Carey Toane, Business Reference Librarian

Published Friday, Nov. 16, 2012

My name is Carey, and I have database envy. Or rather, I did, before I started working as a reference librarian at Bronfman.

I haven’t always been a librarian, you know. In my past life, I was a journalist. Aside from the occasional freelance newspaper piece and one very fun gig as a web columnist on business etiquette (think “How to shake hands in 10 different languages”), I worked at magazines. Magazines are ideal for chatty people like me: why say in 500 words what you can say in 1,500?

More specifically, I worked in trade magazines, covering the Canadian marketing industry. I like to think of it as “business lite.” The typical story contained a few numbers and a LOT of pictures.

I didn’t choose the field as much as it chose me. My first job out of j-school (that’s journalism school to you) was as a staff writer at Marketing Magazine, where I wrote about homegrown advertising campaigns, interviewed bombastic creative directors, and tried to wrap my head around media buys. This thing called the internet was just taking off then, and there were loft parties featuring DJs and trampolines and rooms carpeted with real live grass thrown by dot-com companies whose names I can’t remember, which is okay because none of them exist anymore, anyway. This was called “research.” But I digress.

After an extended stint as a web copywriter and a pause for a master’s degree, I came back to journalism and got a job as an editor at strategy magazine, the direct competitor to Marketing. At strategy I interviewed dozens of VPs marketing and CEOs of major Canadian brands, from LG to Ford to Lululemon to McDonald’s. To prepare for an interview, I would trawl the company website for annual reports and press releases, and read every profile and article I could find online. I was Facebook friends with more corporations than I care to admit. Depending on the company, there was either a rushing river of information or, in many cases, a trickle.

If only I’d had access then to the kind of databases we have at Bronfman. Sometimes I walk into the library and resist the urge to skip and frolic like Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Room. Market share? Child’s play! Industry forecasts? Sustainability reports? Supply chain? Check, check, check. The research tools we have are so tantalizing, I’m surprised that more business journalists don’t pose as Schulich students at the reference desk. (Be warned: I will spot you if you try.)

I can honestly say that my motivation to become a librarian had much to do with finding a cure for this database envy. There’s nothing more satisfying than finding the answer to your question. I’m the kind of person who likes to have it all at her fingertips. And now, relatively speaking, I do.