A news librarian (news researcher)
contributed to this report

A librarian played a major role in the Watergate investigation but received no credit when a key story on the probe appeared in The Washington Post. Remember the scene from the movie “All the President’s Men” when Robert Redford, as reporter Bob Woodward, sat in the newsroom encircled in files? Woodward sought in vain to identify Kenneth Dahlberg, a man whose name was on a check found in the Watergate burglars’ bank account. He was ready to give up when a librarian handed him a 1967 photo of a Kenneth Dahlberg at a Minnesota fund-raiser with Hubert Humphrey. Dahlberg had raised the money in Minnesota and given it to Nixon’s campaign committee — and here it was now in the possession of one of the Watergate burglars.

Had it not been for the librarian’s help in making this vital connection, the famous investigation might have died then and there. But as history would have it, Woodward and his partner, Carl Bernstein, marched on to fame and fortune. The librarian faded into obscurity without even so much as a credit line.

This failure to credit the librarian’s contribution was likely due to her station away from the bustling newsroom, said Dr. Deborah Barreau, an assistant professor at UNC at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science. Barreau recently concluded a study of the practices and status of librarians — today more likely to be called information professionals or news researchers — within news organizations.

With an $11,000 research grant from the Special Libraries Association, Barreau studied news libraries at four major East Coast dailies ranging in size from 200,000 to 750,000 in readership circulation. The yearlong case study titled “The New Information Professional: Vision and Practice,” submitted to the SLA concludes that information professionals may be more valued in newspapers that integrate them into working teams where they enjoy increased exposure – as opposed to performing silently in the background, often sectioned off from reporters.

“Initially I was motivated because libraries are closing doors,” said Barreau, pointing to closures at Apple Computer, Universal Studios and Time-Warner. “I was concerned about why. If we provide the valuable function we think we provide, how could organizations seemingly be so ruthless in shutting these operations down?”

In news organizations, assistance from researchers includes providing background information; finding contact information; verifying facts; providing technical assistance and training to reporters; answering questions; performing data analysis; and finding new sources of information.

To evaluate how well these functions are utilized and appreciated, Barreau selected newspapers with differing organizational structures — two newspapers that fully integrate and involve the information professionals in editorial and reporting activities, and two that have not. In the two that are integrated, the news researchers are assigned to work directly with reporters and editors in the newsroom. The other two follow a more traditional model with news researchers stationed in a centralized library facility.

Barreau found that newspapers were more likely to acknowledge in news articles the news researchers’ contributions if they were more fully integrated into the newsroom. This integration seemingly would produce a more engaged research staff, she said, meaning that reporters can more easily request their expertise and assistance. Through observation and interviews, as well as surveys of reporters, Barreau concluded that news researchers who become part of the fabric of an organization are more highly valued – judging by their salary levels, job stability, job satisfaction and peer recognition.

“For libraries, quality service has typically meant responsiveness to users, understanding their needs and fulfilling them,” Barreau said. “The challenge facing news librarians, and perhaps all libraries, is to do this more proactively.”

Barreau will share her findings at the SLA conference in Nashville in June. An article on her study is forthcoming in SLA’s Information Outlook, and additional papers are pending.

For more information: Catherine Lazorko, School of Information and Library Science Communications Director: lazorko@unc.edu or 919/843-8337