With the invaluable help of my research assistant, I’ve been catching up on some of the recent literature of embedded librarianship. One article I’d like to recommend is “Integration of the research library into the editorial process: ‘Embedding’ the librarian into the media,” by Debortah Brown and Dean Leith, Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives 59:6, 2007, p. 539-549.
Brown and Leith provide a very interesting description of converting a news library from a traditional library operation to a hybrid of embedded librarians and a downsized centralized library. They raise important challenges in managing in the embedded service model, but overall their assessment of the conversion is very positive. They conclude that “Emerging trends in business information provision suggest that successful special libraries will be those that establish close collaborative relationships with clients, where the goals of the organisation and the goals of the library intersect.”
The Embedded Librarians Café