Two messages showed up in my inbox recently, one right after the other, with conflicting subject lines. The first said, “Digital transformation demands skills upgrades” and the second read, “The keys to advancing your career aren’t tech skills.” Contradictory, much? The first was from ITU (International Telecommunications Union) and the second from Search Engine Land.

The ITU email pointed to a press release about its “Digital Skills Insights 2021” report, released on Nov. 8, 2021. The report took a global view, noting that digital skills and digital access are interdependent and vary tremendously from one country to another. Without access, knowledge is unavailable. Without digital skills, knowledge may be unobtainable. The Search Engine Land email was directed specifically toward search marketers.

So which is it for librarians and information professionals? I’ll go with both/and. Digital transformation is inevitably going to require us to hone our tech skills. Knowing everything about obsolete technologies will not suffice, nor will relying on search tricks for dead databases, although the occasional venture into nostalgia is forgivable. Continuous learning and adapting to new technological developments are essential. Before the pandemic, who even thought about optimal desk lighting for video appearances or how to choose a virtual background for a Zoom call?

The digital in digital transformation obviously calls out for tech skills. For libraries, digital often equates to electronic resources. As more publications go digital, librarians face interesting new challenges. Internally, managing digital resources requires not only acquisitions and licensing expertise but also the tech skills to make them work properly. Negotiations with vendors involve many skills—an understanding of what goes on “under the hood,” accessibility for those with disabilities, content diversity, issues around controlled digital lending and ownership versus leasing, and equitable pricing. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee is looking into pricing of ebooks to public and academic libraries and the U.K.-based #ebooksos is calling attention to the extraordinary price increases of ebooks for academic libraries.

Externally, librarians need both product/tech knowledge and people skills to explain to library users how to access and effectively use electronic resources. This became particularly vital during pandemic lockdowns, when everyone was trying to navigate library resources remotely. Plus, promoting e-resources calls for new marketing skills.

Beyond marketing, however, lie some ethical implications. Pre-digital transformation, unaffiliated individuals could walk into a library and read a book, magazine, or newspaper. Electronic resources, however, are often limited to those with a library card, student or faculty ID, or some other form of proving affiliation with the subscribing library. Digital transformation can restrict access to information, something the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals warns against.

Additionally, libraries want to do business with companies having values that align with the ethos of the library profession. Both LexisNexis and Westlaw have been criticized for years by librarians because their respective parent companies, RELX and Thomson Reuters, have contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Digital surveillance is not in line with librarian ethics, nor is it part of library digital transformation. Librarians do need continuously updated tech skills, but that’s not the whole picture. Soft skills that complement tech skills lead to career advancement, not only for marketers but also for information professionals.