Etak may sound like an acronym, but it's not. It's a word for a Polynesian method of navigation. And for a Menlo Park-based digital map publisher, it's life - or maybe a little wishful thinking. (In case you didn't read Kon-Tiki in eighth-grade, the Polynesians are renowned navigators.)
Started 13 years ago as part of SRI (another pretend acronym - it used to be Stanford Research Institute, but the group has since spun off from the school, and I'm told the letters now stand for nothing whatsoever), Etak employs around 500 people. Formerly owned by Rupert "I'll Buy Anything Once" Murdoch, Etak was sold to Sony last June. "Murdoch is media, Sony is more tech. It's just a better fit," says Etak's librarian, Carolyn Tuft.
Split between two Menlo Park offices and 11 field offices around the country, the company is best known for its auto navigation systems: the data machine in your dash that gets you where you need to be. Etak produces SkyMap, a laptop PC-based nav system that covers the continental United States. The system uses a satellite to pinpoint your position on a digital map and guide you to your destination. There are also some plans to get into the hardware business, but so far it's just talk. "People buy our databases and put them on CD-ROMs," Carolyn says. "And ironically enough, they even use them to make print maps."
While Carolyn's official title is librarian, she tells me there's a trend in the profession toward titles such as "information specialist" and "knowledge manager." She's in charge of the company's stash of sources, from US Geological Survey maps, to county-level info and data from the California Department of Transportation. Carolyn reports to the information resources department and supervises four library technicians who make sure that the 200 cartographic technicians on staff have everything they need to build their maps.
Carolyn left a job at a law library over a year and a half ago to come to Etak and says, "High-tech is much more free-form than law. There's more room to be creative and to expand the function of the library." Her plans include - take a guess - putting the library's database of sources on the company's intranet.
Carolyn is hiring. She'd like someone with a master's in library science, at the very least. The assistant librarian will be responsible for "heavy customer service": working with the users, doing group trainings, teaching people how to make the most of the library resources. The person hired will also do research - projects like an overview of the travel-software market and compiling a list of famous film sites in a given city. Naturally, Carolyn would be thrilled to find an assistant with a background in cartography, someone who can help Etak live up to its name.
Send resumes to:[email protected]
