Greetings from London and Internet Librarian International!
Don’t miss this conference theme-related article by Ulla De Stricker at Info Today Europe:
Fragmented, opaque, multidimensional, fast-changing … however we view the profession we chose, we share the need to assess constantly how our professional contributions match the evolving needs of employers in light of their new tools – and translate that assessment into language they understand:
- Because society is brimming with new technologies and new ways of communicating, our unique capabilities and skills, and the results we can produce, are ‘lost in the din’ more and more frequently.
- Because the workplaces of today are brimming with the tech-savvy, the appearance that ‘we’re doing fine using social media and collaboration tools – who needs an info pro?’ is more and more prevalent.
- Because we were slow to speak up about our value as technology took flight, we now must ‘cut to the chase’ and speak bluntly: No, it is not OK for knowledge workers to be left fending for themselves without professional information support. No, it is not OK to ‘throw technology at it’ and hope that will solve the corporate memory challenges (and so on). Hard messages to hear for executives, perhaps … but haven’t we been polite about it long enough?