At WiLS, we want to bring valuable information to our library partners, including information about the missions and big ideas of the vendors they may already do business with. Each month, WiLS will interview a vendor partner in order to bridge the gap and open the door to valuable collaborations. This month, we are delighted to share insights from David Ziembiec, Director of Business Solutions and Data Analytics at Gale, a part of Cengage Learning.
If you have any questions about this interview, or would like to suggest a vendor partner for us to interview in the future, contact Andrea Coffin at acoffin@wils.org or 414-979-9457.
Tell us about your company’s background. Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, is a partner to libraries and businesses looking to deliver educational content, tools and services that support entrepreneurship, encourage self-directed learning, aid in research and instruction, and provide enlightening experiences. Gale believes the library is the heart of its community, driving meaningful and measurable outcomes for individual users and patron groups. Gale has been a leading provider of research and education resources to libraries for 60 years and is committed to supporting the continued innovation and evolution of libraries and their communities.
Why do you, personally, choose to work with libraries? I’ve worked with information professionals in various markets for over fifteen years, and the experience has been exciting. Working with an intelligent customer base to create new and useful solutions for the public is always a thrill and the challenge is constant – which suits my personality.
What do you like to know about the libraries you work with? What helps you better understand their needs? Listening to our customers is part of our company culture at Cengage Learning. It’s important to know as much as you can about the customers and the industry you serve. Without asking questions about what’s important to the library, what are their successes and challenges, who are they reaching and not reaching in their community, what do they envision the future of this institution to look like, you can’t understand their focus, needs and direction.
What big ideas are being worked on at your company? What problems are being solved? It’s a very interesting and exciting time to be at Gale. I’m biased, I know, but big ideas are really what we’re all about today. There is a philosophical shift afoot—we’re recognizing as an organization the importance of moving beyond simply providing access to information, to becoming deeply invested in how that access translates to meaningful outcomes for libraries and their users. How do the resources we provide help solve real problems for real people—help them get jobs, advance their education, learn vital life skills? How can we better support our library partners in achieving success across their entire mission? Specifically for our public library partners, this line of thinking has resulted in Gale offering the first-of its kind Career Online High School, which allows libraries to give adult learners the opportunity to earn an accredited high school diploma while gaining real-world job skills. A traditional reference publisher would have a hard time bringing a program like this, or our online, instructor-led Gale Courses, to today’s libraries—but we’re more than just reference . Continuing our legacy as an information publisher while delivering innovative resources in the present makes every day rewarding for me. And we certainly look to the future too. Analytics On Demand is definitely a big idea designed to help libraries better understand how they’re doing today but also plan for what’s next while measuring their progress on the path to getting there.
How can librarians become partners in product or training development? Librarians are already partners in product development and training. We work closely with our customers across all markets to create solutions that people will adopt and find useful in their lives. Through our agile software development practice, which calls for a collaborative approach to product development and incorporates a constant loop of user-testing and feedback, our development team is able to create sophisticated, tool-rich research platforms that fit into the workflows of our customers and aid in new research discoveries. Without consistent and vocal input from information professionals, many of whom interact with their patrons on a daily basis, product development couldn’t be considered responsive to the needs of the public. Our training staff collaborates with our customers on every meeting, to ensure that the sessions are meaningful and useful to the attendees. Often we’ll receive product enhancement ideas, concerns and constructive feedback on our solutions during these sessions. So if you attend one, please make sure to share your thoughts and ideas with Dinah Ramirez!