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business libraries and the net
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Date: Wed, 28 Jun 95 12:00:53 EDT
From: Sam Sternberg
----------------- Introduction THE KNOWLEDGE SERVER
Improving Internal Operations THE ONLINE BUSINESS LIBRARY CATALOGING IS EXTRAORDINARILY EXPENSIVE
Resources "THE" LISTSERV FOR BUSINESS LIBRARIANS SHARE AN ACADEMIC LIBRARY DIGITAL MAGAZINES DISMANTLE YOUR EXISTING LIBRARY TECHNICAL REPORTS ONLINE BUSINESS NEWS ON THE DESKTOP BOOKS REFERENCE DESKS ON THE INTERNET COMPETITOR AND CUSTOMER INFO OTHER EXTERNAL INFORMATION INTEGRATING EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL INFORMATION RESOURCES
Global Markets ASIAN RESOURCES
Business Opportunities THE VIRTUAL COMPANY
Industry Update DATABASE INDUSTRY
Communication REACHING ALL THE BUSINESSES IN HONG KONG
Government Regulation REFORMING FEDERAL REGULATION
Research Requests
Subscription Information
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INTRODUCTION =============
BUILDING THE KNOWLEDGE SERVER -------------------------------- This issue is the first of two on building a Knowledge Server system. It focuses on resources that let you offer News, Magazine articles, technical Reports, and other external knowledge to your employees in digital form. The theme is eliminating the company library in favor of a online knowledge distribution system. It's really is possible to eliminate your company library and transform the role of its staff. The goal is shifting to just-in-time delivery of knowledge and expertise.
All your employees can have access to the published information they need without a formal library of books or magazines at any of your facilities. They can be at work, on the road, or in their home. Your costs will be lower overall; staff access will be greatly improved; and you will be on your way to creating a real distributed knowledge system for your company.
In the next issue we will look at creating a complimentary system to give staff access to all your important internal news and documents. A complete Knowledge Server system includes the kind of library functions discussed in this issue and adds categories of internal information that are useful to your employees, customers and suppliers.
IMPROVING INTERNAL OPERATIONS =============================
THE ONLINE BUSINESS LIBRARY --------------------------- What distinguishes a conventional library from a random heap of reading matter is the organization of the collected materials. Digital libraries still need the organization, they just eliminate most of the collection. The attraction of convenient access to full document and multi-media resources available from the employees' desks is powerful. Traditional libraries are systems for storing information "just in case" you need it. A digital knowledge server minimized local storage and lets you find information "just when you need it".
Once implemented , users will be able to search and browse through online catalogs and document depositories anywhere in the world; or turn to your online librarians for assistance. Users can also do the resource cataloging for your new system. The Internet allows every user to participate in developing and maintaining the system.
The real trick is to avoid purchasing magazines, reports, books, and other materials in the first place. The techniques described in the Resources section will allow you to eliminate local storage of materials. Your staff will often find and retrieve the materials they need by themselves. By letting remote sites catalog and store the materials you "MIGHT" need; you transform the knowledge flow in your company.
There are still costs for user training, copyright clearance, security, and other information management issues. But overall the costs are much lower for a digital service and the productivity of all users is increased. Traditional libraries force patrons to visit ( at the firm's expense ), or require complicated and expensive material circulation systems. Worse yet, they really only work well for those sites with a library. With cost cutting in force everywhere, the result is often an attempt to share one copy of each magazine among too many users and in some companies - several locations.
CATALOGING IS EXTRAORDINARILY EXPENSIVE --------------------------------------- The average price of a professional book or business magazine subscription is now well over $30.00. It also costs a typical company library about $25.00 to catalogue each book. Worse, while it costs less to catalog a magazine, magazine cataloging usually fails to make the issues very useful to end users. Those costs and the additional expense of storage facilities, shelving, repairing, replacing and ultimately disposing of materials are largely unnecessary if you make effective use of digital resources.
A major piece of reengineering the library function involves letting all company employees catalog their own materials, and add pointers to the remote reference resources they find most useful. You have visited WEB sites that invite you to add new pointers by filling out an online form. Well, that use of forms can be taken inhouse. Create a knowledge database using a WEB SITE on your inhouse lan and let each employee list the company purchased books and other materials they have at their home or desk. That same WEB site can be the access point for the external document suppliers your company uses, and staff's favorite sites.
Now you have a single place for your staff to look for external and internal materials. Voila, a distributed library with a centralized catalog; one that your library staff monitors rather than maintains. Now any employee can quickly find out who has a copy of a book they want or an article they need; or locate it remotely.
Your offices, labs, and telecomuters will finally have the kind of access that only head office staff had before. They can forget about travel to the library, parking hassles, hours of operation or the previously inevitable missing, lost, or misshelved information. Best of all your new digital system will take you beyond the printed word and allow you to organize and distribute resources of all media types including maps, engineering drawings, faxes, photos, audio, video, and multimedia.
The savings can only be fully realized if all your employees have internet access or are on a company lan. Once you have set up your electronic library, you will have to do some training. Users must know how to use and access the system, and how to reach support for it. They will all need to know who to email or phone for immediate assistance with frustrating problems.
The problem with all libraries is finding the specific information you need. That is why you will be keeping your library staff. Ideally your new digital system will combine staff support with remote access to internet resources and a few well chosen full-text products on CD-ROM.
With cataloging and other maintenance activities minimized there will be much more time to do online searching, reference, and document delivery. Your staff will be far more productive in serving the end user. But, they will have to be better trained about online resources for the new system to work well. Send them to some refresher courses.
RESOURCES =========
Your firm's digital library should be developed in stages. Feel free to pick and choose among these resources and suggestions for an appropriate group to begin with.
USE "THE" LISTSERV FOR BUSINESS LIBRARIANS
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BUSLIB-L - is the place business librarians go to ask each other for help with stumpers. The members revel in finding obscure books and unusual resources, or locating a hard to find firm in an unusual location. Send e-mail to listserv@idbsu.idbsu.edu with the words - subscribe buslib-l - in the body of the message.
SHARE AN ACADEMIC LIBRARY
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1 - Many business school libraries are looking for corporate support or membership. At the University of Toronto, several companies have eliminated their own libraries and jointly support the business library. In return they have unlimited access and excellent service. The school stores a rapidly shrinking collection of books (which the companies help select); subscribes to specialized business databases; and does online commercial searching. It also uses interlibrary loan on behalf of the companies; to get unusual materials from other libraries around the world. Each company's savings on database subscriptions and online searching easily recovers the financial contribution.
2 - If an appropriate library doesn't exist locally, the library you work with can be on the Internet. There are the thousands of specialized libraries. If you find that a library is particularly useful for your needs, send email t the head librarian inquiring about free and cost recovery based services. Most will be glad to help.
3 - Make use of INTERNET BUSINESS RESOURCE pointers maintained by
business libraries like BABSON. This site lists 40 + subject
categories of business resources available on the internet. It also
provides an extensive list of business related listservs and usenet
groups.
MAGAZINES
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Most of the information your company needs is current information. The kind that you find in magazines. Digital magazines are far easier to use than paper and better for the environment. So, cancel your paid paper subscriptions. Then do the following:
1 - Switch to free " controlled circulation " magazines. Ask for online delivery. Tell them you don't mind online adds that pay for the service. Most of these companies are putting some of the editorial content online - ask them to digitalize the whole issue.
2 - Use the various free and low cost Table of Content delivery
services, like UNCOVER REVEAL and THE BRITISH LIBRARY SERVICE. Most
are listed in Chapter 8 of my book (instructions for finding the
book are at the bottom). For example REVEAL charges an annual fee
of $20. That lets you select up to 50 titles for Table of Contents
delivery. Circulate these tables of contents and then order only
the articles your staff wants. This approach lets you monitor "all"
the magazines staff is interested in, without subscribing. Staff
can scan a table of contents far faster than they can flip through
the pages of magazines.
UNCOVER's basic service is free. More than 20 thousand
magazines are indexed by this service. Anyone can search the
database without charge. You can look for magazine articles going
back a decade. It will soon allow users to store a search strategy
to run against new articles added to the database. Its also adding
Non-English Language Journals in Spanish, Italian, German and
French.
3 - Subscribe to the free Internet based magazines and newsletters
for your industry. New ones are being offered all the time.
Locate them by using YAHOO
4 - Search the free online article databases to meet special requests, before turning to commercial services. Don't forget the Electronic Newsstand which offers a searchable database of sample articles and also lists upcoming Business conferences.
DISMANTLE YOUR EXISTING LIBRARY
---
1 - Donate your book and technical reports collection to the local main library or that academic library you're developing a relationship with.
2 - Join the BACKSERV list and find a library that needs your
magazines and journals. Backserv is a very specialized list for
libraries that want to find or want to get rid of back issues. To
subscribe send a message to: Listserv@sun.readmore.com
subscribe backserv
3 - Donate the shelving and other furniture to a local school or public library.
There, its gone! And you've been a good corporate citizen by recycling and donating everything.
SEARCH FOR AND ORDER TECHNICAL REPORTS ONLINE
---
Many major institutions on the net offer scanning services. NASA, NTIS, Statistics Canada, and the US National Agricultural Library are examples.
U.S., EUROPEAN, & INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION produced
technical publications can be located and ordered at
Also have your library staff familiarize themselves with the
excellent free business reports available on line at
BUSINESS NEWS ON THE DESKTOP
---
While your at it, cancel your subscriptions to the Journal and other business newspapers. 90% of their content is PR rewrites anyway. Instead, use FREE online sources. Try out CRAYON -CReate Your Own Newspaper - at the sites listed below; and see how easy it is to create a custom news service. You can use these sources to create news for specific groups of employees, or your customers, or even the public. The web site listed below also houses my book, and an extensive list of pointers to global trade information.
Don't forget to check out the hundreds of specialized business news services on the net through a search of YAHOO and EINET GALAXY.
SITE FOR FREE DAILY NEWS SOURCES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE
BOOKS
---
Inevitably you will still be buying some books. You can get the reviews from your free online magazines. You can order the books from any of the many online books stores. If need a book on a specific topic, but don't know exactly what to buy; check out these two resources.
SOCRATES AT STANFORD
US COPYRIGHT CLEARANCE CENTER ON THE WEB
---
Copyright law is in transition and varies somewhat from
country to country. Your staff needs to be up to date on your
national law. The Internet is beginning to make copyright
enforcement irrelevant for many kinds of data. For the time being
US users of copyrighted material may find some guidance by visiting
this site. The Copyright Clearance Center, which serves as a
clearinghouse for permission to reprint copyrighted materials, has
set up business on the Web, offering browsers an automated process
for obtaining and paying for reprint rights.
REFERENCE DESKS ON THE INTERNET
---
Rather than creating your own on line reference desk you can
use some of the existing ones. There is a collection of these at:
COMPETITOR AND CUSTOMER INFO
---
My book includes a whole chapter about competitive research
resources on the net. The one that I will remind you about here is
the STANFORD NETNEWS FILTERING SERVICE.
OTHER EXTERNAL INFORMATION
---
My book also lists great resources for finding human experts, locating map collections, uncovering vast statistical databases, learning about business resources for every country on earth, and getting access to any other information you would go to a regular library for; so download a company copy now. NorthWest Airlines already keeps a copy on its inhouse web site.
INTEGRATING EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL INFORMATION RESOURCES
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PART TWO on creating a distributed digital system for staff access to each other, all your phone and fax traffic, and all your important internal news and documents; will not be on the net for free - its only going to subscribers. So if this is useful - subscribe now! $8.00 a year wont break the bank - but it will encourage me to keep working for you. Subscription information is on the bottom of this newsletter.
GLOBAL MARKETS
==============
ASIAN INFORMATION
-----------------
If you need business news from asia. Try
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES ===================== THE VIRTUAL COMPANY ------------------- The combination of Downsizing, Out Sourcing, and Telecommuting means that companies in the business of helping create the virtual corporation are going to be our next growth industry.
INDUSTRY UPDATE =============== DATABASE PRODUCTION AND USE --------------------------- Database production and sales is a multibillion dollar industry. IBM alone sells 16 Billion a year of software, mostly database related tools. The Database Industry is not happy these days. The world wide web is beginning to eat into the market for corporate databases. Each company's response to the Web is different. WWW represents a real challenge because it is a free, distributed multimedia database structure, and its easily connected to each of their proprietary products. The Web is a proprietary standards killer. It will lead to lower prices for all database users.
JCC Consulting, Inc.,
A far more ambitious page is the Information Systems Meta-List
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