Service Science and the Information Professional

By Yvonne de Grandbois

As we transition to a service and information-based economy, information specialists are projected onto the leading edge of an emerging science. Service Science and theInformation Professional demonstrates how the power of this new transdisciplinary field can inform and transform the current information professional world. Service Science is about people, technology, information, and organizations. Service Science can be of great benefit to Information Centres everywhere, and Information Service outlets can be a tremendous field of research for this new science. iSchools and Schools of Information Studies can join Computer Science, Engineering and Business Schools in receiving research grants for the development of Service Science. Information professionals need to know this new discipline and be inspired to participate in it.

• Describes service science and its increasing relevance as a discipline
• Provides relevant information to those pursuing interests in Information science, Information literacy, service science, and information management
• illustrates that the transition to a service and information-based economy will require libraries to deal with both information and services
• Explains why information professionals need to know more about this emerging field
• Shows the value of research, and the importance of participating in this field

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Oct 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781780633138

Yvonne de Grandbois

Yvonne de Grandbois is Professor of Innovative Research at the Montreux University School of Business in Switzerland, and was previously on the faculty of the Department of Information Studies, University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland. She has held positions in three specialized agencies of the United Nations, including the International Trade Centre, the International Labour Office, and the World Health Organization, where she directed a global program for scientific, technical, and medical information. She has lectured and conducted meetings around the globe, and has published research on managerial competencies for information professionals and articles on Service Science. She designs and delivers training programs in the public and private sectors internationally. She is on the editorial board of the journal Service Science, and is a member of the Swiss Institute of Service Science, and the International Society of Service Innovation Professionals. She is past president of the Association of International Information Specialists. A graduate of McGill University, she is Canadian and Swiss.

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Prologue

I was having lunch with one of the top professors in the management faculty of a University in Switzerland. I was new at the school, and excited about being able to share my experience with these young people who had chosen the information profession. On the walk from the school to the restaurant, the professor said something that was obvious to him but shocking to me. He said that in his opinion the information professions would go the way of the mail carrier and the travel agent—they would soon be obsolete. He maintained that, too often, these professions gave people services they thought they should have, and this was usually a one-size fits all. However, the market was not responding to this. He was very clear in his thought—giving me a readout that I found was fairly common in his department. My own experience had me on a totally different wavelength. I had never paid attention to those negative articles that would appear in the professional literature. The people I knew in the information professions were smart, passionate, and committed and did not have the time to ruminate about their profile. They mostly thought they had the best jobs in the world and were enjoying a career where you got paid for learning, growing, meeting interesting people, and staying on the leading edge of knowledge and technology.

On the first day of classes at the post graduate School of Information Studies I attended we were told by the director that upon graduating from this school the world would be our oyster. The phrase seemed absurd at the time. In retrospect however, it proved itself true, opening so many doors in so many disciplines. I especially remember a professor that inflamed and inspired us with her passion for knowledge and the profession we would be entering. She would have us stand up and express ourselves over and over until we learned to hold the audience in the palm of our hands and stream our message with ease. We were simply not allowed to be silent or timid, and this was taught in such an engaging and humorous way that we would have followed her anywhere.

My career path led to working in just about every sector of the information realm on two continents: public, private, academic, government, regional, school, and three mandates in the international sector. Oyster indeed! My longest international mandate was as Coordinator of the World Health Organization’s Library and Information Networks for Knowledge (LINK). After that I began teaching at the bachelor and master levels and was responsible for a new master’s program in the Information Studies Department between two universities in Canada and Switzerland. In coming to this university, I knew what I wanted to transmit. I was armed with a thousand examples of real life experience, most of which had been rich and stimulating and rewarding (especially in retrospect!).

It was at this university, in a faculty other than mine, where I discovered Service Science.

At the start of this move to academia, I was invited to give a class at the university. The audience included the Dean, the head of the Department of Information Studies, the head of the Research Department, and two professors. The topic I was given was Service Science and Its Relationship to Information Science.

At the time, I had not yet made a connection between Service Science and Information Science. I thought surely there would be something written on this in the professional literature (this was 2009). Wrong. Although there were articles about Service Science, very little was related to the information professions. I spoke to many brilliant and capable knowledge workers in the international sector, and they actually had never heard of Service Science, but, like me, wanted to know more about it. So I plunged into it and the more I studied Service Science, the more I learned not only about its relationship to Information Science, but its absolute relevance to our entire profession, and its place in the world.

Although a young discipline, Service Science has many proponents, some in prestigious universities, and others in the private sector. As I researched the topic, I became convinced that this was a theme that information professionals needed to know about and to be involved in. If any profession today was dealing with people, technology, organizations and information, it was the knowledge worker in information. The growing number of universities that taught Service Science taught it through faculties not related to Information Science, with a few exceptions such as the iSchools at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Toronto.

I began by using my bachelor-, and then master-level students as a forum to test the water on this topic. I gave classes on Service Science in my marketing and client relationship management courses and invited guest speakers to explore and expand this concept. The students responded positively to the classes. They considered it totally normal that they study Service Science. We had many fine discussions as to the place of Service Science in the information economy and in their future work. We looked at the importance of linking research and real life, and staying ahead of the game: interacting with and learning about different disciplines and professions, embracing change and innovation, moving forward.

I presented a paper on Service Science at an Online Information conference in London. This important annual conference is aimed at information professionals, analysts, and researchers in all sectors; IT professionals; publishers; and senior executives responsible for information strategy. The paper was selected to be part of the theme, Broadening our horizons: fresh insights and opportunities to stay ahead. I write this book in this spirit by sharing a subject that I think is important and necessary to our future.

When I began researching this fascinating story and writing this book, I looked at Service Science from the point of view of a practitioner and professor of information. The sectors I wanted to reach included information professionals, students and professors in schools of information, and iSchools. Service Science is something we as information professionals should know and incorporate in our minds, our work, our research, and our curricula. We give service within service systems, and deal with people, technology, organization, and information. We are T-shaped professionals in that we have advanced degrees in specialized areas, with a wide horizontal background including information, technology, communication, and the social sciences. We are curious to know about other disciplines in order to do a good job. We are team players. All of this leads to a natural connection to Service