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Confused Database Publishers and Libraries

A happy quack to the ArnoldIT.com team member who sent me a link to a story in The LIS Kid’s Web log. I must say I was taken aback, annoyed, and saddened. Three emotions do not roil the calm of the addled goose. Navigate to The LiS Kid for August 24, 2009, and look at the advertisement snippet from West, a vendor of content to the libraries worldwide. Now look at the text, which I will reproduce here:

Are you on a first name basis with the librarian? If so, chances are, you’re spending too much time at the library. What you need is fast, reliable research you can access right in your office. And all it takes is West®.

Let me quote from the LiS Kid’s commentary, then add my observations:

This brilliant piece of marketing was sent out by the electronic database and news giant Reuters/Thomson/West. Hubris is one word that comes to mind after looking this over. Essentially they are saying, “hey, you don’t need the library, West has it all!” Any bit of information or data that you need can be obtained from West … despite the fact that much of the information on West can be found for free on Government websites or in a book. Asking a librarian would make it harder for West to turn you upside down and shake the change out of your pockets. And, thanks for the added stereotype- the glasses really capture the essence of all things librarian.

You may also find the comments in the Law Librarian Blog on point as well. This write up is called “Another Boner from West: Hi, My First Name is Joe and I’m a Law Librarian.”

My observations and these are my opinions to which I am entitled:

1. I do not think that senior management at Thomson Reuters knows much about the library world. I would ask, “Does Thomson Reuters management or does the company as a whole care about the profession?” In my opinion, the T/R emphasis is upon generating revenue. As a result, the sensitivity of the firm is tuned to shareholders, government agencies, and the machinations among publishing units. These units are trying to avoid following in the footsteps of the newspaper and magazine publishers on a walk down the path next to Red Ink Creek. I ask, “Does a ‘library waste time’?” My son is in the information business. I had access to online when he was in the second grade and so did he. With that whizzy technology easily available in 1980, I ** made it my business ** to take him to real libraries. I introduced him to real librarians like Glenda Neely at the University of Louisville Ekstrom Library. I showed him research tricks I had learned to facilitate combining serendipity with the grunt work of info digging.  I explained and demonstrated microfilm. I showed him how traditional card catalogs were set up and then how this metaphor transferred to OPACs. I bought airplane tickets and arranged for him to meet and spend time with superstar librarians like Marydee Ojala, Ulla de Stricker, and Barbara Quint. I wanted him to learn about information from the best librarians / information experts in the world. I think his success in online at Adhere Solutions — Google’s focal point for the US government — is due in part to his having a physical, fungible knowledge of how information is organized, accessed, and manipulated in a range of media in libraries. If anything, I fault myself for not creating situation for him in which he had to spend more time in libraries. In my opinion, one cannot spend too much time in libraries. Online is one information method. A physical library is an multidimensional immersion in information. I have 13 computers within three feet of me as I write this. None has the tactile and intellectual impact of a library.
2. The marketer who wrote T/R’s possibly insensitive if not insulting, possibly demeaning copy is equally unaware of what makes a library work, how the professionals staffing libraries teach and facilitate information navigation, deliver information consulting to customers of diverse backgrounds, and create information programs that attract people to the wonders of information. T/R’s and other commercial information vendors’ insensitivity is evident across the commercial database world. Most of the senior managers at these firms are accountants or lawyers concerned about making money and maximizing revenues. A library is a standing order, not an organism of knowledge. The increasing likelihood of outright failure for today’s commercial database companies stems from a disconnect or indifference to the craft of information where humans interact.
3. When I worked at the database unit of the Courier Journal (ABI / INFORM, Business Dateline, General Periodical Index, and other databases), we employed librarians to work on our products, to run our training programs, and to keep management in tune with the needs, challenges, and opportunities in the world of law, sci tech, public, academic, medical, and other important segments of the broader world of librarianship. When you called our 800 number, you had a 90 percent chance of speaking to a senior manager or a librarian. We were not perfect, but we darn well tried to treat our customers and their profession with respect. Call one of the big information companies today like Thomson Reuters or LexisNexis or Ebsco, and you may have a menu of options, not an expert on the line. Call the next day and you will probably have a different menu choice and, if you are clever, maybe a new hire to read you text from a customer support database updated a year ago. I don’t call for customer service because I don’t have time to teach most of those with whom I speak about their systems and my particular angle of attack. The big companies prefer self service customer support. It’s cheaper. When I answered phones at the CJ’s database company, I sometimes got an earful when a librarian pointed out an indexing error. I listened. I wrote down the problem. I put it on the fix list. I gave the librarian’s name to Betty Unruh or Dena Gordon to follow up. I wanted that librarian to know we were making an effort to listen and give the criticism serious attention. Get those bonuses might well be the motto for information company managers, not listen to the customer and take action.

To close, the addled goose even today must deal with the librarians who work on his projects. Most of the librarians with whom I work have known me for decades. When Ulla de Stricker or Marydee Ojala complains, I listen as I did in 1980. My resident legal information expert is Constance Ard, and she has picked up Ulla’s best habit: informing me when I am not in touch with what librarians and information professionals want. I have been grinding away at digital information for decades, and I don’t know much more than it pays to attend to librarians’ ideas and suggestions. At a meeting last night, I learned that two companies – ProQuest and Ebsco – are engaging in a price war and marketing shoot out to win an account in Kentucky. One of those involved said that he was confused by the claims, counter claims, and caveats. Obviously these vendors’ behavior communicates a message quite different from that sent by the CJ team when we were licensing ABI / INFORM and our other databases in 1981.

Would it benefit the commercial database publishers to deliver quality products at a published, fully disclosed price with full details of coverage scope? With that type of information,  library decision makers would be able to use their professional judgment to determine which database best suited the needs of a particular library. I think most commercial database marketing distorts and confuses. I think much of the marketing reveals a shallowness that makes clear that a new era in commercial databases has begun. How the ear of quality commercial information products has taken a new turn. Not good.

Stephen Arnold, August 28, 2009

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