Click U Live! Presenter

For many years Maggie worked as the business librarian in a large chemical company. As the chemical industry nose-dived in the 1990s, the library went through several downsizings, and she had to come up with new approaches to get and keep the support of clients and her boss. By applying management techniques (sometimes subversive ones), Maggie succeeded in raising the profile of the library in quite adverse times.

Maggie had more opportunities to learn and apply management techniques as the Canadian representative for Dialog. Later, she started the IntelliSearch fee-based service with a team of three in the Toronto Reference Library. She also started up and operated an information service for the City of Toronto Economic Development Division, helping small business clients get into exporting.

Maggie is currently self-employed, with clients in the federal and provincial governments. As her own "one-man band," she tries to promote the value of library skills for agencies that don’t have libraries. Marketing, time management, and boss management (now in the form of customer relations) are all part of her work, as is focusing on key services and juggling the marketing mix.

Maggie speaks frequently at library conferences about marketing of library services, small business information needs, and business planning, among other topics. These conferences have included the Canadian Library Association, the Ontario Association of Library Technicians/Association des Bibliotechniciens de l’Ontario, the Ontario Library Association, and the American Library Association.