True, reporters and editors often make mistakes because they couldn’t find the best information, or because they went with whatever came back on the first page of a Google query. At a time of information abundance, it’s essential that newsrooms have information experts on staff. That’s what news librarians are.
“We can find the information in a lot less time because we know how to drill down in a database,” Disch said. “We know good sources to go to where you can quickly find information, so we can cut a lot of time for [reporters] and leave them to do what they do best, which is interviewing and writing. I have my specialty, and they have theirs.”
Members of Disch’s four-person team are embedded within the newsroom. They sit with reporters and editors and take part in meetings and discussions. If someone needs to find a particular kind of information, they can do it right away. They also fill another increasingly important role: training.
“The paper holds a yearly editorial clinic, and this year our department is getting a featured spot,” she said. “We decided to call our presentation ‘Keeping Current and Paying it Forward’.”
The session will focus on “using RSS feeds and Web monitoring tools, and sharing content via Facebook and Twitter.” The librarians have also given seminars about using Excel, Facebook, and Twitter, and on how to create alerts in Nexis.
That’s not what they were trained to do—and all four Dispatch librarians have masters degrees in library sciences—but Disch said it’s essential they evolve their skills and knowledge to meet the needs of a modern newsroom. That’s true for every position in journalism: evolve or prepare to move on.
Disch makes an effort to keep her team front and center within the organization, rather than hiding away in a musty library. Recently, for the first time, librarian Julie Albert received a full byline in a major front page story about domestic violence. (Albert performed data analysis of court cases.)
The most famous story about a news librarian didn’t involve a full byline. Liz Donovan was working as a librarian at The Washington Post when two young reporters were hunting down a story about a burglary. Yes, I’m talking about that burglary.
At one point, later dramatized in All The President’s Men, Woodward and Bernstein were trying to track down information about a specific person. Off they went to the paper’s library to ask for the clipping file on one Kenneth Dahlberg. Here’s how the scene unfolded, according to a post on NPR’s As A Matter of Fact blog:
The long-haired librarian tells him they don’t have a clip file for Dahlberg. OK. But I checked the photo file, she said, and we do have a picture of him. The photo identified Dahlberg as a Republican fundraiser, and was an important early clue in the unraveling of the Watergate plot. Woodward didn’t ask her to check the photo file; but librarians don’t wait to be asked!
Donovan died in December, at the end of one of the worst years ever for news librarians. The tributes to her, relatively few though they were, reminded me of the obituaries for one of the last great newspaper proofreaders, Audrey Stubbart of the Examiner in Missouri. (Unlike today’s copy editors who often have to perform with pagination and other tasks, her role was to check grammar, spelling, and facts in every part of the paper.) She retired in 2000, and died not long after at the age of 105. Here’s an anecdote from a story about her retirement:
“When we first got computers in the newsroom, it was suggested that we wouldn’t need a copy editor,” said [former sports editor Tom] Dickson, now a professor of journalism at Southwest Missouri State University.
“Well, the first issue came out after that and we found out we needed one. It was a mess,” Dickson said with a chuckle. “Audrey was again asked to read stories.”
Desktop publishing and computers vanquished the newspaper proofreader. Let’s hope news librarians can evolve so they aren’t felled by the Internet and digital archives.
Correction of the Week
Thank you for shining a light on the work news libraries do, it's vital we're proactive in promoting ourselves or we're at risk of dying out before they realise they need us.
I blogged on this last week - http://librarianoftomorrow.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/reflections-newsrewired/
#1 Posted by Katy Stoddard, CJR on Fri 29 Jan 2010 at 02:53 PM
Librarians manage information and knowledge in the organization, provide technology training and collaborative tools, add value and context to information to make it accurate, distinctive and unique. Librarians are already doing what the new, leaner, next workforce will have to do more of: inherently sharing their vast knowledge to help their colleagues, improve the product and grow the business. They also classify and manage digital and print archives of information and content so they can be retrieved and applied. And, they evaluate and manage electronic resources for their enterprises - as well as transmit their editorial products to commercial aggregators and other entities.
As every sector is restructuring, these kinds of professionals are increasingly in demand. Why they are 'endangered' in the news business - the core of the information ecosystem and the information industries - is beyond worrisome. It threatens journalism's accuracy, efficiency, and profitability.
News librarians are involved in all of these activities - even creating content directly. What astounds me is that many news organizations, beyond the publication date, are not as attentive as they could be to the most valuable thing they have: their content. Now that taxonomy and classification are huge in the digital realm - and the 'link economy' - once again, librarians are the experts.
Thankfully there are still news librarians like Amy Disch and her colleagues, who are some of the most adaptive, versatile information professionals there are.
Let's tell more of their stories on how they're leading the way into the future and get rid of the tired imagery of dusty clips and 'the morgue' from the era of eyeshades and typewriters.
#2 Posted by Leigh Montgomery, CJR on Fri 29 Jan 2010 at 04:46 PM
News librarians fulfill a variety of roles, both pre- and post-production. While today's reporters and editors are able to perform most online database search work themselves, it is the new librarians who manage the various databases for the newsroom, train personnel to effectively use these resources and assist with complex or extensive searches. News librarians are uniquely trained to conduct large research projects, taking data from many different sources and distilling it into concise formats that enhance the quality of the newsgathering and reporting. Depending on local policies and organizations, news librarians also perform key roles in such diverse areas as archival quality control, content licensing, subscription management, microfilm production outside reference requests fulfillment (which can also generate additional revenue) as well as photo archive indexing and maintenance. In most news organizations, all of these responsibilities are managed by a small, well-trained and professional library team of librarians. While it is certainly tempting for newsroom management to cut personnel in this area, news librarians deliver a lot of bang very relatively little buck. Disbursing these responsibilities among other newsroom departments and staff leads to degradation in the quality of work and, ultimately, the quality of the product must,/i> suffer.
#3 Posted by Alan Thibeault, CJR on Mon 1 Feb 2010 at 06:45 PM
(Version of letter sent to Mr. Silverman, and to the editor, Columbia Journalism Review, dated February 10)
I'm a news librarian. I'm writing about the article 'Endangered Species' you wrote that was posted on CJR's website about our profession.
We appreciate all attention put on our relatively small but diverse group of highly-skilled professionals. And news about them is closely read, and widely distributed.
I am very disappointed at the headline and initial tone of this article. I feel like the most important part of it was about the adaptation masters that are news librarians - and how they've led in innovation. That's something all industries need - particularly those in information, of which the news business is at the very core, of the information ecology.
I know you are a journalist, and are dedicated to portraying things as truthfully and accurately as possible. I'm not expecting all sweetness and light. But this is just toxic - it feeds on itself - as more and more bad news is compounded and passed around about our profession. It hurts it, and it hurts journalism.
We need more discussion about what's working, and what's next in news librarianship. This is not just for decision makers who are closely watching how to cut costs, but for the business and media itself and those who care about it. About how to be more modern and do the next type of storytelling.
Every day, I strive to make journalism accurate, fact-based and colorful; in short, the best it can possibly be. We've heard that it is 'very hard to justify a library in the age of Google.' I think about that each day. What our news information professionals have found is that we're bigger than any search engine. We're better than any technology. We are what they are trying to replicate: something that can anticipate what information needs are, based on precedent. I achieve this on a daily basis for our entire staff, located in a network of bureaus around the world.
I have a decade of experience working with information - parallel with that of Google - and over that time have not only put what works into practice, but have also been highly attentive to the rapid changes in media and information distribution - to which I have readily adapted.
Also, as opposed to a search engine, I think, I feel, I empathize, I evaluate and I criticize. These lend added dimensions to what it means to research.
And it isn't just about retrieving information; that's been morphing for the better part of a decade. We're at the forefront of innovations in information architecture, site navigation, database construction and analysis, taxonomy, and digital archiving.
The news needs library professionals. And we need more stories about why this is the case. Truth be told, news libraries are not dying. They are vibrant and living.
Again, thank you for your attention. Perhaps you'd consider following up your story with another emphasizing these more positive points.
Sincerely,
Leigh Montgomery
Librarian
#4 Posted by Leigh Montgomery, CJR on Wed 17 Mar 2010 at 04:08 PM