In today’s volatile business climate, there is growing pressure for corporate librarians to prove the value of the information and services they provide.
To prove the value of the corporate library, it is imperative to measure its worth with the appropriate tools, and to seize any and all opportunities to add demonstrable value to the organization.
ROI vs IOB
While companies can readily determine how much money they spend operating a corporate library, very few can link this cost directly to revenue. Return on Investment — or ROI — is a tool commonly used to measure the success of a business investment. However, it is not the most effective tool for measuring the success of every business investment.
When it comes to proving the value of the corporate library, librarians would be better served to promote its Impact on Business, or IOB. IOB looks beyond the monetary value of a product or service to demonstrate their results. In many cases, IOB is a more valuable measurement because it considers an activity’s high-level impact on the organization as opposed to looking through the narrow lens of profit.
Why IOB Is the Right Tool for Libraries
When measuring the value of the corporate library, most librarians are implementing an IOB model without realizing it. After all, it would be impossible to tie all of the content and expertise that a corporate library offers directly to specific revenue. The corporate library provides knowledge across all departments that cannot easily be measured and is often undervalued.
To prove the value of the corporate library, it is imperative to measure its worth with the appropriate tools, and to seize any and all opportunities to add demonstrable value to the organization.
To prove the value of the corporate library, it is imperative to measure its worth with the appropriate tools, and to seize any and all opportunities to add demonstrable value to the organization.
Increase the IOB: Choose the Right Resources
As many librarians know, a corporate library is only as good as the content that it provides. It is imperative for the librarian to be selective and take into account the needs of their company when they are choosing resources. The librarian must find a variety of databases that will best serve the end-user with easy-to-use functionality. This will ensure that reliable and vetted information gets to the end user when they need it.
Fortunately, there is an abundance of information available for any industry. EBSCO Corporate Solutions offers databases and content for every industry — pharmaceutical, technology, accounting, law, biotechnology and much more. These databases offer exclusive content for competitive intelligence, monitoring developments, decision support and research and development. What is more, EBSCO’s user experience is designed to promote information literacy skills by the way in which content is organized and user interactions are supported. More information is available here.
Corporate libraries are a valuable part of any information-using organization. However, it is still important to demonstrate the library’s value. Corporate librarians are encouraged to employ the IOB model for a more accurate measure of the library’s success.
Librarians should always be looking for ways they can improve their IOB. By building relationships throughout the company, improving information literacy skills and marketing their library to increase usage, librarians can prove their skillset is mission critical to the organization.
To learn more about how to measure and increase the IOB of the corporate library, download EBSCO’s in-depth whitepaper.