Three Pillars: Managing your Library, Archives,

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Three Pillars Managing your Library, Archives,
Records Strategic Perspectives

• Pamela Tripp-Melby
• Division Chief, Information Services
• International Monetary Fund
• Special Libraries Association
• Nashville, June 2004

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Pillars or stovepipes?

• Three professions archivist, records manager,
  librarian
• Three approaches to managing information
• Three business cases
• Three communities of users?

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Are our clients really so different?

• Preservation for future generations of
  researchers
• Legal compliance
• Make better decisions, stay updated, save time,
  find new ideas

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It is all about content

• To our users it looks like this

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What do our clients want?

• The big idea tracing the sweep of history
• Corporate history
• Organizational history
• University history
• Micro-content the facts, the numbers, the
  experts, the dates
• The best source
• The right document

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Which pillar is it in?

• Content has to be
• Findable
• Authentic
• Timely
• ...And it could be anywhere!

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Federation an emerging technology

• Federated search
• Find relevant information across multiple
  repositories
• Each repository organized according to principles
  appropriate to its content
• Federated information professionals

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Federated information professionals at work (1)

• Expertise of each discipline important to the
  integrity of its repository and its use
• Archival description
• Archival preservation
• Records tracking
• Records retention
• Library information organization
• Library search

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Federated information professionals at work (2)

• Aware of range of others resources and
  repositories
• Link, guide, and refer
• Share specialized expertise and perspectives with
  information colleagues

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The other information professionals the promise
of IT

• Control over business environment
• The real-time enterprise to exploit systems
  perfect recall
• Always on/always connected wireless mobile
  workplaces
• Web services the next generation of the internet

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In order to realize the promise of IT someone has
to...

• Create the rules for information discovery
• Create models for identifying critical
  information on material events
• Define trusted information, trusted users
• Define standards

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How to do this?

• Work together Archivists, Records Managers,
  Librarians
• Match users in context with contextualized
  information assets
• Know who users are
• roles, directory services, previous information
  needs
• Understand the information context
• Apply metadata
• Develop taxonomies

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Who knows how Records Managers

• Partner effectively with IT
• Know the core business of their organizations
• Business processes and rules guide work
• File plans are a type of classification based on
  business process
• Key to reputational risk for publicly traded
  companies

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Who knows how Archivists

• Understand the structure of the
  organization/company
• Understand the business processes too
• Expert in preserving information context
• Take the long view to help organizations avoid
  re-inventing the wheel

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Who knows how Librarians

• Information organization at micro-content level
• Search experts
• Customer service expertise for high volume
  transactions
• Wide-angle lens on the world of information
• Experts in using the web to find and deliver
  information

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The management reality

• Respecting differences, finding common ground
• Different models
• World Bank Library and Archives for Development
• IMF Information Services Division

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• One service desk for initial response to
  information requests
• 1st tier service
• Core business project documents
• Did we ever have a microcredit project in
  Albania?
• Library reference information
• Case study of deforestation in Central America?
• Archival reference requests
• When was the first loan made to Argentina?
• High volume triage and pass through to 2nd tier

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IMF Information Services Division

• Getting to know each other ?
• Common projects
• Thesaurus/indexing terms cleaning up our act
• Web archiving for the intranet
• 60th anniversary exhibit for Bretton Woods
  institutions
• Information architecture role
• Institution-wide focus on information management
• New IMF Records Management program
• Taxonomy for portal for country desk economists

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On our way...

• To explore synergies of our three professions
• To exploit the promise of the future of IT
• To integrate our skills into our institutions
  projects to harness that promise

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Thank you.

• Pamela Tripp-Melby
• Division Chief, Information Services
• International Monetary Fund
• ptrippmelby_at_imf.org