News Room

Emerging trends in New Zealand special libraries

2 July 2009

LIANZA has released a report demonstrating the need for librarians to remain relevant to their organisations if they are to survive into the 21st century.

The report "Emerging Trends in New Zealand special libraries", authored by Gillian Ralph and Julie Sibthorpe, focuses on librarians working in the special libraries sector i.e. those that serve public or private corporations, government agencies or non-profit organisations. In 2006 this sector employed 786.45 full time equivalent library staff in 292 special libraries.

Funded by the Paul Szentirmay Special Librarianship Scholarship, this report is the first of its kind in many years to provide a comprehensive picture of the trends in special libraries since the arrival of desktop internet access in the workplace in the 1990s. The report draws on information collected from literature reviews, statistics, surveys and focus group interviews.

The report has shown that librarians working in this sector have generally embraced technology to enhance the services they provide to their organisations. The skill sets and positive "can do" attitude of librarians' means they are well placed to broaden their services and assist or take on the tasks of records management, intranet maintenance, web hosting and, in some cases, a high level input into the knowledge management strategies currently being implemented by their organisations.

Despite these positives the report indicates there is still a negative perception by some organisations that special librarians are no more then an overhead that in the age of Google searching can easily be eliminated. Many suffering from this perception are from the corporate sector where a reduction in the NZ manufacturing base and a shift to centralisation of head offices overseas has seen many of these services close down.

These closures have been offset by a growth in the number of libraries servicing government agencies, particularly in the area of museums and galleries. However, the recent recession and a cut in government spending may see rationalisations in the public sector that could lead to a possible net loss of special libraries in New Zealand in the coming years.

As well as closures in the corporate sector, another negative trend indicated for all special libraries is the amount of space allocated to library collections being significantly reduced, in some cases leading to 100% reliance on a virtual collection with non-electronic resources being interloaned or stored off site.

Strengths were signalled in the way in which Law and Health librarians have networked to raise their image and professional standards whilst a number of government agency libraries have aligned themselves strongly with the goals and outcomes of their parent organisation in the provision of their services. Registration of the profession is beneficial, giving librarians working in isolation a similar status to colleagues employed as specialist professionals, particularly when making a case for continuing professional development funding.

The report gives recommendations to stave off perceptions held by those managers with little or no knowledge of the value a library and information service can add to their organisation.

Recommendations include: raising the image of the librarian (information professional) nationally and within organisations; encouraging more training, continuing profession development and registration of librarians; offering support during the times of threat through information sharing and suggestions for further research valuing special libraries.

A copy of the report is available on the LIANZA website.

For further information please contact:

Megan Button
Communications & Publications Coordinator
LIANZA
04 473 5834
megan@lianza.org.nz