Alumni profile: Ted Tjaden – A leap of faith into knowledge management
Faculty of Information graduates will recognize this story: sacrificing family time, studying for long hours and for many years, to obtain the qualifications for the career of your dreams — then finally landing the job you've longed for.
From lawyer to librarian to knowledge management professional, Ted credits the iSchool for being his stepping stone into the information world.
It’s an ideal, secure life. Still, a decade after completing law school, alumnus Ted Tjaden (MISt ‘97) felt that it was time for a change. He packed up and left the comfort of a familiar career and the beauty of British Columbia. This is what he calls “a leap of faith.”
From BC law practice to U of T grad school
Mr. Tjaden, a practicing lawyer, left the Rockies with his wife and young daughter, to study law librarianship at the Faculty of Information Studies.
He felt that the iSchool — which offered a combination of the University of Toronto’s reputation and the career opportunities available in Toronto — would offer him the best chance at this new life.
It did. A whole new career opened up for him. After graduating in 1997, he earned a place as a law librarian at the Bora Laskin Law Library at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. He also became an adjunct professor at the iSchool.
"What knowledge management brings to the practice of law is an organized approach to capturing, organizing, and re-using this expertise and judgement.”
From iSchool adjunct instructor to McMillan LLP
Ted enjoyed teaching the course Legal Literature and Librarianship to a new generation of information professionals. After a few years however, he felt that familiar urge to switch things up. He left his position at the law library to become National Director of Knowledge Management at the prestigious Toronto law firm, McMillan LLP. Once again, his “leap of faith” paid off.
Knowledge management & law
Looking back now, Ted is happy with his decision to move into knowledge management. 'Knowledge management' is a term with which many iSchool graduates are familiar, but still may not fully understand.
“A large part of what lawyers sell is their expertise and professional judgment, and what knowledge management brings to the practice of law is an organized approach to capturing, organizing, and re-using this expertise and judgement,” Ted explains.
iSchool influences
From lawyer to librarian to knowledge management professional, Ted credits the iSchool for being his stepping stone into the information world.
He acknowledges several of his teachers: Professor Lynne Howarth, for her leadership; Ann Morrison and Jim Spence for their law librarianship course; Professor Joan Cherry, for teaching disciplined research methodology; Professor Clare Beghtol, who would be pleased to know that he did actually apply the AACR2 rules in his professional career; and Professor Chun Wei Choo, a professor who teaches excellent, challenging courses on management and the 'knowing organization'.
Ted points out that many iSchool graduates are not just doing traditional law librarianship, but are employed in related work, such as web or intranet management, or even pure cataloguing.
While law librarianship is considered to be one of the most stressful branches of librarianship, Ted refers to it instead as “challenging and ever-changing.” His graduating class boasted the relatively high number of six students working in law librarianship.
Ted points out that many iSchool graduates are not just doing traditional law librarianship, but are employed in related work, such as web or intranet management, or even pure cataloguing.
Publish professionals, publish!
Tjaden says information professionals should constantly be publishing. An avid writer, he regularly blogs for SLAW, an online legal magazine, and has had various articles published.
The best writing advice he received came from retired Court of Appeal Justice, Lloyd Houlden: if you pick a topic that has not yet been well-covered, one of the legal publishers may be interested. That is how Ted’s first book — The Law of Independent Legal Advice — was born. He has since published another book, Legal Research and Writing.
If anyone can demonstrate how a Master’s degree can open doors, it is Ted Tjaden. He took that leap across the country many years ago, and landed firmly on his feet.
