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Demand for Librarians Hits an All-Time High

By Valerie Gray Francois

Salary tables for the librarian industry

Knowledge managers, information specialists, chief answerists, knowledge navigators. They’re more commonly known as librarians. As corporations rely on information to keep ahead of the competition, demand for these professionals is escalating.

According to the Special Libraries Association, an industry group in Washington, D.C., 13% of librarians don’t work in a traditional library setting. Instead, they’re functioning throughout business in roles that command salaries much higher than the profession traditionally has seen.

Demand is particularly strong at investment and financial institutions and banks, given the number of mergers and expansions in the industry, says Sarah Warner, director of staffing services and business development at the recruiting firm Wontawk in New York. "Old jobs are being eliminated, creating new opportunities for Internet savvy professionals," she says.

Most opportunities are clustered in major corporate centers including Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, New York, the Pacific Northwest and Silicon Valley. Many positions Ms. Warner sees are on the East Coast, but she’s also hearing from major management consulting firms in the West that are recognizing librarians’ skills in research and knowledge management.

A Fortune-100 company recently asked Ms. Warner to find a candidate with a Ph.D. or a high-level of experience to construct a taxonomy, an index of Web information and electronic documents. The annual salary for this long-term temp assignment would be $60,000 or higher.

Peggy Watson, regional director for Northern California at recruiting firm Advanced Information Management in Mountain View, sees hot jobs for corporate librarians in management consulting and the Internet. Her firm is currently recruiting for a high-tech analyst to develop taxonomies for a catalog of Web-based resources in the high-tech industry. The candidate, who would need knowledge of online resources, Microsoft Windows and the Internet, would analyze feedback and statistics from the employer’s Web site. The annual salary range for this position is $65,000 to $75,000.

Ms. Watson says her ideal candidate is someone who can be flexible. "In the marketplace of today and in our ever-changing world, we need to be able to move into new areas," she says.

The Information Age

Lucy Lettis, director of business information services at Arthur Andersen, a consulting firm in New York, says being a librarian in a corporate setting runs the gamut from consulting to preparing research for projects to answering immediate questions. "An executive may have just found out that he has to speak on a particular topic at a meeting that’s in 10 minutes," says Ms. Lettis. "We’ll give him what he needs for the presentation."

Ms. Lettis says that managers want detailed industry studies, market trends and forecasts, financial research and in-depth profiles -- usually in 24 hours or less. Requests aren’t simply for cut-and-dry facts anymore. Employees can use search tools such as the Internet and LEXIS-NEXIS to answer many of their own questions, so queries are more complex, she says.

"The nature of our work has changed. We’re presenting detailed reports to senior management in a way they can appreciate, with charts and bar graphs," she says.

"Companies are experiencing ‘data smog,’ " says John Crosby, communications director at the Special Libraries Association. "They’re overwhelmed and want to know how to manage and access information on their desktops. They need individuals who can cull through the information and help them make informed decisions to stay competitive," he says.

Part of the librarian’s expertise is in determining which information sources are best for the company. That may mean negotiating costs with vendors, a task that calls for fundamental business and management skills, says Ms. Lettis.

The job doesn’t end there. Librarians now act as liaisons for projects or departments and function as part of extended teams, says Eugenie Prime, manager of corporate libraries at Hewlett-Packard Co. in Palo Alto, Calif.

"They’re equipped with laptops at meetings and can respond instantly to questions," she says. "They keep their ears to the ground and act in an anticipatory mode," she adds. When Compaq Computer Corp. bought Digital Equipment, for example, Hewlett-Packard librarians delivered a five- to six-page executive briefing within 24 hours.

Librarians also are working with the "techies" who understand how computer networks function and are consulting for companies on the development of Intranet and Internet sites, says Mr. Crosby. They also may teach Internet courses to employees.

Ms. Prime’s staff, for example, created an online tutorial for the company’s corporate Intranet site and helped consult on the development of a search engine for the company.

"We’re still connecting people with ideas, but how we deliver that info has changed," says Ms. Prime.

A Job-Seeker’s Market

Susan White, who just landed a position with AT&T Corp. as a senior technical associate in the Web architecture group in Somerset, N.J., says most librarians don’t realize that the majority of high-demand jobs on the corporate front call for solid computer experience. "My database skills and capacity to pick up on programming language helped land me the job," says Ms. White, who will focus on information retrieval and communication between programmers and product managers.

Ms. White, 24, became computer savvy as student project manager for the digital library at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She had to be creative to find the position that she wanted. She created resumes that showcased her abilities and applied for positions with a variety of job titles, including competitive intelligence, data mining, database management and information retrieval and knowledge management. When searching online resources such as Monster.com, she entered terms such as "information retrieval" and "database management." Using the term "librarian" usually yielded clerical positions requiring only a high-school diploma.

Recruiters say that special librarians like Ms. White may need an edge, such as excellent computer skills, a dual master’s degree in library science and business administration or another specialty. They also may need to hone their technical skills with continuing education or distance-learning courses. Content licensing, finance or management are areas to consider for additional coursework.

"After three to five years, if you want a six-figure income, you may need education in addition to a master’s degree at an accredited institution," says Lorell Suader, communications director at the American Library Association in Washington, D.C.

In general, Ms. Warner says the ideal candidate in a corporate setting should be Web savvy. You don’t have to be a programmer, but you should be able to understand how it works. She asks candidates: What search engines do you use? What databases are you interested in? She also notes their listening, speaking and communication skills. Social skills are also crucial, says Ms. Warner. "You need to be a good marketer and sell your services."

"It’s a job seeker’s market," says Ms. Suader. "Realize your career may take several different paths and don’t get typecast. Librarians have come a long way."

• Ms. Gray Francois is associate editor of the National Business Employment Weekly.

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