The Information Broker's Handbook - Floppy-val [antikvár]

Foreword The first words I ever heard from Sue Rugge's office were "You're talking to a desperate woman! When can you start?" Actually, the words were those of Sue's Director of Research, Barbara Newlin Bernstein. I'd just moved back to California after a stint as an engineering company librarian in Reading, Pennsylvania, and I was looking for work. I'd heard of Sue Rugge and her pioneering efforts in what was then called the fee-based information business. So when I came across the ad for a research associate at her firm. Information on Demand, I leaped for the phone. lOD, in turn, leaped for me. They were short two researchers, it turned out, and had more work than they could handle. What I'd assumed would be a one-hour job interview turned out to be the first day of almost six years with Infonnation on Demand. No resume or references changed hands that day; Sue and Barbara had a warm body and a passable intellect in their grasp, and they weren't about to let go. I was given a desk, a telephone, and a few simple guidelines. Seven hours later, I could teU you anything you wanted to know about water-pumping vnndmills. Those words of Barbara's proved to be prophetic. The demand for infonnation, and for knowledgeable people to retrieve, manage, and massage it, has continued to accelerate. Hundreds of new entrepreneurs have entered the business since 1981, the year I was semikidnapped into it. Some of their ventures have succeeded, but the majority, I suspect, have failed. Why? One major reason is a lack of soM, straight-from-the-shoulder information about the information industry in general and the information brokering profession in particular. That's why a book like this is so refreshing and so essential. Sue Rugge has no illusions about the independent research business. She has no vested interest other than helping to maintain the profession's high standards and making the world aware of aU that it has to offer. Sue's concern for the profession led to her early involvement in the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP), an organization she headed as president in 1988-89. Her pragmatic view of the industry has been invaluable to me, to other AIIP officers, to hundreds of seasoned infonnation brokers, and to thousands who aspire to enter the profession. When people ask me for advice on becoming an information broker, I recommend Sue's seminars, telling them that the registration fee is a small