I have long believed that business library reference questions are a valuable — but often overlooked — source of user requirements for knowledge base designers. Now one of our Australian members has proved me right. For this article I interviewed Cheryl Brickell of the Australian Government Solicitor about two award-winning projects: a reference question tracker and a database of legal opinions. I'll describe the two projects and their environment, discuss what was accomplished, and talk about the implications for knowledge base publishers.

Beginnings
In 2005, Cheryl Brickell was appointed National Library Manager at the Australian Government Solicitor, having previously spent over three years at the National Library of Australia in the positions of Director of Building and Security Services and Libraries Australia (previously Kinetica).

That year, Cheryl and her colleagues did a significant review of library service. They found that: • lawyers appreciated the libraries but considered them a significant overhead in financial terms (people thought that junior lawyers could do the same work as librarians at less cost); • librarians were not perceived as proactive enough;

• there was no leadership or clear strategic direction;

• the need for maintaining large physical collections was debatable considering the availability of digital resources.

As Cheryl says:

"It has been difficult to promote the library as the curator and broker of knowledge within the organisation. Most people still associate IT with knowledge and information when in fact they are the means by which information is delivered to the business - a systems platform."

It all sounds depressingly familiar, but it was also a great opportunity. Early in 2005, as the new National Library Manager, Cheryl created a national Australian Government Solicitor (AGS) library network service with clear strategic and operational outcomes and performance measures within a competitive commercial context.

Environment
AGS is a unique institution — classified as a General Business Enterprise (GBE) that supports the Australian Attorney General as First Law Officer (analogous to the U. S. Attorney General). Other GBEs include the Australian Postal Corporation and Defence Housing Australia. The Australian government's relationship to the GBEs is similar to that of a holding company and its subsidiaries. AGS competes with other law firms for government work, and no contract is guaranteed. AGS can't compete for private (non government) legal work.

In this competitive environment, accurate reporting on the libraries' activities was essential.

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Created on June 29, 2011 l Updated on July 4, 2011