1/24/2006
biggest challenges to the business researcher
Robert Berkman of informationadvisor.com recently asked the members of the BUSLIB-L mailing list what the biggest challenges they faced were. I thought his summary post was interesting, so I’m replicating it here:
DEALING ONLINE DATABASE VENDORS
- Inconsistent billing and delivery of services from online database vendors
- Better and more realistic pricing and deployment strategies for library use products, globally deployed products and for end-user deployed products
- One size pricing no matter the size of the organization or business it is in
- Poor search interfaces from certain research vendors
- Bad sales personnel, clueless about the content
- Poor training from the vendors
DATA CONTENT
- How much and which content from which source is available in which vendor.
- Publishers pulling content off vendors to own Web sites
- Fragmentation of content made available online by journals and newspapers
INTERNAL ISSUES
- Funding (3) for acquiring necessary data sources.
- Ensuring Copyright compliance (2)
DEALING WITH STAFF/SEARCHERS
- Dealing with “I don’t need a pro to do my research”-it’s all on the Net (3)
- Knowing the importance of setting up internal meetings so the staff knows you and your capabilities (more a solution than a problem)
- Ensuring you know what the user wants and managing his/her expectations
A lot of these issues are familiar; they’re the same ones I deal with on a daily basis. Interestingly, some of them - particularly those that deal with client/user issues - bear a marked resemblence to what I experienced during my information literacy practicum at the University of Wisconsin. In some ways, it seems, professionals have the same attitudes as college freshmen.
I’m also unsurprised that vendor problems had the most varied responses. It seems that no matter what kind of library you’re in, be in academic, public, or special, vendors will give you the biggest headache of all.
Another problem I have that’s purely a function of the kind of business MPOW is, is getting access to research reports produced by other consulting companies in our field. Sometimes they can be exceedingly helpful and full of great historical data, but I can’t buy them. We’re a competitor.
Filed under: Librarianship, Work
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