Insights from the SLA Fellows – Marydee Ojala

SLA Europe DigiComms

New SLA Fellow Dennie Heye has started to interview other SLA Fellows to find out what we can learn from them. The fifth in this series of SLA Fellow interviews is with Marydee Ojala.

As a Fellow, what is your current role and employer?

I wear many hats. I am the Editor-in-Chief of Online Searcher: Information Discovery, Technology, Strategies, a new publication from Information Today, Inc. that combines Searcher magazine with Online magazine. Online Searcher continues the volume numbering for Online, so 2013 is volume 37. I love to point out to younger people that online predates the internet and that librarians were at the forefront of the online information revolution.Marydee Ojala

I also do conference program planning for WebSearch University in the USA and WebSearch Academy in the UK. WebSearch Academy is part of Internet Librarian International, where I serve on the advisory board and am a frequent speaker. This year’s conference will be in London in mid-October.

Plus, I get involved in independent research projects (did a fascinating one recently on big data quality) and conduct in-house search training sessions.

Who within the profession was the first to inspire you?

The head of the library at BankAmerica Corporation, Teresa Hickey, was my first boss after I got my masters degree. She impressed me with her work ethic, her tenacity in finding answers wherever they lurked, and her active participation in and support of SLA.

If you think about the future of our profession, what keeps you awake at night and why?

We’re supposed to be the information experts, yet we’re not recognized as that by many of our employers, by the public, or by the media. We should be in the forefront of internet technologies, of digitization projects, of freedom of access to information, of setting information policies, of technical prowess. Too often, we’re not. We’re shunted off to the side. Our opinions are not considered valuable. We’re not consulted. We don’t insist on being front and center. But how prepared are we to be the public face of the information age? We must have something to say and be able to say it forcefully and memorably.

Libraries, in the public mind, are not the specialized institutions in which many SLA members work. That’s why we have so many different job titles represented within the association. To succeed in the future, we will need to recognize how to adapt our core skills to new situations. What do we bring to the table that will truly enhance the profitability of our employers, if we work in the corporate world, or the continued viability of our employers, if we’re not in the corporate world.

We are becoming taxonomists, purchasing agents, enterprise search specialists, paralegals, information architects, search engine optimisers, training consultants, independent information professionals, and probably other job titles not yet invented. We are also “leaving the building” as libraries shrink both in physical space and in staff. The notion of embedded librarians is permeating all types of libraries. The physical library may decline in importance, possibly even disappear, but the librarian will remain. It’s the librarian that makes a library, not the other way around. As the profession fragments, how will we find common ground?

When it comes to innovation, a lot of companies are trying to stay ahead of the competition by disrupting themselves from the inside out. Do you have ideas about how information professionals could start disruptive innovation in their organisations?

To be a disruptive influence, information professionals must think assertively, possibly even aggressively. We’re not merely providing information. That’s way too passive a statement. Our job is analysis and insights. It’s understanding what’s important to our employers and interpreting information for them so that its’ actionable. We’re in the decision business.

Having said that, however, I’m not sure disruption can occur from the inside. The biggest disruptive force to libraries was Google. The web disrupted other businesses as well. How companies not only react to disruptive influences but also harness them for innovative purposes is the real test for thriving in today’s and tomorrow’s environment.

If you were given a chance to go 10 years back in time, what would you do differently in your job and professional development?

Can I go back further? When I became a Fellow, I was living in Europe. I was doing independent research, writing for publications and for companies, and conducting training sessions across Europe. If I could do things differently, I’d still be living in Europe, but that, I’m afraid, is a fantasy, given I’m not a citizen of an EU country. In support of that fantasy, however, I’m still a member of SLA Europe and even went to a chapter meeting when I happened to be in London last November.

What is different—and this is a very good thing—is that SLA has become truly international since then. Although the verbiage 20 years ago claimed we had members around the globe, those members were considered somewhat exotic. Mentally, SLA was a North American association. Today it’s truly international and I find this seriously thrilling. We live in a global information world and SLA is very much in the middle of that global mindset. I’m particularly gratified by SLA’s involvement with IFLA.

As far as professional development, I’m not sure I would have done anything differently, although I flirt with the idea of taking an art history course sometimes.

In order to remain relevant in the future, what should SLA start doing? Stop doing? Do more of?

When I joined SLA (I was still in graduate school at the time), its appeal was networking. Through the network of membership, you could access the intelligence in your colleagues’ heads via a quick phone call and you could visit libraries and information centers otherwise closed to the public. Today that’s not as strong an argument, since internet technology has made networking a basic attribute. We’ve got social media, email, and online discussion forums that don’t require SLA membership to maximize networking.

If not networking, then what is the rationale for association membership? SLA’s member numbers are declining and we’re not alone in that. Many professional associations report drops in membership numbers, as younger people look elsewhere for career support. What associations still excel at is face to face meetings, where you can physically interact, frequently in unstructured ways, with your colleagues. That, I think, is one of the great values of our annual conference. It would be wonderful if SLA could do more regional conferences, but having been involved in organizing one of these several years ago, I realize it’s a huge drain on resources.

As information professionals adopt new roles within their organizations, they should be looking to SLA for support. Unless SLA can provide support for these emerging workplace situations, professionals will look elsewhere for their professional association and development opportunities. As Fellows, we should be contributing to guiding SLA to a viable future.

About the author

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