Libraries and the Knowledge-Based Economy, Dr. Abdus Sattar Chaudhry

Guest Editoial, Dr. Abdus Sattar Chaudhry, Pakistan Journal of Library & Information Science (PJLIS), Issue No. 11, 2010
Extract:

Libraries have been dealing with documents and external information while KM places emphasis on internal information and people. KM focuses more on tacit knowledge that resides in employees. A unique mix of technological, psychological, and communication skills is required for performing KM functions. Libraries have the potential to play an important role in supporting KM functions. Their client-centered approach, emphasis on service, and experience in efficiently running information systems make them ideal candidates for providing support in knowledge management work. Library managers, however, need to change their mind-set and expand their competencies by enhancing their communication and leadership capabilities to become active participants in the knowledge creation and application processes. To reach this level, concurrent efforts at individual, professional, and institutional level will have to be made to reposition libraries. There is also a need to re-orient library and information (LIS) professionals to take advantage of the new opportunities. Continue reading

On the same shelf:

SLA Name Will Stay

This continuation of the name coincides with the centenary of the Association:
SLA at 100: From Putting Knowledge To Work To Building The Knowledge Culture (2009) (A Centennial History of SLA (Special Libraries Association), 1909-2009)by Guy St. Clair

SLA Name Will Stay:
"Voting in record numbers, SLA members failed to approve a proposal to change the organization’s name to the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals.  50 percent of those members eligible to vote participated in the referendum, with 2071 voting yes and 3225 voting no.
“The active discussions, online and in local meetings, are a testament to the passion and commitment that knowledge and information professionals feel towards their association and their profession,” said Gloria Zamora, SLA 2009 President. “This level of engagement will help make SLA and its members more effective advocates for the information profession in the years ahead.” continue reading: SLA Name Will Stay

On the same shelf:

Joe to Joe's feed, LSW + more at Friendfeed

SLA Name Change - Alignment Initiatives - SLA's Wiki Spaces

SLA Name Change: Can the Name Convey the Value?

Another graduate school serving the library field is about to lose the “L” name

The Future of the Future: Rise of the Knowledge Librarian

AIIM > Infonomics Magazine > KM World (02/02/09) Murray, Art and Wheaton, Ken

"Both the private and public sectors have been steadily downsizing and closing their physical libraries. All those serials and monographs, outdated by the time they arrived from the printers, are simply not that competitive anymore."

Extract: Delivering knowledge vs. information
"Corporate librarians used to devote years acquiring and cataloging physical document collections. All those serials and monographs, outdated by the time they arrived from the printers, are simply not that competitive anymore. Knowledge is not static. It must be continually refreshed through venues such as open discussion and brainstorming. That calls for a new kind of library."

"...Unfortunately, there have been casualties. Librarians are being jettisoned along with the bookcases. We need to reverse that trend and start bringing them back … but only the ones who are willing to change. A traditional corporate librarian must make three major shifts in roles begin the transition to a knowledge librarian."

• Role shift #1: A knowledge librarian should be the "content czar" of the enterprise.
• Role shift #2: A knowledge librarian understands the strategic information needs of the enterprise.
• Role shift #3: A knowledge librarian is a lead agent of change.

“The librarian of the future is uniquely positioned to be at the center of the creation and alignment of intellectual assets across the enterprise. That leads to improved innovation and business performance on a sustained basis. Maybe the time will soon come when we will see librarians as CKOs.” continue reading

Return-on-Investment in library practice

Many wonder how to account for a place, such as a library, where "what goes into a library isn’t what comes out," to use Andrew L. Pearson's expression.
Here is a book in hand, thanks to Steven Bell, for identifying such an important title: Library Assessment in Higher Education--particularly chapter 5 on assessment of the library's contribution to the educational process.

Question: How do you see the ROI in your library / information practice? Will highly appreciate your response on this subject.

See also:
The Library as Strategic Investment: Results of the Illinois Return on Investment Study, Paula T. Kaufman, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Mining for Information -- Chemistry of a Service Provider

"Take one qualified information professional, mix into a new sector and add some limited resources. Hopefully you can get a decent information service from the results..." @ Posted by The Solo Librarian

A similar idea but in a different perspective:

Library + business concepts + 2.0 technology = changing the world. One librarian's exploration of ways that libraries can learn from other industries to grow and thrive! by Adam Wathen @ The Thinking Library

Research isn’t a Google search

Says, Kathy Lee Berggren (a professor at Cornell University, teaches oral communication with a “heavy research component") in Research Methods ‘Beyond Google’

Burnt Out Adjunct has interesting reflection on this beyond the domain of Google, titled: “Google is not research.”:

"I would counsel against the fallacy of the lazy student. They seem, on the whole, eager to bridge the expectation divide (they expect open, accessible information). They do not expect to have to navigate the Byzantine fiefdoms of disciplined research. Naive and perhaps idealistic? Yes. But really, should research be as hard as it is?
Consider that you are not affiliated with a university/college. How do you go about finding the research/articles/data you need? Same set of steps confound the Freshman. The databases are not intuitive or well advertised? And why aren’t they all aggregated anyway? Why is it easier to order a pizza than to find a set of vetted articles on a given subject? And then we blame the student for not being able to navigate the labyrinth to find the gems?" Listen

RESEARCH: You go to the library and look in a biographical dictionary. Or you call up Google.com and then sort through the 410000+ references to him. ... The Craft of Research, Third Edition...

See on the same shelf:

• Making by Stealing of Un-cited (Recycled) in the Wiki Age: Role of Librarians?
• Who's tracking your health? Paging Dr. Internet
• Nine Free Apps Every Writer Should Consider
• "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Do Knowledge Managers Really Want to Share Knowledge?—Sharing as a Mating Game

Posted by Patrick Lambe:

I’ve had a creeping suspicion for some time that knowledge managers are fine about encouraging others to share knowledge, but that dictum doesn’t apply to them. In my role as President of iKMS I am always trying to get knowledge managers to share, and the ones who do are in the brave minority - even then, they tend to be far more reluctant to share in a public forum than in a private one. They have reasons, of course: lack of experience and confidence, lack of clear progress and successful results to show, restrictions by employers. But in such a young profession, with such instability of career progression and continuity of KM staff, with extensive inexperience among managers who are responsible for KM, sharing is about the only way to get access to experience faster. The obsession with success is an illusion born of that inexperience. We learn fastest through examining lack of success, and the more mature professions such as medicine and law and engineering recognise that. They have rituals for anatomising failure, and it’s not for fun, it’s because that’s how they learn and survive. Continue reading the Guru's words Categories: Communities, Expertise, Ignorance Management, KM Competencies, KM Critiqued, Knowledge Sharing Permalink

See also Patrick Lambe's new book:

Librarians as Knowledge Managers - Profiles of emerging leaders

NB. This page will be continuously updated (last update Dec 13, 2011). Bookmark it. And, if you know a KM Librarain, send me his / her profile, and it will be posted here.

Who's in this room:
Prasannna Mnazhiyil Kesavan; Vandana Ranjan; ; Uma Narayan ; Vijaya C. Menon; Deb Rash; Bhojaraju D Gunjal; Susan Braun; Ben Skinner; Ginny Browne, Karen Huffman Dennie Heye.

Prasannna Manazhiyil Kesavan: INFORMATION OFFICER- Motorola India Electronics, Ltd. (MIEL) Hyderabad. (April 2000 to the present).

"My strength lies in maintaining a fine balance between being a user friendly support based on sound professional foundations. I am known for conceptualizing library & non-library initiatives and cultivating a holisitic work culture; as well as leveraging maximum knowledge and support from varied resources to help make informed decisions and implementing initiatives with maximum efficiency. I am interested in contributing to Elearning / Training Management, Enterprise Information Management, Facilities Management, Team building and corporate social commitments. My other interests are in the fields of Digital Library, Content Management and Knowledge Management."

Bhojaraju D Gunjal lives in Bangalore, India and serves as the Assistant Consultant (KM Practice) at TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) - one of the world’s leading information technology companies. He has more than eight years of professional experience in Knowledge/Content Management & Library Administration in IT Sector. [source]

Vandana Ranjan is Knowledge Management Specialist at Bates WorldWide. Prior to that she worked at the Brooklyn Public Library's fast paced Telephone Reference Center.
Vandy has several years of experience in reference and library management. She worked as a solo librarian in India and built, from the ground, up, two successful libraries -- one academic library and one special library.
She came to the United States in pursuit of online information retrieval skills and received her second Master's in Library Science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania.
In her spare time she enjoys nature-gazing, biking, photography and classical music. [source: sla.org]

Mrs. Uma Narayan, Currently: Board of Directors, International Association of Law Libraries (2007- to date); Chief Librarian, Honourable Judges Library, Bombay High Court, India (1998- to date)
Previously: Knowledge Manager, Nishith Desai Associates: Legal and Tax Counselling Worldwide, India (2007).
Was invited by the U.S. Department of State to participate in the Individual International Visitor Programme in June-July 2003. Was awarded Professional Development Bursary by International Association of Law Libraries to attend their 23rd Annual Course in International Law Librarianship in August, 2004 at Helsinki, Finland. Was awarded Commonwealth Professional Development Fellowship tenable at Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London between January 6, 2006 and April 5, 2006. Was also awarded Visiting Fellowship in Law Librarianship by Institute of Advanced Legal studies, University of London for the period of Commonwealth Fellowship.

Ben Skinner: After a first degree in mathematics Ben moved into librarianship, working in the universities at Bath and Salford and gaining his Masters at MMU.

Moving to Brighton in 2004, Ben took up the post of Evidence-Based Knowledge Management Librarian at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. This role focuses on the running of a unique information service aimed at supporting evidence-based practice (EBP) throughout the local trusts.

As part of this service Ben has taught both critical appraisal skills and literature searching for EBP, initially to NHS staff and more recently for the Brighton & Sussex Medical School. [source]

Vijaya C. Menon is the Knowledge Management Head - Grey South Asia at Grey Global Group, Mumbai, India. An experience spanning 15 years, Vijaya started her career with University & College libraries and changed streams to manage corporate libraries. Her previous work experience includes positions at J. Walter Thompson, & Arthur Andersen (now Ernst & Young) where she worked as a solo librarian.
Vijaya holds a B.A. in Economics, Bachelor in Library Science and a Diploma in Marketing & Advertising Communications from the University of Mumbai. She is currently pursuing her MLIS degree from the University of Aberystwyth, Wales via Distance Learning. Vijaya has been a member of SLA for the last 6 months.
Leading a team of two, her work at Grey includes overseeing collection development at all branches in South Asia, handling industry information queries & disseminating advertising & marketing data. Currently she is involved in setting up the library intranet at Grey.
Outside of work Vijaya enjoys gardening, exercising, traveling and watching movies. [source: SLA.ORG] see also Award

Deb Rash joined Iconoculture as their Knowledge Manager in May 2006.

Previously, Deb was the Knowledge Manager at Carmichael Lynch. Her prior advertising career included working as a media planner at several agencies in Minneapolis.

She graduated in May 2004 with an MLIS from Dominican University/College of St. Catherine where she has returned as an Adjunct Instructor to team teach the class "Issues in Special Libraries." Deb has held the Membership Chair position for the Advertising & Marketing Division and Secretary and Continuing Education Chair positions for the Minnesota Chapter. She was a recipient of the MN Chapter�s Quality in Action Award in 2004.

Deb earned her BA in English from Carleton College. Outside of work, her passions are baseball and running. source]

Susan Braun, Manager, Lauritsen Library Research Services, The Aerospace Institute

{picture/ details awaited}
see also: [il2007] Librarians as Knowledge Managers

Ginny Browne is OCLC's Knowledge Management librarian. She runs OCLC's internal website, called C-Web, and manages internal knowledge transfer. Ginny also is one of the three editors of this nifty little glossary that we have behind our firewall (sorry) that defines library jargon, acronyms, initialisms, and, especially, OCLC-speak. (...) For her day job, Ginny works in our Library and Information Center, and serves as the recorder for the Members Council's State Academic Libraries group. [source]

Karen Huffman,
Vice President, KMPro DC Chapter; SLA member since 1999. Currently a member of the Washington, DC/SLA Chapter and Knowledge Management division

National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., 1985 to Present. Information Systems & Technology: Senior Applications & Database Administrator (June 2008 to Present); Libraries & Information Services: Manager of Knowledge Initiatives (March 2005 to May 2008); Senior Librarian (April 2002 to March 2005); and Systems Specialist (April 1998 to March 2002). Administrative Services division: Administrative Assistant with managerial responsibilities (September 1994 to April 1998);

Dennie Heye is global knowledge manager for the Human Resources IT division at Royal Dutch Shell in the Netherlands. He has a LIS degree and a university degree in marketing, which he thinks makes a strong combination of skills to succeed in an organisation. He has worked in different library roles in Deloitte & Touche and Royal Dutch Shell, most recently as library portfolio manager for scientific & technical electronic sources and library innovator.
As knowledge manager for the Human Resources IT division he is responsible to define and implement a strategy covering the technical, content and organizational aspects of knowledge management.
He has written two books: "Characteristics of the Successful Twenty-First Century Information Professional" and "obnoxious librarian from hades". You can read more about him at his website.

The long road towards subject guide 2.0

By Meredith Farkas October 24, 2007
Here were some of the tools I looked at that seemed at least remotely feasible for me to take on:
Research Guide - From the University of Michigan. Wayne State also uses it. Looks good. Was updated in 2006. Was just concerned about how to set up the authentication stuff.
LibData - from the University of Minnesota. Hasn’t been updated since 2003 or 2004. library is not using it anymore. (update: looks like they are still using it; not sure where I got the idea that they weren’t)
Pirate Source - This one was developed at Eastern Carolina University, but is used at a bunch of libraries. The install script didn’t work so I had to create the tables and SQL queries manually. Had trouble trying to get it to work with PHP5. Not sure I like the initial page since people are inundated with choices and it may confuse some.
Subjects Plus - my personal fave. This is an enhancement of Pirate Source developed by Ithaca College. It’s great-looking though it takes up a lot of screen real estate. In the sidebar you can put info about the liaison, links to tutorials, call numbers and syndicated news feeds. I love the “Try these First” feature since students usually just want to know what the very best resources are. I still don’t love the initial page where they choose the guide and then have the option to select the types of resources they are looking for. It’s good to give people options, but sometimes less is more, I think. continue reading the full post

PS. Thanks to Calvin Truong, (http://www.prepme.com/) who informed me that Librarians as Knowledge Managers is listed by Meredith Farkas in her Favorite blogs - List and Commentary. See also: The Top 10 in making in her list.

Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder

"Human beings are information omnivores: we are constantly collecting, labeling, and organizing data. But today, the shift from the physical to the digital is mixing, burning, and ripping our lives apart. In the past, everything had its one place--the physical world demanded it--but now everything has its places: multiple categories, multiple shelves. Simply put, everything is suddenly miscellaneous."

"In Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger charts the new principles of digital order that are remaking business, education, politics, science, and culture. In his rollicking tour of the rise of the miscellaneous, he examines why the Dewey decimal system is stretched to the breaking point, how Rand McNally decides what information not to include in a physical map (and why Google Earth is winning that battle), how Staples stores emulate online shopping to increase sales, why your children's teachers will stop having them memorize facts, and how the shift to digital music stands..." continue reading

On librarians as knowledge managers

PS. This is a very good analysis of why and how of "librarians as knowledge managers" by Brad Hinton @ plain speaking:

"I had a fruitful discussion a short while ago about librarians and web 2.0, and research and knowledge management. In the same vein, a recent post from Dave Pollard with a link to his presentation on “librarians as knowledge managers” posits some interesting thoughts. Pollard presented at the recent Special Libraries Association conference in Denver, Colorade, USA. In the presentation slides, Pollard recognised the skill of the librarian to acquire, add value, store and disseminate information. He then asked whether librarians were any good at connecting, synthesising and applying their knowledge to the information they had researched..." continue reading

see also:

• Sharon E. Herbert, Librarians: best knowledge managers for our new world: From the b.eye Business Information Network, Dr. Ramon C. Barquin has an informative article about the role that modern librarians can play in the brave new information world.
• Sheila Pantry, and Peter Griffiths, Librarians or Knowledge Managers? What’s in a Name, or is there a Real Difference? Business Information Review, Vol. 20, No. 2, 102-109 (2003)
• Priti Jain, An empirical study of knowledge management in academic libraries in East and Southern Africa, Library Review, 2007, 56: 5, pp. 377 - 392
• [ppt] Dave Pollard, Librarians as Knowledge Managers: The View from the Executive Suite SLA Annual Conference, June 6, 2007
• Cathie Koina, Librarians are the ultimate knowledge managers?
  The Australian Library Journal, Manuscript received July 2002
• [pdf] D. Gayatri, Opportunities for Librarians/Information Managers in managing explicit knowledge in the internet era
• Working Woman Prediction: Knowledge Managers Rise, Librarians Fall, Staff -- Library Journal, 2/12/1999
  
• Librarians as Knowledge Managers, Literature Survey - Trends and Prospects

A pay wall falls, and the Web is watching

MEDIA: NYTIMES.COM ABANDONS SUBSCRIPTION MODEL
GRANT ROBERTSON
MEDIA REPORTER
September 24, 2007
They are among the world's most influential newspapers when it comes to setting the news agenda. But a push by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to abandon their subscription websites may now influence a broad - and irreversible shift - across the newspaper industry itself. continue reading Globe and Mail, Canada

See also Digg.com's Shelf and aisle: News » World & Business » Business & Finance

The Challenge for Health Sciences Librarianship...

We need--

A more focused research agenda

• Evidence-based librarianship

• A clear vision for librarians’ role in the knowledge management process

• A strategy for educating and training the next generation of librarian knowledge managers

Continue reading [ppt file]: Informationist and Expert Searcher: Critical New (Old) Roles for Health Sciences Librarianship? by Gary D. Byrd, Ph.D.,
University at Buffalo (SUNY)

See also on the same shelf: The health sciences librarian as knowledge worker
Library Trends , Summer, 1993 by Valerie Florance, Nina W. Matheson

From Librarian to Knowledge Manager and Beyond:

The Shift to an End-User Domain
By Doug Church, Phase 5 Consulting Group Inc. dougc@phase-5.com

Eight years ago, I met with an executive of a large communications company to talk about the impending rise of the end-user online market. During the
course of our conversation, the executive explained that his company's position
was that the market for online information and services had "peaked", and they
were not interested in channelling more resources into this area. continue reading

From librarian to knowledge manager

Jitendra Valera, Sweet & Maxwell Legal Online, 4-Oct-2004
New technology has made legal librarians think strategically, says Jitendra Valera
Senior legal librarians (SLLs) are increasing in importance at their firms as the new knowledge management technologies they govern become more crucial to delivering top-quality legal services. According to recent research by Sweet & Maxwell among the top 100 UK law firms, more than 20 per cent of SLLs now either report directly to the managing partner or chief executive officer, or sit on the most senior management board of their firms. continue reading

Librarians are the ultimate knowledge managers?

The Australian Library Journal
Librarians are the ultimate knowledge managers?
Cathie Koina, Manuscript received July 2002

Librarians are the ultimate knowledge managers. We all know that. After all, haven't we been the custodians of documented knowledge for centuries? Who could possibly do it better than us? Well, then why aren't people knocking down our doors, begging us to be the knowledge managers of the organisation? Are they just ignorant of how fantastic we are, or is it possible that librarians aren't the best people for the job? Most of the academic articles that deal with Knowledge Management (KM) in some way always start by trying to define it. This is because there is no standard or stable definition. I believe this is one of the issues causing confusion...

Bibliography

Bishop, Karen 'Leveraging our knowledge: the skills and attributes information service professionals bring to new roles in information and knowledge management'. ALIA 9th Specials, Health and Law Libraries Conference. Available online: http://conferences.alia.org.au/shllc2001/papers/bishop.2.html

Bonner, Dede 'Enter the Chief Knowledge Officer.' Training and Development, Feb 2000, pp 36-40.

Broadbent, Marianne The phenomenon of knowledge management: what does it mean to the information profession? 1998. Available online: http://www.sla.org/pubs/serial/io/1998/may98/broadben.html

Butler, Yvonne 'Knowledge management - if only you knew what you knew'. STRAIT to the future ALIA 8th Asia-Pacific Specials, Health and Law Librarians Conference. Available online: http://conferences.alia.org.au/shllc1999/papers/butler.html

Church, Doug. 'From librarian to knowledge manager and beyond: the shift to an end-user domain'. Available online: http://www.sla.org/chapter/ctor/courier/v36/v36n2a1b.htm.

Houghton, Jan, Barbara Poston-Anderson, and Ross Todd 'From obsession to power: changing the face of librarians'. Pathways to Knowledge, Australian Library and Information Association 5th Biennial Conference and Exhibition, 25-28 October 1998, Adelaide Convention Centre, Adelaide, South Australia. 313-318.

Marconi, J 'Outside the square: library and information services innovations within a knowledge management context'. ALIA 9th Specials, Health and Law Libraries Conference. Available online: http://conferences.alia.org.au/shllc2001/papers/marconi.html

Milne, Patricia 'Information professionals and the knowledge-aware, intelligent organisation: skills for the future.' Australian Library Journal 49 (2), May 2000 139-150.

Skills for knowledge management a briefing paper by TFPL Ltd based on research undertaken on behalf of the [UK] Library and Information Commission. 1999. Available online: http://www.lic.gov.uk/publications/executivesummaries/kmskills.pdf.

Todd, Ross and Gray Southon, 'Educating for a knowledge management future: perceptions of library and information professionals.' Australian Library Journal, 50 (4) Nov 2001 313-326.

See also in my blog:

Literature Survey - Trends and Prospects