Page 80 - 4188

78

service/management models. Further study is needed to validate these
observations as actual trends, but the credentials of individuals and
organizations represented in this study indicate that companies doing
business with information professionals must be aware of and pay

attention to the following:
• Successful information professionals are moving closer to
information consumers in two ways. First, as information professionals

are integrated into business units or teams, adding value means being
credible. In order to be credible, information professionals must possess
or add specialized subject knowledge to their information management
skills. Second, in some cases, information professionals are themselves

the information consumers, responsible for analysis and presentation of
information to their colleagues. In both cases, it is critical that
information professionals understand their roles and the decision-

making processes within their organizations. Failure to “step up to the
plate” in such a dynamic business environment means being relegated to
a back office function that will likely disappear.

• Information professionals who embrace knowledge management
and the development of corporate intranets are forced into intensive
interaction with other parts of their organizations. Most see this

involvement as an opportunity to leverage their skills in organizing
information and selecting content appropriate to user information needs.
Evaluating and selecting content for deployment to the desktop (and in
some cases abstracting and indexing that content)—whether for business

professionals in corporations or students/professors in academic
communities—are key tasks and areas of growth for the profession.
• Concomitant with the deployment of information resources are

the dual challenges of negotiating licenses and managing copyright
compliance—issues of major concern to information professionals.
• Information professionals are anxious to demonstrate the value of
their contribution and to have models, case studies, and tools that

increase their effectiveness in negotiating with senior management for
budgets, staff and technology resources.
• Managing internal and external documents in document

warehouses with consistent indexing schemes and uniform interfaces for
optimum retrieval is another growth area for information professionals.
• In many of our study countries, critical local content resources

may need to be included in information product offerings.