Library Ireland Week 8-13 March 2010: @ Your Library

What is your name?
Florence Curley

Where are you from?
Dublin

Where do you work?
I am in a manager in the Information and Research Centre (IRC) at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Ireland’s leading professional services Firm.

What do spend most of your day doing?
The purpose of the centre is to serve the information and research needs of PwC in Ireland, so that is a potential constituency of over 2100 people.  PwC provides assurance, tax and advisory services to a wide range of clients.  Arising from this, a good deal of a typical day involves responding to queries on legal, regulatory and accounting technical information.  Carrying out company and industry research also features strongly.  The IRC houses a book, report and journal collection but we also have access to a mixture of internal and external electronic sources.  As people may be working to tight deadlines we make every effort to provide the information within the timeframe.

It is also vital that we in the IRC keep up to date with technical, industry and economic/business developments so that we anticipate our own clients needs.  For example, this could be the monitoring of upcoming legislation, identifying key technical developments in areas such as accounting and tax, or spotting relevant business news.  We then pass this on to the appropriate people. 

Some days may also involve training provision. I routinely give a presentation about the IRC to new PwC people or may run a hands-on workshop on the use of certain electronic sources.  The whole IRC team is involved in information training provision to various groups throughout the year.  This way we can impart information-seeking skills that “help people to help themselves”.
 
Did you always want to be a librarian and if not what did you do before you became one.

When I was studying for the final year of my arts degree I was considering my career options and did think of librarianship but I opted for a year’s further study in another subject.  After this I worked in insurance administration and then spent a few months in the UK as a TEFL teacher.  Not long after my return I was offered a job with Dublin Corporation Public libraries (now Dublin City Council).  Although the two years I spent working in the Ballymun branch library were quite different to working in the corporate sector, it gave me the vital skills that can be utilized in any library setting.  I also enjoyed the work and knew this was the career I wanted, so I went back to UCD to study for my librarianship diploma and carried on working part time in some academic and special library jobs to gain extra experience.

How many people do you work with?
There are three of us altogether.  The two managers report to the senior manager of the IRC.  We share the general workload between us but we do have certain specialisms and specific responsibilities.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

It is very satisfying when you are called upon to use your research and analytical skills to put together information on a topic and then see how it can contribute to the work the Firm does.  For instance, a piece of research/information-gathering done by us may be incorporated into a successful business proposal.

Although we don’t interface directly with clients, the IRC team’s information focus can add value in other ways. Positive feedback shows that even a simple information task, such as alerting someone to a news article, can be very important.  We in the IRC can use our particular skills and expertise to help people in their jobs.

When the IRC can actively contribute to enhancing understanding of information retrieval or help promoting good information and knowledge management in PwC this is also an enjoyable part of the job for me.  For instance, when someone can leave a training session with an understanding of a database that will save them time and effort trying to find information in the future, that is a job well done.

How do you unwind after a hard day at the office?
Most evenings I am out running, that’s my main after-work interest.  But after the run, it’s nice to sit down with a good book!  I’ve always been an avid reader and I’ve been in a bookclub for the past few years.

Are you a “typical” librarian and if so, how, or does this question make you mad!
If being a “typical” librarian means that you like getting your teeth into challenging information queries and you love working with information, then in that sense I am happy to be typecast!  I’ve always been proud to be a librarian but the “stereotypical” librarian as the stern force who keeps guard over information is a somewhat outdated concept – today, librarians facilitate rather than guard and we have a wide range of skills which go beyond the traditional duties of cataloguing and classification.