11.2 Librarian

The librarian is responsible for establishing the configuration management library or libraries and for maintaining each library's internal integrity and possible integrity between libraries. The analogy to an ordinary librarian is precisethe librarian takes care of the structure ( shelves and categorization systems) and adherence to the settings (the correct labeling and positions of the books) but not the contents of the books. This is the responsibility of the authors and publishers.

The librarian role may also be compared to that of a bookkeeper. The librarian makes sure all the practical aspects of the configuration management hang together and work properly. The person holding this role must therefore have extraordinary attention to detail and a meticulous method of working.

The person acting as the librarian must be good at communicating with many different types of people. This person must be able to stick to principles, including in time of crisis, and at the same time be flexible and have the breadth of vision to be able to circumvent principles when necessary. The best team role for the librarian is implementer, followed by completer/finisher.

The librarian's activities depend highly on the degree of formality with which configuration management is performed. For a high degree of formalism, activities include performing or supervising the following:

• Establishing the configuration management librarya controlled master library for storing configuration items

• Maintaining and controlling the contents of the library

  - Placing items in storage based on item approvals

  - Creating and maintaining metadata

  - Releasing items for usage based on release requests

  - Releasing items to production

• Communicating contents of the configuration management library

  - Producing templates for status reports

  - Extracting information for and producing status reports

  - Extracting ad hoc information, such as measurements for other processes

• Controlling the configuration management library

  - Controlling the integrity of metadata

  - Possible ordinary database administration activities, such as compressing data

  - Possible backup activities

Where the degree of formalism is low, many of the librarian's activities will be delegated to other roles and/or automated. This doesn't mean that the activities are not performedin all circumstances, the responsibility for them must be placed somewhere. The librarian must have a solid knowledge of configuration management in general, as it's performed in the company, and for his or her area of responsibility. In many cases, the librarian will cooperate in production and the improvement of processes for configuration management with the person responsible for configuration management and/or process management.

The responsibility of a single librarian is typically limited to either a single product or project or to a specific type of crossorganizational product, such as assets for reuse or development tools. Even though the area of responsibility is limited, various librarians or libraries may cooperate, such as where a borderline exists between a project and an IT department concerning configuration management of tools.

Tools

Smaller or larger parts of the librarian's activities will be supported or taken over by tools. The librarian must therefore have a solid knowledge of the tools in use. This may be a database administration system, which the librarian must be able to tune or use for production of report templates.

It is also advantageous if the librarian is interested in investigating new possibilities for tool support and thereby contributes to improving the configuration management system. Knowledge of available tools falls under this area as well. The librarian will often have to cooperate closely with the person responsible for tools or may even hold that role as well.

Managing Configuration of Library Work Products

The librarian seldom has products of his or her own to place under configuration management. The person holding this role may contribute with estimates and information for plans for the appropriate organizational unit(s) and cooperate in the producing procedures, as mentioned above, but apart from that, the librarian does not usually produce objects that may be placed under configuration management.

References

It may be of special interest to a librarian to read Chapter 1Storage, 5 Examples, 15 Emergency Changes, and 21.