1998 - Hewlett Packard - Eugenie Prime

Eugenie Prime
Hewlett Packard

Interviewed by Doreen Cohen, March 19, 1998

This is Doreen Cohen interviewing Eugenie Prime at Hewlett Packard on Thursday, March 19. Thank you for joining me for this. Let’s think back to what you would say to students entering the program at San Jose State in Library Science, if you could talk to them.

Well, I’ll tell them that they are very fortunate to be entering the profession at this time in the profession’s history. I think the challenges are great, which means that the opportunities are even greater. I think it’s a good time to be working in this profession where we are beginning to understand the value of information versus the value of just information technology. People are beginning to recognize the difference between content and the delivery tool or mechanism. So, I think it’s a good time to be entering the profession. The fact that there is such fluidity, even, allows them to shape how the profession…determines what it’s going to be like. I think in that sense, also, it’s a wonderful time to be here.

And if you were going to address them at their graduation next year, would you add something different to that?

Perhaps, just to let them be aware that there’s a difference between the real world and the sheltered confines of a university. That all the things that they have learned are mere theories that they are now going to apply in the real world. To remind them how important the culture in which they find themselves helps shape the principles that they have learned. So that these things that they have learned, these principles, these theories—how they’re applied will very much be shaped by the context in which they find themselves. By the industry. By the market. But to give them that sense of awareness because usually people go out with preconceived notions of what the world is like. So, they need to be prepared that they may find reality shock. And be open to finding that it’s different than they assumed that it would be. Be willing to respond, nevertheless, with that same level of excitement. So, I guess, preparing them for the fact that there is a difference between the real world and the world in which they have been operating and living for the last two years.

When you use the word culture, you’re talking about whatever particular work environment they’re in.

Yes, I’m thinking of the corporate culture. Yes, in that sense.

Was that a shock for you, initially?

You mean, for example, I came from the health care industry…

Well, your first job…

Well, no, because, you see for me, librarianship was not my first real job. It was for me not even probably the second. I had taught—I had worked as a teacher. I had worked as a publisher. I was running a library while I did that. So that it was never for me the first job. I’d been out there and survived some of the world’s knocks.

So you had already experienced…

The real world—I’d experienced the world, so that even while I was in school learning what I did, it helped shape how I absorbed what I learned. I think that makes a big difference.

Tell me about coming to work at Hewlett Packard—how did that come about?

Coming to Hewlett Packard…When I was in graduate school, I used to hear about these companies, a certain group of companies you always heard about that seem to have something special about them. Something that was almost indefinable in their culture. Something that could not easily be copied by other corporations, but something that was definitely envied by others. H-P was one of those companies. I well recall. I had been working in libraries. I had been working as a publisher and database producer and enjoying what I do immensely. But I think that if one is to make a change, you make it at a time that you are still enjoying what you do, because that’s the time when it is very easy to get complacent and to get into a comfortable rut. I was always very particular about not allowing that to happen to me. So, I felt it was time for a change. The fact that I tended to be equated with the Index. I was working for a non-profit organization, and I wanted to explore what it would be like for awhile to work for a for-profit. I wanted to test the limits of what I could do and could be. I felt it was time for a change. I saw this job at H-P. It was in the Wall Street Journal. I was on my way to a meeting in Portland, an MLA [Medical Library Association] meeting, actually. I saw it the day before and just thought I’d send in my application, which I did. When I really found out that the job was going to be offered to me, I was scared as anybody else was scared. Am I doing the right thing? I’m leaving a place where I know who I am, other people know who I am, I know what I can do—is this the right thing? It was my feeling, one, that it was time for a change. That I could easily become too comfortable where I was. And I need to grow. At the same time, I was scared because it was new. New contacts. New job. New people. The geography had changed. I didn’t know anybody up here.

How long did it take for you to feel like you made the right decision?

I remember about…the second month after I came into the job…wondering if I’d made the right decision. And saying to myself, you know, you left such a comfortable job, what are you doing here? Then I told myself, the only person who makes this decision right for me is me. It’s not the job. It’s the attitude I bring to the job that decides if it’s the right choice. I’ve made a decision. It’s up to me to make it the right decision. And if I can’t make it the right decision, you always have that option that you can leave. I well recall sitting in my office and saying that to myself. I’m sure that all of us, even years after, wonder if we made the right decision. You’ve made a decision and it doesn’t make sense, as I say, crying over spilt milk over the decision you’ve made. It’s up to you to make it right. I’m convinced it was the right decision. It was the decision that I needed to make at that point in time. I’ve grown immensely during that period.

In order to grow, in the previous situation you made a decision to change and go to H-P, so you do you do that and continue to work at H-P?

For one thing, I’m working in an R&D environment and I’m working in an industry where change is endemic and change is discontinuous. The changes that we see are quantum leaps. I remember the computer I used to work with. I would order computers, and by the time I expected them to be delivered, we have different computers being available. So, that’s the kind of speed of change. It’s impossible to be working in such a volatile environment and not grow. Well, it’s almost impossible. I mean, you have to work hard at not growing. The challenge is providing information within that context demands that you grow.

Can you think of two or three highlights, not necessarily at H-P, in your professional career that were special in your mind?

Yes. I think of the change-over when I went to the CINAHL from a paper-based product essentially and wholly, into one that was available both on paper and electronically. Now, understand, that like most decisions, the decision to do that—and a change-over—doesn’t take place in a day. You make the decision to do this, but implementing it takes long. We had in CINAHL a thesaurus that had grown up organically.

For the record, what does CINAHL stand for?

Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Literature.

So, we had a thesaurus that had grown up organically. Now we have to impose a structure on that thesaurus. We had committees involved—nurses and our indexers. Some of our indexers are nurses. A team of people working there and outside consultants working on this project over a period of time. I think it must have taken over a year. Then working with Dialog and BRS to negotiate and make this available, and working with them to make sure that we were sending it in the format that they needed to make it available. It was a really exciting time. Working with the indexers was really a time of excitement. You were always up against pressures, deadlines. No artificial deadlines. Real deadlines. The deadline of getting a product out every two months like clockwork, and with dates and all of this to meet. Then this product needed to be available, put all together for the annual. So, the annual with the five bi-monthlies. The sixth bi-monthly was included in the annual. So, there were constant deadlines. You were always up against deadlines. The immediacy of the customer feedback. You got that—people either renewed their indexes or they didn’t. The immediacy even when we went online of who is using it. The excitement of getting reports and seeing the extent of the use in terms of the breadth, in terms of diversity of customers who were using the database once it was available online. That was thrilling. That was just wonderful. That was great.

How about at H-P?

There are lots of things. I’m trying to isolate which one. I think maybe starting the digital library project. You know, having this vision for delivering information to the desktop. We had created this vision in ’91. We had the vision there in a graphic form. This is what people were requesting. We said we wanted to change people from being requesters of information to be being accessers of information. Instead of constantly moving to an intermediary, of being able to access that information. This did not, by any means, preclude the need for people. Our users, when we did our focus groups, told us that. This doesn’t mean that you can get rid of—and they called different people’s names. But getting that product off the ground prior to the Web. And the seeing the Web come out and the Web being an enabler of this. So, we saw it in two phases. Information to the desktop, then the desktop is anywhere.

Was this project specifically at H-P or were there other users?

Yes, it was H-P. The vision came out of a _____[?] decision and then a project. So, we started doing this prior to the Web, which was a very difficult way to do it because we had users on Unix and PC. It meant doing things in a Unix mode, and then doing it in PC. But the Web made that all a moot issue because the Web is a common platform, platform independent. That was wonderful when that kind of happened. I think that’s exciting.

Was that something that specifically came out of the library?

Yes. I think of today…the publication that came out today in today’s Measure Magazine, which is a publication that goes out to every employee and to people outside…and has a spread today on CONNEX, which is a tool developed in the library.

How do you spell that?

CONNEX. Essentially it’s an ex____ database. All dreams of an ex____ database originated in the library a long time ago, again, prior to the Web. Again, when the Web came around, it became such an enabler, so it became easier to do, it became easier to administer. Easier for people to implement or to get involved in. It enabled a number of functionalities that one could not do prior to the Web. When you find an expert, for example, you could have attached this person’s name—you can have their pictures, you can have their home page, you can have their articles. So, if you find somebody who knows about neural networks and speaks German and lives in the Bay Area, which is one way you can shape a search, a full search, you can find that person. But if you have doubts that this person is really who he claims to be, appended to this person’s file would be his articles and all that stuff. You couldn’t do that prior to the Web. So, in a sense, it was exciting to see the Web enable a dream and do it so effectively. It was good to be part of that.

The dream and the technology coming together…

Yes! Yes. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, which pushes what. Sometimes the dream has to make the technology. Not necessarily my dream, but somebody’s dream. Like Stephen Covey says, that everything is invented twice. It’s invented first in the mind. This dream, this vision. Everything that is a reality was somebody’s dream.

Well, if you think of another one, we can always come back to that. I think I get some inklings of this, but what is it that excites you about your work?

The ability to make things happen. And to have a staff that is supportive and are excited, too, about their work. Because I don’t actually make the things happen. All I can do is create a nurturing environment, create a supporting environment, in which people can be the best that they can be and people can discover who they are. Just seeing those things happen for people excites me. Yes, I’m part of making some things happen directly. I have my own dreams and my own hopes that, hopefully, I can persuade people to get excited about. CONNEX was one of those and the digital library was one of those. The fact that you come in here and you don’t know what will happen today. You don’t know what new technology is going to hit the ground and just change the world for you. I will not forget the day that somebody pulled me from my office and said I’ve got something to show you. You’ll want to see this, you really will want to see this. And took me and showed me Mosaic. It was December of 1993. I saw it and I immediately saw the possibilities of it. By April of 1994 we had a home page up and something on it. Cathy, that’s one of our employees here, had created on Framemaker something we called Fred. We tend to turn all our products—give them names. Fred was an online brochure. But the limitation of Fred was that in order to use Fred, you had to have Framemaker on your desk. Framemaker was not universally available. Now, we have Son of Fred, if you wish. And more than Son of Fred. When we created the home page, the first thing we had on it was Fred, a revitalized Fred or Son of Fred, because it was the Web version of Fred. Now it could be seen everywhere. That has expanded and expanded. The fact that I may come in tomorrow and there may be Mosaic Two or Son of Mosaic. You don’t know. Yet, we live in a world where change is always around the corner. To me, that’s exciting. It’s not a threat, it’s not scary. It’s exciting. Each one of these technologies draws me out and it’s growth enhancing. I’m excited by growth because I’m finding out more and more what I can do.

How do you go about moving on to the next technology? How do you inform yourself?

Well, first by reading. There are a number of newsletters—it’s there for the user, but I figure it’s also there for me. I keep reading what’s happening in the industry. I personally subscribe to Business Week and read that almost from cover to cover. I make sure I’m aware of what’s going on. We need to be. How can we be the information guides and navigators if we don’t know what the landscape looks like. Then there are a number of talks and presentations that are done here. The staff goes. I go. We make sure we stay immersed in what’s going on and not isolated from it—that’s the kiss of death.

Your entire staff has that approach. They are a part of what’s going on.

Yes. I can never tell them you should go to this thing. If they see a seminar going on or a chalk talk or a coffee talk. Now and then if I see something that I really think they should go to, I would forward it and say, hey, I hope people are going to this. I’ll say, I can’t go, but I hope somebody…you know. And they keep me abreast of things. When they see things that they think would interest me that I may not have seen, it’s on my desk. When I came into the office this morning—I was gone the last three days—and there’s stuff on my desk. Somebody has clipped a clipping from the newspaper that they thought would interest me. As you say that, I’m conscious that I don’t thank them enough for that.

It sounds like it’s sort of a group dynamic for staying current. Something that very much you probably created.

Yes. I don’t know. But I know that, as you say this now, that I must remember to thank them. I’ve done that a long time ago, but every now and then I really need to thank them because there’s no way that I could see all that they see. They do help keep me abreast and I appreciate that.

When you think about your professional life, whether it was here at H-P or before that, can you think of one or two people that you could say have influenced you and in what way?

I think of Judy Messerle. She’s now the librarian at the medical school at Harvard University. I think of her very fondly. I was attending my first MLA [Medical Libraries Association] and feeling very much on the outskirts of things at this meeting. It was in Chicago. I remember thinking, I want to get involved in this group. There was Judy Messerle. I knew who she was. She didn’t know me, but I went up to her and said, I’m new to this profession and I’d like to know how I can get involved. She said to me, you join a committee and you work hard. So, I joined a committee and I worked hard. Then I became very active. Chapter Council. I began teaching at every meeting and speaking at every meeting. Being part of the nominating committee, program committee. And planned the annual conference and things like that. So, I’m grateful to Judy for that. For helping me to understand that as a member of the profession I have a contribution to make. We can’t be just wanting to receive. We have to give in order to receive. So, I’m grateful to Judy Messerle for that.

I remember the president of the hospital where I worked. I remember, my first year or so I was there, working with the indexers, and going to suggest a pay raise for the indexers. A lot of the indexers had been nurses, but since they were no longer bedside nursing, nobody knew how to scope that. I had done some research on what the indexers at the National Library of Medicine were getting, and that sort of thing. And I’d gone in [to the board], and I remember when I went in, it was rejected. I was really crushed. So, the next week, I went in to see the president, and I said, I want you to know that I know what I’m requesting is the right thing. I am concerned about us doing the right thing. So, I want to put you on notice that I will come back and back and back again. I want you to be aware that you are going to see me until the right decision is made. And he leaned forward over his desk and said, yes, you can come back. I did go back—it was passed the second time.

So you learned something…

I learned something. I really learned that, yes, you persist. You fight for what is right. It’s not an issue of something right and wrong that people don’t want to support you. It’s that they’re coming from a different perspective and sometimes they need to be educated so that they can see what we see. So, I learned something about the system. It’s a lesson that every now and then I have to remind myself because it’s so easy to get discouraged when you ask for something. We ask ourselves, why can’t they see it? It seems so clear. But it’s not clear because we’re looking from different perspectives. So that is another person.

Even here, there is Egon L______, who was a scientist here. A brilliant mind. And from him—I have a statement in my office from my _____ that says, may there never develop in me a sense that my education is complete. I think of somebody like Egon. He was so multitalented. He was a physicist, and engineer. He turned himself into a lawyer when he needed to be or into a medical person when he needed to be when he was very ill. He did succumb to his illness, but he lived longer than any of his doctors had predicted or expected because he was willing to do the research himself. That richness. That Renaissance person in the Twentieth Century. It’s wonderful to me.

I also think about our Vice President of R&D. He’s such a man of vision that compels me to really stretch my vision. There are a lot of people. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

If you were not a librarian, now you’ve had some other experiences, but if you were not a librarian right now, what would you be doing?

You know, that’s a tough question. That really is a tough question, because at one time I wanted to be a historian. I did do a master’s in history and was a researcher in history. At one time I thought I’d be a criminologist. That I’d be a psychologist. That I’d be a doctor. The truth is, I really wanted to do everything. I remember growing up and reading all these different stories, you know, Sue Barton, the nurse. I remember, when I reflected back some days ago, that the book that intrigued me the most was this woman who did lots of different careers, had lots of different careers. My interests are so eclectic that I would do anything, truly, that gives me excitement and offers me an opportunity to grow. Right now, this is what it is. I’m not predicting that this is what I’m doing next year. All I’m saying is right now, being a librarian at this time is very exciting and so this is where I am. At one time, teaching was very exciting. I walked out on it when it failed to offer me excitement. As long as I stayed in the classroom, I was excited. But the truth is I couldn’t stay in the classroom all the time. I had to get out and do all those banal things, all the "administrivia." That’s the part that got me down. As long as the period in the classroom could sustain me through the nonsense, I stayed with it. But the day when it was not enough to sustain me through the other nonsense, and I felt that there were other parts of me that I wasn’t allowing to grow, experience growth, I left. I think in many ways that I still do teach. I used to think that, also, if I had my life to do over, that I’d be a conductor. I remember when I was teaching management in a community college in Glendale, sharing with the students—this is adults—but sharing with them that I realized that as a manager that’s what I did. I orchestrated. Here is somebody with X strengths—trumpets. Here are the violins. You’re trying to coordinate and bring them together to play a certain sound. Music is a really important part of my life.

Just a few comments and ideas about the San Andreas Chapter. We talked a little bit about this before, so let’s go a little bit different direction. That is, I was interested in your ideas about what would make it something that would be a benefit to you at this point in your career?

That’s interesting, because I was talking to someone who was very active in SLA, more active than I was in SLA. I think it was, for one thing, when I came to SLA, I came to SLA after so many years in MLA and I probably was burnt out. I honestly do believe that you come to a certain point in your career where these organizations, unless they change the way they function, fail to meet the needs of somebody in mid-career. As I said to this person—I think it is a failure of our organizations—that we recognize that we are operating in a period of a lot of change. That the world has changed essentially, in essential ways, from what it used to be, 1910, and yet we tend to have the very same structures for professional organizations ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. We wouldn’t dare do that within our organizations that we work—we wouldn’t dare do that. Why do we allow it to happen in our professional organizations. The same structure. The meetings are conducted the same way. We go. W sit together. We listen to somebody. We break into divisions. We go the next day. We listen to somebody . Then we break into divisions. We need the same kind of creativity about our organizations. I do not know what it is, but I bet if I have a responsibility, I would definitely try to find out. I feel that our leaders, those who are paid and those who are volunteers, have a responsibility to find out. It may mean experimenting with a chance of failing. The only way you can guarantee not failing is not being willing to act.

It’s timely to hear that. I appreciate your comments. Also, another thing that I’m remembering is your interest in what’s going on in Silicon Valley. Tell me more about that.

Yes. I think you were asking me about San Andreas Chapter, and I what I said was I felt that this chapter was uniquely placed in the world. There is not another Silicon Valley. There have been attempts to recreate it in England, in Ireland with the Silicon Alley. Silicon Glen in Scotland. Silicon Alley in New York—they’re talking about Silicon Alley. There was Route 128 in Boston that failed. So, everybody has begun to realize that there’s something very special in Silicon Valley. I’m saying that if we have San Andreas Chapter in Silicon Valley, everybody else in SLA should begin to realize that there’s something very special about the San Andreas Chapter. And I’m saying that we don’t have that kind of impact. I’m saying, why? There’s no reason why we shouldn’t because we are uniquely placed. The other thing is, it’s all about information. Here in Silicon Valley, there’s more people know about it, appreciate it, understand its value, work with pieces of it. We need to make more of a difference. How you can do that, again—maybe this says something to me. Maybe I need to take more of an active part in helping to shape that. Maybe I’m going through a guilt thing here, I don’t know. But I really feel that the San Andreas Chapter should be a chapter that is spearheading the same way that Silicon Valley—it went through a downturn, but it bounced back as no other industry has ever bounced back. So here’s an opportunity for San Andreas to bounce back as no other chapter has before. Why shouldn’t San Andreas Chapter be introducing things not even we have the venture capitalists interested in. Why can’t we come up with ideas that we can take to a VC. There’s more money there in Menlo Park being shared and discussed, being held in control at Sand Hill Road than there is probably any place in the US besides Wall Street. I think the challenges are immense. It’s up to us to take advantage of it. It’s open up our minds to the possibilities. Charles H___ in his book Age upon Research, talks about age of discontinuity that calls for discontinuous thinking. So we have to begin to think discontinuously, which means thinking upside down. We always think of ourselves as a support function. Why don’t we see ourselves as a core competence. Might be upside down thinking for us, but let’s do it. You know, because it’s a different time.

Instead of assuming that things progress in a line…

We know things don’t progress in a line. We know that. We know that about our industry. We’ve seen our industry change. Why don’t we ourselves, in an organization. Why can’t the San Andreas Chapter, the steering committee or whatever committee, get together and say, hey guys, we are a different kind of chapter. It may not have been our choice. It might be a question of just chance. But the point is, if chance has given this to us, do something with it. What do we want to do with the fact that we are here and in a chapter of information professionals, specialists, experts, consultants in Silicon Valley. What difference can we make for the rest of the world. That’s my challenge. And maybe it’s a challenge to myself, too. I don’t know. I’ll definitely think about it.

Well, this will definitely go into the bulletin.

I have no doubt because I said that I’ll think about it.

No—just the challenge.

All right—thanks.

Last one—what is the question that I should have asked or that you wish I had asked?

I really don’t know. I think you’ve done a very good job of coming up with questions. Actually, this is a pleasure and this is instructive in itself. How often do we sit and take the time to ask ourselves these questions? When am I going to sit down and say, Eugenie, what do you think of San Andreas Chapter. How is SLA not meeting my needs. Yes, I’ve thought about it because I have not attended SLA for years. Obviously, if it met my needs I’d be going back every year. And I’ve been asked that before. But many of the questions you’ve asked, we don’t take time to reflect. And we really need to reflect on this, not just like this, but again and again because our ideas change. Sometimes we are not aware of these ideas that are in our heads until we are forced to articulate them. So, in a sense, I really do appreciate your doing this because you forced me to face things. I don’t think about who have contributed to making me the person that I am. I really need to think about that and thank those people for the contribution they have made. Maybe when I go back to my office I’ll fire off a note to Judy and say, somebody asked me this question today, and I wanted to say that you have made a difference in my professional life. There are other people who I have not mentioned, really. I guess if I really think about it, more people have contributed to who I am. There’s a sense in which everybody I touch, in some ways, do. I’m just grateful for the opportunity to face myself on a number of these issues. In a sense, this has been as much a conversation with myself as it is a conversation with you. I’m grateful for that and I think more people should have that opportunity to do that. Maybe one of these days I should sit down and just list some questions and ask myself and hear myself. Because it’s one thing to think through something, it’s another thing to express it into words. The mere act of taking thoughts and putting into words give it a concreteness and a reality beyond a thought there that could hide in your mind.

You have to clarify…

Exactly. So, I appreciate that.