Our field visit to Chicago was great time in the second week of this program. We visited various places (Chicago Public Library, American Library Association, Upshot agency and University of Chicago) and learned a lot. Among all, visit to Upshot agency was the most impressive experience for me, so I will talk about it in this reflection.

Upshot agency is a marketing agency founded in1994 and the number of employees are about 170. It has worked with many famous companies such as Starbucks, Netflix, P&G etc. and there were a lot of posters and goods of each company in the office. This agency has a library in the office and there were many books and periodicals related with marketing.

Mission Statement

To empower Upshot with consumer and marketplace intelligence designed to spark new ideas for strategic and creative development.

 Liz Aviles (Vice President Market Intelligence) who is a librarian of this agency talked us her history and vision. She learned library science when she was in the university and was interested in business reference. As far as she knows, some marketing agency have their own library but no librarian is there. I was really surprised to hear that. She said librarian in special library such as Upshot is responsible for continuing to provide information to the staffs so that they will not be left behind from the changing social needs. She is collecting information on a daily basis through market research and communication with employees so that the company can make better results.

Her presentation was so impressive for me. I felt strongly that it is necessary for library to collect a lot of information to survive and to provide services for our users to meet the social needs.