September 30, 2016

TRANSFORM the POTENTIAL of your TRANSFORMER REFERENCE MATERIALS

The Value of a Technical Library Enter the office of most engineering types and there, on the shelf, you are likely to find a collection...

---

The Value of a Technical Library

Enter the office of most engineering types and there, on the shelf, you are likely to find a collection of prized reference materials. When pressed to share, often follows the tale of beloved resources never returned justifying heavy reluctance to lend out again. This valued labor segment (of which I proudly number) are the natural born problem solvers. Often and aptly characterized as incredibly resourceful, when left to their own devices, they figure things out.

A meaningful part of an engineer’s arsenal is a carefully constructed library of references that are time-vetted supports for doing their job well (even if that support comes only from the reassuring presence and availability of these materials should the need arise to reference them). In many cases, personal financial investment has grown these libraries, of which university textbooks among others, number. So of no surprise, when these valued employees move on, often these treasure troves follow.

This highlights an interesting aspect to succession planning; that is, the advantages of establishing and maintaining a protected corporate library, accessible to all. In fact, a corporate library serves important roles, including:

•    Spreading knowledge within the organization; employees value education and it will help build individual libraries
•    Aiding with succession planning – an additional way to pass knowledge

What you can do:
•    While most companies have employees who know a lot, it is unlikely that they have time to write it all down. A better solution may be to build a library and have these internal subject matter experts validate the collection you assimilate and supply what is missing. Annotating key materials as they relate specifically to the company is another invaluable service these employees may provide.
•    Materials are all around though they do need to be collected, thoughtfully selected (you may not want to keep everything) and organized

Introducing Transformer Life Management (TLM) Bulletins – their place in your library

To aid in the organization of a library (corporate or personal), Megger is introducing a comprehensive series of Transformer Life Management (TLM) bulletins that broadly cover the fundamentals of managing the life of a transformer. These are provided by Megger subject matter experts delivering confidence that the material is current. The bulletins span topics from moisture in transformers to each of the many electrical tests available to assess the condition of a transformer or instrument transformer. Moisture in transformers, for example, is a huge subject so there is value in overview summary publications that introduce the topic. If you collect all publications you can find on a topic, Megger TLM bulletins would be suitable to place at the front of each collection to introduce and frame that subject.

Subscribe to Transformers Magazine