2012 Best Practices for Government Libraries

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BEST PRACTICES 2012
The role of the library is to support the core business of the department; the
library should not overlook the information needs of what those who work in the
area often described as corporate services. The information required by people in
this area often include e-government, training, change management, organisational
complexity, social media, technology, audit requirements, etc. A good resource is
the eGov website (http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/). Though this at first seems an
Australian state government site, the content coverage is international, including
policies and standards, trends, government 2.0 and more. Another good resource is
the Guardian Public Leaders Network (http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leadersnetwork)
which has 14 professional networks. Included in these networks are
healthcare, housing, local government, media, computing, leadership, etc. Both
these resources provided information that is often overlooked when doing scholarly
research but is very topical and often relevant to users.
Two free legal advice resources are Lexology (www.lexology.com) and Mondaq
(http://mondaq.com), both provide international newsletters, and are a quick way
to keep abreast of what is happening in the legal area; for example copyright and
IP changes in Europe.
Another area that governments are constantly watching is the financial area.
One resource is The Financial Times (http://www.ft.com) and each week FT issues
“The week ahead in central banking” aimed at helping in tracking the most
important events in central banking around the world. In Australia, there is a site
dedicated to economic indicators used in government decision making (contact the
author for the web address). This includes information from banks and investment
companies.
I could go on; there is just so much information. With apologies to John
Donne, “When you think you have done finding information, you have not done
finding information, for there is more.”
Personality & Passion
Not everyone is cut out to work as a solo professional. It is in knowing who
you are that can help you best to change and adapt to new environments. Recently
a Harvard Business Review Blogpost, “When choosing a job, culture matters
(http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/when_choosing_a_job_culture_ma.html), advised
when applying for a new job identify whether the culture of the organisation is one
you want to work in, in the first place. Often, many solos not only work alone, but
they do so with very little support. It is not a work environment that suits
everyone. Some people have no problems in knowing who they are, what they are
capable of, and how they best interact with others. For some, it is not as easy.
There are numerous types of tests to help identify the type of person you are,
including Myers Briggs and the Margerison-McCann Team Management Profile.
Further information about Myer Briggs can be found at
(http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCDV_51.htm) and an example of how
the Margerison-McCann test is used can be found at
(http://www.bradford.ac.uk/staff-development/tailored-services-and-teamdevelopment/team-management-profiles/).
In knowing yourself, you can identify
the preferences as to how you work and inter-relate with people. Most of the tests