Being Librarians
In the previous post, we discussed the importance of housing knowledge as well as how easy it is to loose it when people leave or when we stop paying attention to the content of our Library. Today I wan to chat with you about the important role each of us play in gathering, cataloguing and sharing that knowledge.
Typically Librarians manage Libraries. Tho' we mostly remember them as the people shushing us if our voices went over a certain decibel. They are responsible for understanding the needs of the communities they serve and then working to secure the resources that will provide for those needs.
As said in the previous post, good documentation is essential to having a stong educated society, good business and employee experiences as well as to ensure that you are passing knowledge on to the next generation of people that will replace you in the future. We are all newcomers to a company, a school, a city, etc at one time or another and we keep building our new citizen count each day. Today we have lots of information scattered accross different platforms, media, some stored locally on our computers, others stored in company wikis, you get the gist, and it's hard for those that need the information we may have to get access to them unless they know exactly where they reside.
In a company setting, having a centralized hub that anyone can go to when they are in need of learning is essential to the success of each of your employees and ultimately, your business.
Each of us has some knowledge we can share, some more than others. But, Similar to Alexandria, all of us are intellectuals in our own space and can ensure that the Library you build becomes a monument to great learning.
Me? A Librarian?
I know, it sounds crazy right? Each of us becoming a Librarian, but guess what, we already are, we just don't realize it.
Think about this for a minute, do you:
- help others when they are in need of assistance with a task they are not familiar with?
- catalog systems, software and best practicies for your team or group?
- analyze and develop new processes to make your workflow more efficient?
- write reports and present ideas clearly and concisely both in written and oral form?
- connect with others from different expertise and poin-of-views to find best answers to problems?
- belive that knowledge should be equitable accessible?
- provide support to issues in group discussions, your code comments, social platforms or any other communication methods?
I bet most of you reading this answered yes to pretty much all of those questions right? There you go, you didn't even think of it that way right?
Where do we start?
Some things to start thinking about are:
- Cataloguing the knowledge you already have
- Add things like topics, where is it stored, who owns it, who maintains it, is it still relevant
- Plan how best to organize that Knowledge
- Think about the needs of your readers and how that knowledge can help
- Start planning time for managing your Documentation
- Think about the different types of information (Internal use, immediate dependency use, general external use, etc) that will be in your Documentation.
Nobody knows more about the topic you are writing, the platform you are building, the service you offer, etc, than you and your team because you are the experts.
Writing good documentation will not only help readers looking for guidance, but will also allow you to have more time to focus on work and life instead of sitting in meetings, training or answering support questions.