BASF Corporation
Group Vision 2010

Patricia Tyler-White spearheads technical information services in the library of BASF Corporation’s manufacturing facility in Freeport, Texas. BASF, headquartered in Mount Olive, New Jersey, is among the top ten producers of chemicals and related products in the United States, Canada and Mexico. 

Patricia is a self-described "one-woman show," responsible for managing two different application servers and a variety of information that can be critical to the manufacturing processes that take place at the Freeport plant site.

As a business, BASF has adopted "Group Vision 2010": a corporate vision that challenges every employee every day to be open to change and seize it as an opportunity, to focus on the most important issues, and to make BASF more efficient in everything it does. That includes the library, too. Patricia’s "customers" are in fact internal BASF employees -- engineers, chemists and lab technicians performing analyses or process studies for the production of organic chemicals, which are sold mainly to other chemical companies.

Rapid Response

The mission of the BASF library is to ensure that when critical information is sought by any of the library customers, it be accessible quickly. Patricia needed a product that was flexible, one that could handle the different types of information she managed. She also needed it to be user-friendly so that she could develop the applications without having to go outside for assistance. "I’ve been using Inmagic software since 1983 or ‘84," says Patricia. "I evaluated software when we installed the first PC in our department, and I’ve stayed with Inmagic through the years because they’re terrific about updating their products and expanding product capabilities." BASF recently installed Inmagic’s DB/Text® WebPublisher in order to bring the library resources Patricia had developed to the desktop of every employee through their corporate intranet. "Typically when our engineers need a specific piece of information, they need it right away. Implementing WebPublisher gives manufacturing teams immediate access to information without delay." Information is also frequently shared among other BASF sites.

Power and Flexibility

In addition to the traditional library automation applications (serials management, loans/circulations, for example), Patricia has developed a variety of text databases that contain internal reports, laboratory data books, and a file of AV materials (including abstracts of content). "We have a lot of our safety videos catalogued for regular use in department safety meetings," says Patricia. "The desired video can be located instantaneously through a simple keyword search."

"Inmagic software has a lot of flexibility. I can design a database and set up which fields I want and how I wanted them to be searched. Plus, the cost was very reasonable -- much less expensive than a VAX or mainframe program would have been. One of my applications was a laboratory chemical storage room inventory program. The database was set up to allow searching primarily by chemical name. Once a specific chemical was selected, it would provide an abstract of the chemical, who to contact regarding details of the chemical, and also where the chemical was stored."

Another database application Patricia developed was for the site’s recycling program. Users could search on ‘paper,’ ‘cardboard,’ ‘plastic,’ ‘Styrofoam’ or other material and the abstract would tell them if it was recyclable here at the plant or not, who the contact was, and if any preparation was required. "This database now resides on the Web," says Patricia. "These databases have been very useful and are great examples of how flexible the software is." Inmagic DB/TextWorks® employs ‘textbase technology’ which lets users perform a keyword search on any field, including the abstract, to find the desired data -- another feature, according to Patricia, that sold her on Inmagic. By making data accessible to manufacturing engineers and chemists using DB/Text WebPublisher, library customers get the information they need on a "just-in-time" basis, and Patricia has increased opportunity to expand the library resources and services in step with the BASF 2010 vision.

BIOGRAPHY

Patricia Tyler-White
Information Resource Coordinator
BASF Corporation
Freeport, Texas

After exploring a number of different directions including Music during her undergraduate years, Patricia Tyler-White graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. degree in English. She continued her English studies in a Ph.D. program, also at UTA, working with analytical bibliography and rare books. Prior to completing the program, however, she made the decision to transfer to UTA’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science with a specialization in rare books. "I looked at job placements for English Ph.D. graduates," she said candidly, "and decided that I wanted to be able to have a job in ‘the real world’."

A Texas native, Patricia married and settled in Texas where her strong language skills, including German, helped her land a job at BASF -- a multinational chemical manufacturing company headquartered in Germany. "When I started at BASF, the library was just books shelved in a conference room so I guess you could say I built the library at this site," says Patricia. When asked where she developed her technical abilities, she says, "I ended up getting involved with computers so much because I found I was losing too much valuable time being dependent on other people to make sure that my applications worked…so I just learned how to do it myself." Involvement with networked applications resulted in being a local area network administration for several years. Taking the initiative, Patricia taught herself HTML, and is almost always taking a computer science class at the local community college. She learned Visual Basic last fall after completing a class in UNIX.

With information technology changing so rapidly, and with global access becoming the norm rather than the exception, Patricia’s attitude towards the library collection is changing. She views her journal collection as more of a commodity rather than a permanent collection of its own. Patricia sees her role becoming more in line with that of a "solution provider," even a coach of sorts. "I’d like to have an increasing focus on ‘value added’ information services and products which my users can’t get through a commodity approach," she says. "If I can empower end-users with research techniques and user-friendly interfaces through the corporate intranet, it saves them time and allows me to focus on specialized services as part of a project team." She sees the emphasis in the library being not only on managing knowledge, but being a consultant. Managing a library is not like running a warehouse full of books!

Patricia is a member of the Special Libraries Association and, in addition to her course work, keeps up with industry trends through print media and the Internet. "I read a lot of magazines, SLA’s Information Outlook and related division newsletters, Online, and Database Magazine. Beyond the ‘knowledge management realm,’ I rigorously read PC Week, PC Magazine, PC World, Byte, Network Computing, Information Today, InfoWorld, LAN Times and other trade publications that focus on network computing issues." With such a wide range of titles to keep up with, Patricia says she naturally skims, focusing on articles that deal with issues that are relevant to her library. "…Particularly PC Week - after I read the cartoon in the back," she says.

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Revised: 03/19/04