Remember rip and ship? There was a day when the value that the info pro brought to the table was access to and the ability to search commercial, subscription based databases. In those days, a professional search yielded otherwise hard to access information. Ripping the results from the dot matrix printer and shipping it to the client was standard practice.
Online searching is no longer novel. The technology is practically ubiquitous and answering the ready reference question or delivering full text articles is no longer a value add service.
So, what's an info pro to do? For an examination of the justification and how-to's for creating value add deliverables, see Amelia Kassel's Value-Added Deliverables: Rungs on the Info Pro's Ladder to Success published in Searcher. Kassel states that a value added deliverable will include organized research results with a summary of findings.
I recommend using the summary of findings as an opportunity to add further value to your report. The summary should answer the questions, but it's also an opportunity to share insights about the findings. We'll take a closer look at this in future postings.
In the meantime, let us know if you include a summary of findings in your deliverables.
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