer seen as the evidence of knowledge and understanding, skills and experience.

What CILIPS can do for us
Next year we’ll be celebrating 100 years of there being an organisation in Scotland for librarians and information professionals. With over 2000 members, CILIP in Scotland (CILIPS) is today a thriving professional organisation. CILIPS is managed by your Council with experienced officers from within the profession and staff shared in an imaginative arrangement with SLIC. Each year’s business plan is carefully reviewed and activities costed. We work on the principle that if it is not good value or we can’t afford it then we don’t commit expenditure. CILIPS has an excellent track record of delivering on time and on budget.
It provides an active advocacy role to devolved government structures in Scotland. You will be aware of the inappropriateness of some pronouncements made on ‘UK’ library matters when they are made in unthinking ignorance of local context. CILIPS provides professional support and advice to its members again reflecting the different political, legal and educational context. It provides relevant locally based and affordable training; It promotes conferences such as this and other opportunities for members to share good practice.

Through all its activities, CILIP in Scotland offers its members the opportunity to participate in policy making and governance in a devolved policy environment.

With active local branches CILIPS supports strong local professional networks. Those who engage locally have the opportunity to learn from each other, identify good practice elsewhere which they can articulate into their local context and contribute to their continuing professional development.

I’ve said before that I’d like to see it written into job specifications that each year as part of our development we investigate practice elsewhere or in another sector and relate that back to the needs of our customers and institutions. The systematic exchange of good practice and ideas benefits us all as we learn from each other and support each other. Such a lively exchange is the lifeblood of our profession and our professional organisation.

What we can do for CILIPS
The time has come to ask not what CILIPS can do for us but rather what can we do for CILIPS for, to be blunt, if we do not engage with each other professionally our organisation will wither. It is currently under threat both through limited engagement by members and through changes to CILIP UK in London. The close relationship with CILIP UK in London is governed by a formal partnership agreement negotiated in 1995. Of course this was before devolution and there is a case for reviewing whether what was agreed then is still appropriate in the new constitutional climate. The result of the recent elections strengthens the case for review.

You’ll be aware of the severe financial pressures facing CILIP UK in London brought about in part by the enormous burden of implementing the Framework of Qualification and Accreditation (not fully costed when it was agreed to go ahead) and in part by expensive investments such as in the website. Expenditure now appears to be being better controlled but savings and cuts which might be viewed as disproportionate are being passed to CILIP Ireland, CILIP Cymru and CILIP in Scotland, or the three Home Nations as they are called (insultingly forgetting that England is one too.) Now CILIP in Scotland as I have said does manage its expenditure well and will contribute required savings, but I’d argue that CILIP UK in London does not operate quite transparently and I for one do not have the information to comment on whether the cuts requested are fair or equitable. I do know that they will affect what CILIP in Scotland will be able to do and I do know that if our activities diminish too much you will not be as motivated to contribute to your organisation as actively as you have.

The other and larger threat comes from the changes in governance proposed. The council of CILIP UK in London was unwieldy and has to change to meet the requirements of the Charity Commissioner. However, changes are proposed so that CILIP in Scotland, our national organisation, may have to compete for membership as one of the two groups included in your membership. If this is adopted then there is a severe challenge to the membership base and to continuing viability. We’ll need to look at appropriate advice to CILIPS members in advance of the CILIP UK AGM in October and remember the possibilities of proxy voting.

Your officers have been in robust discussion with CILIP UK in London and will not rest until a satisfactory outcome is achieved. I think it only fair to say that I have been astonished at the incomplete appreciation of the level and extent of CILIP in Scotland activity and the lack of awareness of just how different our governmental, legal, educational and social structures are.

So then what can you do for your professional organisation? Be active, engage with colleagues locally and further afield; become active in your branches and in Council. Learn from others and let others learn from you. Your council is looking for changes to make it easier for members to engage. It’s planned to move the AGM to take place during Conference so that more can take part and throughout this year there will be a consultation process so that we can be clear what it is that you want from your professional organisation.

Conclusion
I said earlier that putting the customer first and developing people-centred library services is about developing relationships. For our professional relationships with our customers to flourish we need to develop relationships between ourselves. We gain from our organisation only as we give to it. I often go back to things that were written long ago and find that what was said then is as true now. The other day I was looking at a Thomas Greenwood’s Free Public Libraries (1886). He sums up his review of libraries in Scotland thus: “It would be a good thing for the Scotch Public libraries to form a small association among themselves… There are many points of detail and library economy which could be discussed in a friendly way by occasional gatherings.” He was right, they did and we are here. It is now our duty to engage with each other so that CILIP in Scotland will continue to flourish in years to come.

I look forward to continuing friendly discussions and frequent gatherings.

Information Scotland Vol. 5(4) August 2007

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