Vol. 28 No. 3 Nov/Dec 2000

A Day in the Life of a "Think Tank" Librarian

I am the Library director for the RAND Corporation (http://www.rand.org). The library has 32 staff FTE, made up of 12 professionals and 20 non-professionals (whatever those distinctions mean!). We have two locations; the main library is in Santa Monica, and a branch is located in Arlington, VA (within throwing distance of the Pentagon). We also support company offices in Pittsburgh, Leiden (Netherlands), Berlin and Cambridge (England). Our holdings would be familiar to any librarian: books, reference materials, some videotapes (mostly of RAND presentations), and an increasing array of online resources. The collection emphasizes political science, military science, education, health, sci/tech and law.

I usually arrive at work between 8:30-9:00, depending on traffic and my daughter's school schedule. The first thing I do is feed the betta (Siamese fighting fish) that lives in a large bowl on a table in my office. Next I check voice mail, email and my calendar. This can take from 10-30-45 minutes, depending on what disasters occurred overnight. As Director, I try to keep up on everything in general, but stay out of day-to-day issues. The balance of knowing what's going on versus meddling can be delicate.

I often chat with the manager of our Arlington library, who is already midway through her day. Most days, I confer with our financial analyst and the acquisitions librarian to review our latest vendor negotiations and contracts. We're in the midst of a thorough review of all our commitments to make sure we're getting the most bang for our buck. Circumstances change all the time, making a good deal one month a bad deal the next, so this is a continual process.

If I have time, I do a walkaround to talk with library staff and get a feel for how things are going. I get to this maybe one or two times a week.

I do a lot of my work by meeting regularly with key players in and out of the library. I meet with my boss (RAND's CIO) weekly, as well as with the library managers group. I also meet biweekly with each of my direct reports. We recently completed a series of focus groups with our users and implemented a new strategic plan. Several library teams have been formed to tackle projects deriving from the strategic plan, so I may meet with one to two of these to review progress.

I try to have lunch or meet with an administrator or unit head outside the library at least once a week. This is good publicity for the library, helps me keep in touch with RAND-wide trends and get early warning on problems.

I have good intentions to walk at lunch if I don't have a lunch date, but often end up eating at my desk, catching up on reading. RAND's offices are literally across the street from the Santa Monica Pier and beach, but even so, it's often hard to get away from my desk.

Another major time consumer for me is planning for RAND's new headquarters building. Construction will begin in early 2002, but planning (and contending for space) has gone on for at least two years. I meet often with the architect and project planners to discuss the library space. Happily, the library in the new building will be centrally located next to the main building lobby. The downside is that with glass walls, we'll all have to dress better to make a good impression.

My days are often unstructured, but I do a lot of future thinking and long-range planning. A few of the topics on my plate:

managing the transition (over the next 5-10 years) from primarily print-based to electronic-based collections;
marketing library services to the RAND research community;
motivating staff to do their best, with enough structure to point them in the right direction, but enough freedom to allow for their own creativity;
representing the library in the company-wide knowledge management effort (still in its infancy).

After all this heavy thinking, I leave the office around 5-5:30, usually with reports or literature to read in the evening. I enjoy the challenges of my position very much, and feel excited to be able to make a concrete contribution to the success of RAND.

Lucy Wegner