Library Center Analysis #6: Special Library

For a Special Library, I chose to visit the Research Institute Center of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.  The RIC is a technical research library maintaining resources on a range of marine science and environmental issues in the State of Florida.  It is located at 100 8th Ave SE in St. Petersburg (near the USF St. Pete campus) and is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  A visitor's pass is required to gain admittance to the library and is obtained from the receptionist in the main lobby.  Information about the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is available at the website http://myfwc.com.
At the center, I met with librarian Jan Boyett, who took different path to becoming a librarian.  Boyett received her Bachelor's degree in Biology, and also acquired an MBA in Business and worked for 15 years as a microbiologist and chemist for a pharmaceutical manufacturer.  She tired of this career and wanted to do something completely different, so she followed her love of books and enrolled in the Library Science program at USF.  At the time, she did not know that there was even such a thing as a science librarian.  After graduating, she worked at the library at USF and was a visiting librarian at University of Florida before coming to the RIC as a Marine Librarian. 

 The RIC is governed by the Fish and Wildlife Game Commission, which is a state agency.  They are the research arm of the Florida government, and support about 600 people throughout the state.  Hot topics for marine research include red tide, manatees, sea grasses, fish hatcheries and stock assessments.  Wildlife topics include panthers, beats, game birds, endangered birds and tortoises, and research is conducted on these topics. 

Unlike most libraries, the Institute does not house many books.  Rather, scientists affiliated with the Institute make recommendations for selection and most often the books are sent directly to their stations.  Boyett must catalog the books, they are usually in use through a series of Inter Library Loans between 29 separate research stations.  The actual library building houses mostly journals, with current subscriptions to over 100 scientific journals.  

In all the catalog consists of approximately these journals, 7500 books, and access to JSTOR and BIO1 for additional historical and current full text journals.  Most importantly, the institute houses a reprint collection of around 65,000 historical documents and articles about Florida wildlife and marine issues.  The RIC is also responsible for archives of the State publications which must be maintained by the State for 100 years.  They also act as a distributor for Institute publications and fill orders from a publication list of 2600 items.

Jan Boyett is the only librarian at the Institute, but she also has two other paraprofessionals on staff.  She was formerly an active member and on the Board of Directors of the Tampa Bay Library Consortium, and has also been a member of SLA.  The organization of SLA did not suit the specific needs of her library however, as the scientific libraries were most often medical or botanical in focus.  She is an active member of a smaller organization, known as IAMSLIC, the International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers (http://www.iamslic.org/).  This organization is specific to marine science, and focuses on networking, sharing of information, and helping fill the information literacy needs in Third World Countries.  The members of this organization are helpful in locating information about other areas of the world should a scientist need resources that the RIC does not contain. 

The nice part of the Special Library, according to Boyett, is that the librarian gets to do a bit of everything, and that there is no micromanaging of her daily functions as she is the only librarian.  In this library, the classification and cataloging are done to the specific needs of the library, rather than to conform with other systems.  She really enjoys being able to use both of her degrees to be involved in the research, while not actually out in the sun chasing manatees or studying sea grasses.  She has found a perfect fit here at the RIC.

Because the Research Institute deals mainly with the scientists and not the public, they do not have a specific social media presence.  Instead, the Outreach Department of the FWC, which is a separate section of the organization, deals with public information.  This branch has a presence on facebook, twitter, youtube, flickr, and RSS news feeds.  The Institute is helping in the preparation for the annual open house taking place this weekend (Sat. April 30) called MarineQuest, where students of all ages can visit with scientists and enjoy touch tanks, face painting, and entertainment. 

Although scientific research is not necessarily my field of expertise, I really enjoyed visiting with Jan Boyett and seeing the different roles of the Special Library.  We had a nice discussion about the profession, about the subject matter, and about other issues in library science.  I highly recommend anyone interested in Science Libraries to send her an email and make an appointment to go explore this library, or to attend the FWC Marine Quest this weekend.