Feature: Marketing library and information services to maximise usage

Victoria Jannetta discusses how the library and information services department at Field Fisher Waterhouse is promoting its valuable work.

As the effects of the recession continue to hit law firms, it has become increasingly necessary for business-support departments to demonstrate how their services contribute towards the success of the firm. As head of the information services department at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP (FFW), I have implemented a number of cost-effective initiatives to promote the work of my team. Our growing levels of usage indicate that the initiatives have proved effective and that the value of our work is recognised.
In this article, I shall discuss some of the ways in which we have promoted the library and information services at FFW, how we have packaged the services we offer, and how we measure and record the value of the services we provide.

Promoting information services
Take account of the firm’s business strategy
When deciding which services to actively promote, it helps to take into account your firm’s business strategy. If, for example, the firm you work for is planning to expand, then there will be a role for information services to play in providing relevant business intelligence. The management board will appreciate information on the markets the firm is planning to expand into and, if there are plans to open overseas offices, details of client opportunities in these countries will prove very helpful.
At FFW, we have promoted business intelligence as one of the key services offered by the information team and, as a result, it has become one of our most frequently requested services, with demand growing significantly over the past two years.

Consider your location
The physical location of a law-firm library can seriously impact on its level of usage. When I first joined FFW at the end of 2006, the library collection and staff were located in the basement of the building. The location of the library was the cause of a number of problems. First, fee-earners rarely came down to the basement, so the take up of services had dropped significantly. Second, a lack of visibility in the firm led to a low profile for the department. Also, due to the poor working environment, staff morale was low and little was being done to develop new services. I know of some firms where, faced with a similar dilemma, management has made the decision to create a new flagship library on a fee-earner floor.
Unfortunately, due to a shortage of office space, we did not have this option at FFW. Instead, we decided that if fee-earners were not going to come and visit us, we would join them. We started to move the information officers out of the library to work within the business units they support. We also relocated our resources to the fee-earner floors, thereby decentralising the library collection.
We developed a model whereby information officers sit with the PSL and marketing executives for the business unit. This arrangement works well as there is a crossover of work between these three roles. The main advantages of having the information officers located in the business units is that visibility raises demand for services and the information officer builds up a knowledge of the work and information requirements of the fee-earners they support.

Consider a name change
The work of a library and information service team includes many functions, ranging from traditional library services and legal and business research to knowledge management (KM). Many law firm information departments have undergone a name change in the past few years to better reflect the extent of work they do. If your department is still referred to as ‘the library’, a name change could help to promote your services further. The name ‘library’ is very much associated with a traditional book collection, which in a law firm is misleading as increasingly legal information resources are now found online. At FFW, my department is known as ‘Library and Information Services’. Other firms have replaced the title ‘library’ with ‘knowledge centre’, ‘information centre’ and ‘research and information’. New job titles will also promote the service; at FFW, information services staff are known as ‘information officers’.

Support cross-firm initiatives
Basic information-management skills, such as content management, indexing and effective searching, are now in demand from other business-support services, such as IT and KM. Information teams should actively promote their transferrable skills and become involved with cross disciplinary projects. At FFW, the information services team works closely with marketing to provide business intelligence on new and prospective clients. We also work closely with the KM director, to whom we report, and have provided support for some high-profile KM projects. Information officers have been involved in promoting the firm’s new enterprise search system and also managing content on the new intranet for the business units they support.

Pioneer new technologies
In many firms, information teams are taking the lead in exploring ways to use new technologies such as social networking tools and RSS feeds. Being associated with new and exciting developments raises the profile of the service and does much to expand the role beyond that of the custodian of the library collection.

Packaging your services
One way to promote the work of an information team is to identify some key services and package them into distinct products. This provides the team with something tangible they can show to new users and also provides the opportunity to create a departmental brand.
At FFW, our outputs include current awareness bulletins, company profiles, competitor analysis and target lists. We have created templates for each type of service based on the firm’s house style for colours and fonts. Each template includes a department banner, the date the research was conducted, the name of the person commissioning the research and the name of the researcher. All content is sourced. As research requests sometimes come via our marketing department, our branding ensures we get credit for the work we do.
Having templates to work with ensures the information officers know exactly what content is required for each type of research request. The templates also ensure that the quality of our work is consistent. The reports we produce look professional, and information is presented in an easy to digest format.
We file our research reports in the firm’s knowledge bank, which is searchable via our enterprise search system, providing us with another way to raise the profile of the department.

Measure your work levels
Being successful at promoting your department’s work and increasing usage will only become meaningful if you have data to demonstrate your success.
It goes without saying that all requests should be recorded, but also think about how best to analyse them. In the current economic climate, partners are likely to be scrutinising the support requirements of their business units, so make sure your usage figures show the number of requests by department. Also measure requests by type. Your total number of requests may be high, but if the majority are for document delivery requests, for example, then they do not demonstrate that your department is offering a high level of value as a service. This may be something you need to address.
When budgets are as tight, as they are today, you will also need to monitor the usage of external resources to demonstrate effective management of the firm’s library budget. Usage figures will also help you to advise business units on which resources they should retain and which they can afford to cancel.
Finally, make sure usage data is reported to management and think about the best way to present the information. Figures presented in a graphical rather than tabular format, for example, can have more impact.

Demonstrate recognition
Usage statistics are useful for showing a rise or fall in demand for your services, but they do not offer much insight into how a service is valued. Personal feedback and evidence of how research has helped to win business show the real value of an information services team. At FFW, we monitor the weekly update of pitch wins and record where we have supported the pitch by providing background research. I maintain a collection of unsolicited testimonials from fee-earners, particularly where they provide information on how the research has been used to win work. Formally, I gather feedback on the content of our research to ensure we are meeting fee-earners’ requirements.

The benefits of promoting your service
As the current economic downturn continues, business services that have invested time in promoting their services effectively and recording usage, should now be in a good position to demonstrate their worth to the firm.
If you have succeeded in securing a suitable location for your information team, particularly if team members are now located with fee-earners, then partners are less likely to view information as a support service and more likely to view it as integral to their work.
New services promoted in line with the firm’s business strategy can easily be shown to be offering real value to the firm.
Usage figures that have been diligently recorded every month will now be of increased interest to partners and may prove invaluable for making decisions relating to expenditure on resources.
In summary, I would advice information managers to continue to develop ways to promote their service and make sure your firm understands the value of what your team can offer.

Victoria Jannetta is head of Library and Information Services at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP. She can be contacted at victoria.jannetta@ffw.com