1995 - Catalytica - Cliff Mills

Cliff Mills
Information Center Manager
Catalytica
430 Ferguson Drive
Mountain View, California 94043-5272

Interviewed by Doreen Cohen, February 17, 1995

What would you say to the person who is entering a graduate program in library and information science?

If there're entering it today from the perspective of practically any type of library, whether they're entering a corporate, special or any type of library expect a lot of changes, expect a job to be redefined many times. You have to be able to adjust and adapt to many, many challenges. It's impossible to say what we're going to be doing 10 years from now. ...many different avenues that are available..Certainly 10 years ago when I started here I could never predict the things that are going on now with the Internet and CD-ROM with electronic document delivery. So I think there's going to be much, much more change, but that's the part that makes it exciting and interesting. It's not a dead skill like say leather tanning, but it's something that's going to be changing ...It's going to be very different. It's not where you can say, OK, I'm just going to be a reference librarian and sit behind a desk and answer reference questions. I think the information professional is going to have to be able to know all kinds of things. Especially in special libraries where you're working with smaller staffs and you just wear many hats and have all types of different skills. Reference work is just one facet. You have to be able to set goals, you have to be able to negotiate, you have to be able to change directions very quickly, and at the same time you have to be doing this with less. The nineties watchword is do more with fewer resources.

Second part to the question. Now it's graduation day. Do you have something further you want to send them off with?

I think the important thing is to not get discouraged because I know at the moment it's a very difficult job market. There are lots of professionals out there who are looking for work and who you are going to be competing against. But I think that you have to have tenacity and believe in what you're doing. I remember my first interview for a library job I failed. I got a notice in the mail that said "we're sorry, you failed the interview, don't call us anymore" and I was devastated. At the same time, I thought to myself, well I think they don't understand really what they need or what they want, that they're the ones who made a mistake, so I bounced back from that interview. It turned me in another direction I didn't anticipate--all for the better. I think that getting that first job and getting the experience is probably the toughest thing, and if you can get into a position where you're working with someone good even if it's not the position you would like to have, you're going to benefit. Experience is what really counts. Because if you're able to do things, people want you. If all you can do is theoretical things, you're not going to be very attractive.

What is it that excites you about your work?

There are many things that excite me about my work. I think the nicest, the greatest rush you get is when someone comes up and asks you something out of the blue and you're able to put your finger exactly on what they're looking for--which is something that comes from experience. Many times you're not going to have the answer at the tip of your fingers, but if you could find it for them in a few small steps people are very amazed. I think the skills you get from being an information professional astonish a lot of people. People come to me and they say well how do you find this information about patents or where should I go for this information or this or that, and they have no idea where to go. Whether it's in a public library, special library, governmental library--but it's being able to have the poise to think through problems to get to the answer basically is a great feeling. But that is all a part of being in a service business. I like working with people. I get a lot of satisfaction out of setting up technical things, but the bottom line is I think in this profession I like to work with people and get satisfaction out of doing that. People can sense when you're not having a good time. If there're coming to you and they sense resentment, they may have qualms about coming back. So I think you really have to have a good feeling about people. I like to be able to pride myself on being able to work with practically anybody at any time, and that's exciting. To be calm amidst all kinds of turmoil. That's a good feeling.

When you think back can you think of someone or more than one who has influenced you in your professional life and in what way did they do that?

In my professional life..my gosh..there have been so many people going all the way back to Mrs. Short in my junior high school library. I think the person who most impressed me earliest and kind of got me going into a library career was Harold Umbarger who was in charge of the Carson Regional Library in Los Angeles County. Not only was he a wonderful man to deal with, to work for, but he was a great librarian. And whenever working for him and under him, I would see him, he would always have the best composure about dealing with the people in whatever situation. He was a consummate professional and I was really amazed at how many things he could accomplish even in a small public library. So he was a very early influence, and I never really told him that at the time. I think he's retired now, though. I think he had a great sincere interest in helping people from whichever background or problem they had. And at the same time he would smile and you always gain something from working with people like that. And I think that is what made him so good is that he liked helping people and he had a lot of knowledge that he could pass on over the years. He had a kind of inner strength that made him a great person to work with. He never lost his composure. There have been many, many more people in the profession that I have admired and that I worked for, but he was probably the earliest person that I admired. Someone to emulate, someone to be a mentor. And it's kind of funny in that I spent a lot of years trying to talk myself out of being a librarian. I think subconsciously I was going to end up here, but at that time I was always thinking of a tennis bum or an architect or something else, so it's something that just happened.

Can you single out any experience that you would consider the most rewarding of your professional career?

I'm not sure if you would include professional associations, but I got a lot of very positive things from being chapter president of SLA. It was one of the greatest feelings of working with so many good people and meeting so many people starting out in the profession and then through the library schools. That was a great year. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of agony and it's a lot of headaches, but it's great to be able to help so many people professionally. And I think after awhile you kind of have to give back to the profession. You learn so much from other people, you have to give back and share what you've learned and help other people. So, I think that was probably the highest point To give back--and it was not only for the profession, but I think Catalytica gained a lot also in that I was exposed to many, many more people outside in the divisions and chapters which also helped my job here. That was the ultimate thing I've done. There've been many, many technical things I have done, but I can't think of any one single thing....my job here at Catalytica, everything here overall has been a very rewarding experience, but I can't pick out any one accomplishment from all of these things.

Can you discuss whether or not you see today's challenges as being different from those when you graduated from library school?

I'm not sure--you mean the challenges that information professionals face today? Yes, I think there are different and more challenges. I think it's technically more challenging because so much more of the world is computerized and automated and when I was starting out only large organizations had automation and electronic access to databases, but now it's very common--Dun & Bradstreet, CARL UnCover and order things by fax, there are so many ways to get at information right now even if you don't have a library, I think it's more challenging because you have to know about more options. A hundred years ago I'm sure it was much simpler. A hundred years ago you didn't have television, you didn't have radio, you didn't have the multitude of information sources that are available now so I think it was simpler to learn a set of skills and to apply that over your career, and you did well. Now I think it's getting more technically sophisticated and so you have to not only be a good librarian, you have to be a good technologist. You have to know how to work with not only people but with computers and databases. When I was starting out the number of databases in Dialog would have seemed overwhelming to me, but now there are many times over that number. That was the interesting and challenging part of the job, because usually I get bored with things really fast. I do work really hard on something and I get bored and move on to something else, but here there's been so much change and so many challenges you don't have time to get bored. You're kind of forced to learn. If you don't know something, you have to find out. You have to find out right away. Especially if you're a one-person library like I run right now you have to be the expert in everything, whether it be technical information or legal information or medical information or patent information--whatever. You're jumping from place to place. That kind of suits my lifestyle because I get bored really easily nowadays, and so I like jumping from job to job, and if I didn't have Windows I'd be really lost because I'd have to be exiting and entering all kinds of different applications. Now I can keep a dozen things all going at the same time--cut and paste, and send things to a dozen different people --do all kinds of things at all types of different levels. It's the fun part of the job. I think I've liked it because either you learn something and get that feeling of accomplishment from it and then you go on and you learn other things. I like the challenges. It's kept it interesting. I've worked with these people who are just the opposite--I won't say who, I won't say where--who don't want the challenges, who don't want change, and to me that's really boring. I don't like to be on auto-pilot and you have to be thinking about all types of different things all the time at different levels and that's what makes it interesting. When I worked for LA County I spent a few weeks filing cards in the master catalog, thousands and thousands of cards, and it was one of the most tedious jobs I've ever had. You could let your imagination go and think about other things. But here at Catalytica the day goes by extremely fast, and I'm always regretting that I don't have time to work on this or work on that. You're never bored. You may not like what you're doing at a particular time, but you're always pressed to do additional things, and that's the way the occupation or the profession is going to go. It's going to be more and more challenging as the world gets more and more technical.

Jane Dysart made the statement, "Forget collections! Think of the school children using the internet today, and consider how you will meet their information needs tomorrow." Can you comment on that statement?

Well, I agree with a great part about it. I think there will be less of an emphasis on collections because more information will be done electronically in the future. So I think the emphasis should be on meeting people's needs, whether it be children or whether it be company CEOs, in a lot of ways there're the same. You have to analyze what they're going to need and to be able to get it to them in whatever way they want it. It it's books, great--children still love books, but they love computers, too. But I think the library of the future will be created mostly in electronic format. So, I agree with the part that the collection should not have the emphasis, but the delivery of the information, whether that be sound or graphics or text or whatever, I think there are many more options.

If you were going to interview someone in Silicon Valley about our profession, who would you pick and what would be your reasons?

Let's see. I'm thinking out loud. I would really pick someone who is not in the profession, but who is part of the information industry, part of a major organization--because I think you have to talk to people who are doing that to know what to expect in the future. I knew years and years ago that CD-ROMs would be a hot thing even before everybody had a CD-ROM player, and that's only because you listen to people who are using these products to see what they know about them, what ways using these things can be helpful. So I would check with people who are in multi-media, president of say, for example, Silicon Graphics, seeing what things do they see for the future. Because you know we're not only going to be storing books, we're going to be storing videos, we're going to be storing text, tapes, programs--we're going to be storing everything. What parts are going to be important for technologists of the future? Not just the information--the work force is changing from an industrial based to an information based society, so how is our profession going to handle and meet those needs? What's going to be the future--and even if they're wrong, at least we have some idea of what the thinking is going to be. Because before anything can happen, somebody's got to think about it and envision it. Libraries or information centers or whatever you call them really have to be thinking how are we going to fit the needs of our organizations for the future. What are people going to want. You know it's just like libraries a hundred years ago were trying to fit the needs of their audience. With things changing so fast now with our society somebody has to organize this stuff, and you can't expect someone who is at the cutting edge of technology to really know--really think about how they're going to organize their thoughts or their files or their records. Somebody should be capturing a lot of these things. Not to say that everything should be captured. There's probably a lot of things that are better left forgotten, but important developments happen in days now where in the past there was a much slower pace. With CNN, with the Internet, you know word really gets around fast now...who's going to archive these things. organize thought, who's going to dispel rumors. My quote I always like--I don't know who made it up, maybe I did--fact is the enemy of rumor. There's all kinds of stupid perceptions running around that haven't been killed because facts haven't been presented well enough. I think it's part of our profession to not only provide information but to help organize knowledge--different things.

If you were not in this profession, what would you be doing?

You know, I don't know if I've ever told people about this--one of my old daydreams was to be just a tennis pro, a tennis pro who bums around, who really doesn't have to worry about very much from day to day, week to week. That's one daydream. At different times I've played with becoming an architect or performing in theatre. The truth of the matter is that I get bored with a lot of those things after doing them for awhile, so I think I happened into something that I enjoy and has all kinds of facets that I like. There's a lot of things I don't like doing in my job, but there's the overwhelming feeling you get out of it is one of accomplishment. At times, though, the thought of being a tennis player sounds awfully good.

How do you go about changing with changing times?

There's different ways people approach technology. There are some people who are the kamikazes and have to be the first on the block. There's other people who like to wait around for the bugs to be worked out. And there's other people who want to wait around until it's down to a good, cheap price and you can get it at a discount at Fry's. I kind of like to be at the cutting edge of things. And when I read something in the paper, when I see something on the Internet, I like to go into it and explore it and find out about it so that I can share that information with other people. If I see something strange in a press release about any products I like to explore that even if it's not something that you can use at the moment--to know about it, to know what's in development. And I think it helps people who are developing information tools to get feedback about some of these things. You know here we test lots of CD-ROM products and database products and we look at a lot of books--and a great majority of them we don't buy due to cost or because of format or the interface isn't right, but you have to try out a lot of things to know what's going to work in any situation or not. So to me--I'm not a total kamikaze, but I kind of lean towards diving in and taking the initiative to check out something, and be the first on the block to try out a new Web site or to try new things. Even just to think out loud and propose things to people in the company. Because it's amazing how many times new products can fill my needs even if they're not totally de-bugged. At least it gets the thinking structured in a certain way. At the moment, I report to someone who is Director of Technical Services. Technical Services oversees Information Services, which is my department, Computer Services, Computer Modeling and Analytical Services. So anything that has any computer support focus reports to this director, and I think it's a good idea. Before I reported to people in charge of publications and people in research, and never really found our proper niche, and I think this is better in that people in the group understand electronic information and electronic data better than any one department did. You never get as much support as you really want, but I think you get more feedback from your peers because they understand the technical aspects of the job and sometimes the importance of what you're doing. There's no perfect solution. Everyone fights barriers. Libraries and information centers--it's the kind of thing that's hard to place under anyone's domain. So I think whatever people can work out for their own organizations is probably OK. I've seen every which way. As long as they feel they're being supported. I know my boss is very sympathetic and understanding, which is important. Not that he can help me out that much with money or with personnel, but at least it's good to have someone who appreciates what you do and understands the importance of it.

What would be the most important elements of your epitaph?

Gosh--that's real tough because there are so many things about your life that you'd like to say. That's a real stumper... It's kind of like it's the end of Act One, the curtain drops, you don't know what to expect--it's been exciting. I hope the rest of my professional life stays exciting and that there's changes. I can't predict what's going to happen in the future, but I know I want to be involved with it. Whatever problems, turmoils, frustrations and achievements you've had, I think it's worth it. I've been through a lot of very good and very bad things, here and professionally, but it's been worth it because I think you learn from it and it hasn't broken my spirit and I'm still optimistic about the outlook of things whether they be here at Catalytica or whether they be professionally or US. industry, I think the resilience of spirit that people have--I think putting it in the perspective of Disneyland--they used to have "E" tickets for things, and those were the best tickets--it was worth the ride, it really was. I consider myself still young in my career even though I started in libraries as a page 24 years ago, I think there's still a lot of excitement ahead and I'm glad I chose this profession because it is changing and dynamic, and I can see so many other people who hate their jobs, hate what they're doing, and don't have a lot of job satisfaction. Every day of my life here at Catalytica and professionally I've gotten something out of being a professional. And I think it's more than a lot of people can say.

Is there a question that I should have asked that I didn't?

I'm glad you didn't ask anything about money. Whenever I go the library schools they always ask about money. It always throws me...salaries--how much money can you expect to be making. I think you can make what you want to make ultimately. If you want to make a lot of money, you can if that's what you really want. One thing that people always ask me and I kind of like them asking me about it is my background--I don't have a background in chemistry even though I work for a chemical R&D company, and that was very, very intimidating to me at first. I didn't even think I could do a good job here. I found out it makes it more difficult in some ways to do a good job, but you can still do a good job even if you don't have a subject background. People shouldn't be put off by subject expertise as much as they are. I think these undergraduate majors are made out to be more than they are. There's a lot to be said for having good people skills, being eager to learn things on the job, having a sincere interest in helping people in the organization--that's more important than having a subject background at times. In certain cases I'm sure it would be important...but don't sell yourself short. There's jobs that people can fit into even in technical libraries. I've worked in patents, I've worked in legal databases, I've worked in scientific databases and I'm able I think to do an adequate job. I think if I had a subject background I could possibly do better, but at other times I think we can't be a specialist in everything. I think in our field right now you have to be a generalist. You have to be able to do many things because it's a convergence of technologies. Here we work sci-tech, but we also have to search in a lot of other things and we get things out of the general literature. I think the ability to work well under pressure in a lot of situations with many different people is important. I don't know who's going to read this, but I think it's good to read what other people have done. After awhile you say I can understand that, I can relate to that, I can see how that fits into my situation, I can get a new perspective...and think about their own jobs and say I can get satisfaction or I don't get satisfaction from the occupation I'm in.