Rethinking the Company Librarian

If your company has a librarian, you might want to rethink the position, responsibilities, and value the occupation adds in the new information economy (Two points - any list of jobs in decline has librarian near the top and top schools like Georgia Tech are warehousing their books off campus.).

What about thinking less about librarians and more about curators?  Managing books and paper adds little value as the Web has democratized information.  What organizations need are people with the ability to be finders and choosers.  The key is the ability to see patterns, trends, and networks in an ocean of information - organizations need to be taking care of these three areas.  When I think librarian, I don't think patterns, trends, and networks. 

What a curator does in the information economy is changing.  From Wikipedia:

 A curator (from Latin: curare meaning "take care") is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, library or archive) is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material. The object of a traditional curator's concern necessarily involves tangible objects of some sort, whether it be artwork, collectibles, historic items or scientific collections. More recently, new kinds of curators are emerging: curators of digital data objects and biocurators.

The sheer volume of information that an engineer needs to keep abreast of is overwhelming.  Seeing patterns, trends, and changes in technology has huge value.  Someone that can interface with an engineer and ask, "This thing you're interested in? I will curate it for you." has huge value.