57
The 21st Century Librarian’s
Skill Set: The Role of Big Data
Amy Affelt
Concern over preparedness for the 21st century began to gather steam in the mid-1990s as computer and IT professionals faced the challenges involved in ensuring that their systems were “Y2K” ready when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 1999. The question everyone seemed to be asking was, “Will the computers recognize the new date from a new century?” Despite reassurances from mainframe suppliers, no one could breathe easy until 12:01 am on January 1, 2000.
In the 1996 race for President of the United States, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole parlayed concerns over an uncertain future into campaign themes, asking Americans which candidate they trusted more to be a “21st Century President.” When Bill Clinton spoke of “building a bridge to the 21st century,”1 we weren’t exactly sure where we would end up if we crossed that bridge, other than a vague understanding that we would end up in the future. In essence, Clinton was referring to the need to prepare for the inevi-table challenges a new century would bring.
Is there even such a thing as a 21st century librarian? Is the term an oxymoron? Should we be calling ourselves 21st century info pros, or something entirely new and different? In recent years, the title “librarian” has come under fire from those both inside and out-side the profession. The Special Libraries Association (SLA) has been discussing what librarians should call ourselves ever since the organization was founded in 1909. SLA’s first president, John Cotton Dana, said, “The name Special Libraries was chosen with some hesitation, and rather in default of a better.”2 The 20th century
and Opportunities for Librarians and Information Professionals, Amy Affelt draws on the Special Libraries Association (SLA) Alignment Project and other research to explain how info pros can help C-suite level executives
librarians who were members of SLA at the time may have felt the same way about their own titles given the fact that many were working in less-traditional library settings such as corporate and legal environments.
The debate within SLA reached a fever pitch in 2009 when the SLA Alignment Project research3 was revealed. The SLA Alignment Project was an 18-month long research project conducted by SLA and consulting firms Fleishman-Hillard, Social Technologies, and Outsell. The research was conducted by interviewing and survey-ing C-suite level executives, IT staff, people from Human Resources (HR), and marketing professionals in four countries regarding their views, attitudes, and key priorities relative to information services in the following areas:
• Roles of the information professional
• Habits of the information professional
• Perceptions of value of the information professional • Perceptions of role of the information professional
Data from those surveys and interviews was then used to develop a framework within which librarians and information pro-fessionals can deliver strategic results that positively affect their organizations’ bottom lines. This framework can be used to help us characterize our contributions to our organizations in a way that resonates with senior executives. The project as a whole focuses on identifying the tactics we can use to strategically align ourselves with our organizations and remain a vital, growing profession that is recognized across industries as part and parcel of successful businesses. I wrote an article in 2009 for Information Outlook4 in which I listed these tactics. They remain applicable in working with Big Data. It is critical that we:
• Develop language to explain what we do and the variety of services we can offer
• Quantify the deliverables, value, and intelligence we provide
• Cultivate the unique skill set and specialized knowledge that are hallmarks of our profession
In sum, the goal of the Alignment Project is to codify the above practices so that librarians and information professionals will have a roadmap to guide them in demonstrating how invaluable they are to advancing the goals of their organization. This chapter expands that roadmap to include suggestions on how we can advance our organization’s Big Data goals as well, since the project was completed before data became big.
The L Word
The area of research which received the most attention from SLA members—but which was actually one of the least emphasized categories—was the issue of what we call ourselves. One of the con-clusions reached was that “the word librarian is a double-edged sword. People love librarians; however, they find the world librarian dusty and antiquated.”5 Further, the study found that “the term ‘special librarians’ is not understood by key audiences and is not associated with the positive attributes that employers value.”6 The survey gauged attitudes toward adjectives that can be used to describe the work of librarians, and the following terms were viewed as highly favorable: knowledge, insight, strategic, and intelligence.7
I must admit that I “drank the Kool-Aid” when the SLA Align-ment Project findings were first released. The job title possibilities were new, exciting, and full of promise. I thought that if I just called myself something else, wonderful opportunities would unfold. Ultimately, “Strategic Knowledge Professional” was the title that SLA said would best resonate with the constituents we serve.8 Would the 21st Century Librarian be known as the 21st Century Strategic Knowledge Professional?
Upon reflection, it seems pretty obvious that if we introduce ourselves as strategic knowledge professionals, we will be met, at best, with people asking “What’s that?” As one of my colleagues has pointed out, the truly confused among us might ask, “You’re a what now?” We would spend a lot of time just explaining what we do. That is not to say that explaining what strategic knowledge profes-sionals do is a wasted opportunity. Indeed, it is a chance to give an “elevator speech” about the value that we bring to research and information. However, in a time-crunched world in which every second counts and everyone’s time is very limited, it increasingly seems like it would be better to start on common ground when marketing our skills.
It is also important to keep in mind that the SLA Alignment Proj-ect was just one study on this topic, and—as you will learn—it is never a good idea to rely on data from only one source. In the fall of 2013, SLA revisited the name change once again, and polled the membership to see if it was interested in pursuing a name change. “Most respondents felt strongly or very strongly that the current name accurately reflects their professional interests.”9 It is my per-sonal belief that the same is true of the term “librarian” and its reflection of our professional activities.
Because you have made it this far into this book, you will, by now, have realized that I refer to myself and my colleagues as “librarians and information professionals.” You have probably also noticed that I feel that it is very important to speak a common lan-guage with the people that we serve. Indeed, one of the main rea-sons that SLA decided to undertake the Alignment Project was because it felt that the field of librarianship is growing beyond tra-ditional library work, yet librarians and information professionals are not communicating what they do, and the value that they bring, in a language similar to that of potential employers.10 Although SLA was not referring to librarians’ roles in working with Big Data, the sentiment is applicable.
My 20+ years of working in corporate and legal environments have taught me that “librarian” is a profession and job function that people understand, and when I introduce myself as a librar-ian, I am identifying myself as doing work that people understand. Simply saying “I am a librarian, and I am here to help you find high quality information from citable sources that will add credibility to your work” immediately establishes authority and expertise in a helpful way. It says that you are a professional who wants to help your constituents become successful. Why waste time explaining what your fancy strategic knowledge professional title means? Everyone knows what a librarian is. Say it loud and proud before moving on to touting your skill set and how you use it to find rele-vant, timely, accurate information and data that fits the firm’s intel-ligence needs.
21st Century Goals
It is likely that the mission statements for our libraries and infor-mation centers need to be updated for the 21st century. Further, it is likely that they need to include verbiage that emphasizes our ability to perform new roles in Big Data. Management guru Peter Drucker often said that in order to be effective, organizational mis-sion statements need to be short enough to fit on a t-shirt.11 When writing a goal-setting document, you typically have more space than that; enough to list all that you hope to accomplish, provided each goal is tangible and forces accountability. Your goals should reflect the ideals of your profession: to deliver to people exactly what they need (and often don’t even realize they need) in a form that they find helpful and usable, from a source that is highly accu-rate and reliable, in a way that saves them time and money.12
A careful reading of the language that was viewed favorably by participants in the SLA Alignment Project can help make the task of writing your information center’s mission statement easier. The recommended language is clear and can be easily incorporated
into a sentence or two that defines what your organization expects you to contribute to its success. Your stakeholders have always looked to you to turn information into knowledge quickly and effi-ciently, as well as give them an edge over the competition. Your mission statement must reflect that expectation, and new expecta-tions surrounding Big Data as well.
James Matarazzo’s pivotal 1995 study on the future of corporate libraries found that some organizations closed their libraries because they felt “the library was no longer in touch with what was going on within the organization and where it was headed in the future.”13 It is clear that Big Data is “what is going on” within many organizations, and the senior leadership of these firms see it as the future. The obvious conclusion is that librarians need to be in touch with Big Data to stay relevant.
The Alignment Project’s research determined that executives and other stakeholders look to librarians and information profes-sionals for three mission-critical contributions:14
• Unique knowledge regarding the information sources available and how they can best be used in your organization’s unique setting
• Assurance that you are aware of the “newest and truest” sources of information and are making that information available to the organization
• Best practices in the most efficient use of information resources
Let’s unpack each of these critical contributions.
Demonstrating Your Unique Knowledge
Demonstrating your unique knowledge of available resources includes knowing where to obtain credible data and how that data can be used to support individual research projects. We are expert at finding reliable data, but how will we know how it can be used by 62 The Accidental Data Scientist
our own organizations? This step involves getting outside of our specialized work groups and information centers, and talking to our constituents about the projects that they are working on and the companies, industries, and concepts that they find interesting and important.
Reference interviewing is a basic skill that has been proven highly effective in ascertaining what people are working on and what they need to know about. Oftentimes, when reference inter-viewing is done informally it can be the most enlightening. Although this can be difficult in a large organization, the easiest way to get this information is to ask people what they are working on. Rather than conducting surveys and questionnaires, approach your colleagues in the cafeteria or even in the elevator, and ask them about their current projects. The point is to take a genuine interest in the work being done at your firm. Most people are more than happy to talk about themselves and their work, and while it will seem to them that you are just making small talk, you will actu-ally be gaining insight that will help you determine what kind of data you can offer them that will best fit their needs.
Keeping Up to Date
Proving to your company’s chief executives that you know the best resources will require “keeping up” with Big Data developments via the blogs and websites discussed in Chapter 2 as well as others. It also mandates that we actively seek out new sources of data that can be used for research. These sources can be either free or fee-based; in either case, it is crucial that they are reliable and of high quality, since the Alignment Project research indicates that our constituents are looking to us for reassurances regarding those attributes surrounding the data we provide.
Information industry publications such as Online Searcher,
Computers in Libraries, and the Information Advisor’s Guide to Internet Research have regular columns that feature reviews of new
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by Mick O’Leary, “Database Review,” in which the pros and cons of new databases and websites are discussed. Information Today also issues NewsLink, a weekly email newsletter that includes fea-ture articles and a Weekly News Digest. A large percentage of the items in these updates are database reviews and articles discuss-ing databases that have added new content or features, and other developments.
It is not enough simply to be aware that these data tools exist. We need to demonstrate to our organizations that we know what these databases offer, how they work, and how their data could possibly be used at our organizations. There are several ways that you can showcase your data knowledge to your organization.
Every library or information center should have a periodic news-letter that discusses new sources that the library has acquired or could possibly acquire in the future. Write articles about individual data sources and solicit opinions regarding whether or not your constituents feel that those sources would be a good addition to your current offerings. You can also recruit requestors who might have a specific need for a particular data source to take part in a free trial, which you can set up with the vendor. Involving decision- makers in the process of trying out a service can prove to be very helpful when you need champions to help get a purchase approved. Another way to increase awareness of your data aptitude when roll-ing out new data sources is to choose a select group of high-level requestors to serve as a beta test group for the data. Working with these individuals in this way provides a constant communication channel and helps focus that communication around data and your expertise in locating it, delivering it, and analyzing it.
Establishing Best Practices and Maintaining Efficiency
For the 21st century librarian, best practices will need to include those that are used for data projects as well as for traditional written research projects. The executives interviewed for the SLA Alignment 64 The Accidental Data Scientist
Project uniformly emphasized that they place the utmost impor-tance on information reliability and accuracy. Therefore, best prac-tices should revolve around these two attributes.
When compiling lists of best practices involving data, we should make certain that we have procedures in place to guarantee both the credibility and citability of the underlying sources we are using, as well as a system of checks and proofs to ensure that the data is error free. This system can be as simple as asking a colleague to review your work or follow your research steps to ensure that the data is clean. If you are working on a particularly high-stakes proj-ect, however, you might want to download the same data from sev-eral different sources in order to compare and contrast datapoints in order to see if they match, or at least are relatively close.
Efficient use of traditional sources often centers on choosing the most cost-efficient database when several have the same informa-tion. The same philosophy applies when choosing a source of data. For example, if a database aggregator is selling government data that can also be retrieved from a government website free of charge and in a timely manner, it might make sense to obtain the data directly from the website.
Efficiency also refers to expertise in searching and retrieving arti-cles or data. Librarians and information professionals who have received training in how to search for specific information or data can usually find it and deliver it much more quickly than an end user. We are also expert in judging the quality and cost effectiveness of data sources. Therefore, the most efficient route to obtaining data is to suggest that end users who are not finding what they need in an expedient manner ask the library to do it for them.
The “Fifteen Minute Rule”16 is a best practice that many librari-ans have used to great success. This is a directive that librarilibrari-ans can give to end users when they are doing their own searching: if an end user has spent 15 minutes looking for something and hasn’t found it, he or she then calls the library for assistance. Since the
66 The Accidental Data Scientist
librarian can probably find the information more quickly, the com-pany or client’s time and money is not wasted on a futile search.
Other best practices for librarians working with data include auditing all fee-based sources of data to which the library or infor-mation center subscribes to determine if there is overlap.17 If it is determined that two sources have the same data, consider discon-tinuing your subscription to one. It is also important to exercise contract negotiation skills in order to obtain volume discounts and special packages with vendors. Librarians must also determine data that may be needed for future projects but for which the infor-mation center does not currently have a source. The process by which this determination is made is another opportunity for engaging senior staff. Solicit their opinions regarding data for which they might have a future need. By initiating conversations about data and the needs of your constituents, you are positioning yourself as someone who will be remembered when selecting project teams.
High Value Deliverables
According to the SLA Alignment Project, the information professional-created deliverables that were ranked highest in value by executives included competitive intelligence, management of internal content, the embedding of information professionals on project teams in order to provide a direct point of contact for research, and, as discussed above, determination of high quality sources.18 All of these deliverables can be enhanced by data.
The best way to deliver what is valued is through a tangible, pragmatic information product that benefits management’s bot-tom line. One of the best ways to do this is to institute a cusbot-tom clipping and alert service, but with a twist for the Big Data era. There are four main reasons to offer alert services, and each one provides opportunities to fulfill needs that the executives inter-viewed for the Alignment Project consider important:19
• To market your information center and your services
• To advance the work and practices of your firm • To grow your firm’s client base
• To keep tabs on the competition
All of the preceding functions are very important, but the most valuable benefit of alerting services is received when information professionals provide requestors with research that they never realized they needed (or didn’t know existed) but that is central to their research or the project on which they’re working. At this point, the librarians become an integral part of each requestor’s personal success. As my colleague Marya Birnbaum Spangler said, “Giving people information they need before they even know they need it is the best marketing strategy ever!”20 Being able to do this requires keeping an ear to the ground, learning about current and upcom-ing projects, and clients’ and executives’ interests.
For example, if client case strategy meetings are held, find a way to get invited so you can understand the issues and suggest approaches, research, and appropriate data that can be used. Track key business and industry publications as well as news from the big players (the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the
Economist, etc.). Traditionally, librarians who have used these
sources have sent out articles to stakeholders who could benefit from the information.
We will have to take that a step further if we wish to work on data projects; articles are not enough evidence to demonstrate our data proficiency. We will need to look for data, preferably in a visual representation such as a graph or chart, to distribute along with relevant articles. It is fairly easy to find ready-made graphics in the publications we are already using for alerts, but if you can make one yourself to send along with a related article, all the bet-ter. Be sure to include a thorough explanation of the data you used, the source where you retrieved that data, and what the visual
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represents. (Examples of visual representations of data are pro-vided in Chapter 4).
Value-added Intelligence
The 21st century librarian is working in the 21st century economy, which so far has been marked by government bailouts of banks and businesses, high unemployment and underemployment, and a global recession. Corporate restructuring and downsizing are the norm, but interestingly, according to James Kane, a researcher and consultant in the science of loyalty—who writes and lectures on building and maintaining loyal relationships in the workplace— these episodes are rarely about money, but instead about who does and does not “make life better.”21
Librarians need to find leaders in the ranks of upper manage-ment who can tout your indispensability and accomplishmanage-ments while vouching for the fact that you make life better. Ideally, these people are executives who frequently use your services and have been pleased with the results. Through working with you, these leaders have come to realize the contributions you make in helping them do their jobs effectively and efficiently.
Ultimately, when budget cuts are discussed, you will need some-one who can be your advocate in the boardroom. If a high-profile executive can demonstrate from his or her own experience the value added by the firm’s information services unit, you will have done one of the most proactive things you can to avoid being put on the chopping block.22 Less dramatically, we need people to view us as adept at working with data. We need to make our work on data projects so memorable and noteworthy that these same champions of our regular work will think of us when Big Data ini-tiatives are discussed. We want to be the first people who come to mind when our constituents are trying to find solutions for making sense of Big Data.
Information professionals who were surveyed for the Alignment Project were asked the question, “Do you analyze data, or gather data?” An overwhelming number responded that they spend just as much time analyzing data as they do gathering it. This analysis involves producing the best and most relevant information, which is exactly what the executives surveyed said they look to us to do.23 The phrase “value-added intelligence” was ranked highest among the executives when they were asked to rate research project ver-biage according to the effect it has on their work.24 Therefore, it is critically important that we effectively demonstrate that our role in a data project is to bring the intelligence which is so highly valued. When presenting data analysis, we need to effectively commu-nicate the thorough process we completed and the critical think-ing skills we used in order for our constituents to understand the role that we played in the final outcome of the project. When we do this, our constituents will instantly recognize value-added intelli-gence in every data-driven knowledge product that we create.
Demonstrate Your Value
“Value” is highly variable depending on the individuals and the
cir-cumstances of their situation at any given point in time. Prior to determining value, it is important to understand what is not val-ued. For quite a while now, librarians and information profession-als have found themselves in positions where they are forced to defend against the notion that everything is free on the internet, and that anyone with access to the web can do the job of a librar-ian. In order to prove their worth and the value they bring to the organization, it is critical that information professionals do not deliver research that looks or feels like a list of Google results.25 Luckily, Big Data doesn’t look like Google results, and that percep-tion works to our advantage.
Research containing data can help us to create deliverables that do not look or feel like anything our constituents have seen
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before—or like something that they could easily find or create themselves for free. Visuals, such as charts and graphs, show that expertise with data—in addition to web searching—is needed to produce the delivered product. This goes a long way in illustrating the advantages that an expert researcher who is comfortable work-ing with data can brwork-ing to a project. The tools discussed in the next chapter can be used by librarians to create easy-to-understand graphical representations of powerful sets of data that are not read-ily available without a high level of web searching expertise.
There are also smaller, more basic approaches to research that are very helpful to end users who find themselves overwhelmed by all of the possible data sources that exist. Simply reviewing a list of possible data sources compiled by a requestor, and helping to determine the top five or ten best choices—while explaining why they are the most valuable—can be a very important stepping stone along the path to becoming a Big Data authority.
Another step along this path is to create “cheat sheet” documents for end users listing helpful websites that offer credible data that can be accessed for free. These documents should be organized in such a way that they explain the types of data that each source offers, along with some examples of typical research projects for which it can be used. By positioning yourself as a guide in helping requestors to easily access key, reliable data, you will become the first person they call when they need to find out where to get data and how to use it.
Other Studies
The SLA Alignment Project is one of the largest and most well-known studies of the value of the information professional and how to communicate that value to company leaders, but there are other studies that reinforce the same conclusions. Mary Ellen Bates conducted research for ProQuest on how information profession-als can demonstrate their value to the upper management of their
organizations.26 Her research on the challenges information pro-fessionals face in helping constituents to identify missing or unreli-able data reveals several suggestions for how we can communicate our value through additional customization and analysis.
Interestingly, Bates begins her ProQuest paper by discussing the question I visited in Chapter 1: how can we not only survive but thrive when there is a perception that the internet is a replacement for a librarian? The analogy she uses to answer the question is from accountancy.27 Considering that 80 percent of tax returns are filed electronically, and over a third are prepared by the filers themselves using software like TurboTax and Kiplinger, one would think that many accounting firms would find themselves with nothing to do. Instead, they shifted gears and now market themselves as financial planners and tax reduction specialists.28 It is that exact type of rein-vention that we need to undertake when our requestors believe that they are “good enough” searchers and that if what they need is not found through an internet search, it doesn’t exist.
In another paper for Dow Jones, Bates discusses content avail-able on fee-based news provider Factiva versus using Google for internet content, highlighting the advanced indexing and source limitation features available on Factiva but not available on Google News.29 These same advantages sometimes exist when searching for data on proprietary databases versus searching the open web. But how do we convey these caveats to our constituents, who prob-ably find a list of Google hits “good enough”?
In the ProQuest paper, Bates offers an interesting “dare to com-pare” exercise that librarians could try as a way to demonstrate that the most efficient way to find data is often by using the library. It works like this: a librarian at an engineering firm could hold a training session comparing web searching with the resources used by the librarians. First, she would demonstrate how hard it is to use an internet search engine to find an engineering standard if you do not have the exact standard number. Then, she would show how
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the same search can be done in one of the library’s databases of standards to easily find the needed document.30
Through this process, the librarian demonstrates the “value- added intelligence” that we bring—and that our constituents rank so highly—by using a timely, relevant example that is easy to under-stand, the implications of which will impart an “aha” moment to the attendees of the training session. This example (and others like it that you can devise and tailor to the end users at your own orga-nization) provides a tangible, immediate illustration of how much time and money can be saved by using the library rather than doing an unguided web search.
But being part of a Big Data team is about more than just finding information—it’s about making sense of it. You’ll need to familiar-ize yourself with a whole new set of tools that help you do what you do best—add value to information—when confronted with data-sets of possibly overwhelming proportions.
Endnotes
1. “Clinton Proposes Bridge to 21st Century,” CNN, August 30, 1996, accessed December 3, 2013, http://cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/news/9608/30/ clinton.speech/
2. History of SLA, accessed December 3, 2013, http://www.sla.org/about-sla/ history/
3. Gloria Zamora and Janice Lachance, “Positioning SLA for the Future: Alignment Initiative Results and Recommendations,” presentation at SLA Leadership Summit, Savannah, Georgia, January 13, 2009.
4. Amy Affelt, “Aligning the Information Center to Create the Future,” Information Outlook 13, no.4 (2009): 31–38.
5. Cindy Romaine, Gloria Zamora, and Bill Fisher, “Strategic Alignment: Positioning Our Brand for the Future,” Information Outlook 13, no. 1 (2009):10–15. 6. Zamora and Lachance, “Positioning SLA for the Future.”
7. Ibid.
8. SLA Alignment Wiki, accessed December 4, 2013, http://wiki.sla.org/display/ align/SLA+Alignment+Wiki
9. “Most Members OK with SLA’s Name,” Information Outlook 17, no. 6 (2013): 5. 10. Zamora and Lachance, “Positioning SLA for the Future.”
11. Peter F. Drucker and James C. Collins, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization (New York: Leader to Leader Institute, 2008), 11.
12. Affelt, “Aligning the Information Center to Create the Future.” 13. Romaine et al., “Strategic Alignment.”
14. Amy Affelt, “Best Practices for Aligning the Mission and Marketing the Services of the Corporate Library,” in Best Practices for Corporate Libraries, ed. Marjorie J. Porter and Sigrid E. Kelsey (Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2011), 153. 15. Information Today website, accessed December 4, 2013, http://www.infotoday.
com/it/default.asp
16. Amy Affelt, “Continuing the Engagement,” presentation given at the Internet Librarian conference, Monterey, California, October 2013.
17. Judith Hurwitz, Alan Nugent, Fern Halper, and Marcia Kaufman, “Five Big Data Best Practices,” accessed December 4, 2013, http://www.dummies.com/ how-to/content/five-big-data-best-practices.html
18. Affelt, “Best Practices for Aligning the Mission and Marketing the Services of the Corporate Library.”
19. Affelt, “Aligning the Information Center to Create the Future.” 20. Marya Birnbaum Spangler, interview by author, email, April 8, 2014. 21. James Kane, “The Loyalty Switch,” unpublished manuscript, 2014. 22. Affelt, “Aligning the Information Center to Create the Future.” 23. Zamora and Lachance, “Positioning SLA for the Future.” 24. Ibid.
25. Affelt, “Best Practices for Aligning the Mission and Marketing the Services of the Corporate Library.”
26. Mary Ellen Bates, “From Information to Insight for Info Pros,” White paper for ProQuest, 2013, accessed December 5, 2013, http://go.proquest.com/ pq-dialog-whitepaper/from-information-to-insight-for-info-pros
27. Ibid. 28. Ibid.
29. Mary Ellen Bates, “The True Value of Information,” White paper for Dow Jones, 2011, accessed December 5, 2013, http://www.dowjones.com/factiva/ institutefiles/14-The%20True%20Value%20of%20Information%20e-Book.pdf 30. Bates, “From Information to Insight for Info Pros.”
About the Author
An economic information specialist with a master’s degree in Library and Information Science, Amy Affelt conducts and supervises research and analysis in support of PhD economists who testify as
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experts in litigation. She is a well-known author and conference presenter on topics such as adding value to information, evaluating information quality, and marketing information services. She is active in the Special Libraries Association (SLA), having served as chair of its Future Ready Toolkit initiative and as chair of its Leadership and Management Division.
This chapter originally appeared in The Accidental Data Scientist: Big Data Applications and Opportunities for Librarians and Information Professionals, by Amy Affelt.