Reading now: UContent

UContent: The Information Professional's Guide to User-Generated Content, By Nicholas G. Tomaiuolo, Information Today, Inc. (2012), ISBN-13: 978-1573874250.

Extract from PREFACE:
"For librarians who want a shortcut guide to what it means to be a participant in these [e.g., Flickr, Wikipedia] and many more community sites, UContent provides a quick introduction to the practical ins and outs of participating, as well as how libraries are using these services and projects. Understanding the web and the many resources it offers our patrons (many of them created by their peers) is certainly a core job of the information professional, and UContent helps provide an orientation in a confusing, buzzword-y space. All libraries are situated within communities of participation in real life—within schools, research labs, or cities—and the internet is no different. The question is: Where will you participate?"
—Phoebe Ayers, librarian, University of California, co-author of How Wikipedia Works, and Davis trustee, Wikimedia Foundation [source]

What others say:

A thorough and thoughtful guide to Web 2.0, providing historical background on user-generated content and a field guide to Web 2.0 applications... --Ron Gilmour, natural sciences librarian, Ithaca College
... A fun book to read, it is worth the time of any librarian who wants to exploit Web 2.0 technology. --Eric Lease Morgan, digital projects librarian, University of Notre Dame.

Contents: Chapter 1: The Evolution of UContent, Chapter 2: Project Gutenberg, Chapter 3: Blogs, Chapter 4: Wikis, Chapter 5: Podcasts, Slides, Screencasts and Video, Chapter 6: Facebook, Chapter 7: Online Reviews of Products and Services, Chapter 8: Self-Publishing, Chapter 9: Citizen Journalism, Chapter 10: Tagging, Folksonomies and Social Bookmarking, Chapter 11: Custom Search Engines, Chapter 12: Cybercartography, Chapter 13: Yahoo! Pipes, Chapter 14: Flickr

Bottomline:
What is user generated content (in short, UGC or U-Content): ..."the production of content by the general public rather than by paid professionals and experts in the field." (p. 4)

Is this book about: a) Content added to websites, or b) content added to library's resources (OPAC, Blog, etc)?
The answer is, obvious from the Contents of the book (as listed above), the book is by and large about the Content added to websites. And, the context is equally divided by contributions by end-users on the Web, and library/librarians.

PS. Individuals interested in the controversy over the validity and reliability of user-generated content (UGC) may get a glimpse from the author's U-Content: Project Gutenberg, Me, and You.

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:

WHATS IN A NAME? It's all-ado-about Transliteration Mess + Noise

A perpetual question for librarians, but now also for Banks:

A quick survey of Arabic, Islamic names and issues with transliteration...

Arabic Names Spell Trouble for Banks, By DEBORAH BALL And CASSELL BRYAN-LOW, MIDDLE EAST NEWS, APRIL 19, 2011

"...Unlike other so-called script languages such as Chinese or Japanese, Arabic has no transliteration standards. Pronunciation of the same names varies by place, and written Arabic contains few vowels, opening the door to a larger range of acceptable translations. Mohamed can also be transliterated as Mahmut, Mehmud or dozens of other variants."

Kadafi, Gaddafi, Qaddafi: In The Age Of Search, News Publications Still Struggle With Libya Leader’s Name, Mar 21, 2011 at 6:33pm ET by Danny Sullivan

How are you supposed to spell Muammar Gaddafi/Khadafy/Qadhafi? June 20, 1986

Need for authority control (uniformity) in names

How to build a digital library - Page 51, Ian H. Witten, David I. Bainbridge - 2002

Note: Library of Congress has its own standardization, and has only one representation for three variants of the name: See: Qaddafi, Muammar (the other spellings are: Ghadafi, Muammar and Muammar Ghadafi)

BOTTOMLINE for Information Professionals:
This reminder courtesy: Mark Muehlhaeusler | 21 Apr, 2011, MELANET (Middle East Librarians Association).
"If you ever doubted the need for authority control in name headings,
think again ...:

CASSE-TÊTE ARABE - Les banques à l'épreuve de la traduction - Big ...[Google Translation: PUZZLE ARAB - Banks to test the translation: Muammar Gaddafi, Mu'ammar Gaddafi, Muammar Gadhafi ... There would be 110 translations of the surname of the Libyan president.]

On the same shelf:

The medieval monastery as metaphor ~~ Designing space for knowledge work

"The new Cass Business School building in the City of London, designed by Bennetts Associates, draws on best practice in workspace design, with a strong emphasis on innovation and experimentation before and during the design process. This included academic research on historical learning spaces. The medieval monastery, and particularly the cloister, was identified as a type of space designed specifically for the creation and sharing of knowledge. One of the Cass library spaces features a broad cloister-like corridor, with semi-public study areas and places for private reflection and conversation. The whole design reflects transparency — seeing and being seen." continue reading

See also:

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

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

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

Two Ideas for Access to Knowledge

The Infrastructure of Free Expression and Margins of Appreciation by Jack Balkin
[Address delivered at the Second Access to Knowledge Conference (A2K2), Yale University, April 27, 2007. My address at the first A2K conference discussing the basic theory of Access to Knowledge can be found here.] Continue reading @ Balkinization an unanticipated consequence of Jack M. Balkin

Google to Digitize 8,00,000 Books at Mysore University in India

Around 8,00,000 books as well as manuscripts from the Mysore University in Karnataka, India will soon be digitized by Google.

The Mysore University library has around 100,000 manuscripts that are written both on paper as well as palm leaves. These would include India’s first political treatise, the ‘Arthashastra’ written in the 4th century BC by Kautilya. Continue reading

[PS. Above info courtesy: David P. Dillard & Soundara Rajan]

PUNCHLINE:
"Publishing industry via a battle between technology that is predisposed to liberate information and business models that seek to lock information down. For better or worse, the future of innovation and ideas is being defined by the entertainment/publishing industry via a battle between technology that is predisposed to liberate information and business models that seek to lock information down." James L. Hilton, in Copyright Myths and Realities [see the first link below for full details]

When Worlds Collide: Copyright and Scholarship in the Digital Age James L. Hilton;

Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, Nicholson Baker

Vandals in the Stacks?: A Response to Nicholson Baker's Assault on Libraries (Contributions in Librarianship and Information Science), by Richard J. Cox

Are Poor Countries Losing the Information Revolution, Francisco Rodríguez. Ernest J. Wilson,

It's a steal: who owns what in the digital age

Google Books: Whats Not to Like?

See also Mysore University related posts:

Prof. Shalini R Urs's Contributions to Digital Librariansip

Dr. N B Pangannaya: Life and times

Mysore Univesity Library School Alumni

Librarians and Knowledge Management

EXTRACT
GLIS 692 Assignment 1, Sept. 25, 2003

Introduction
Identification. Verification. Acquisition. Organization. Dissemination. These are the traditional services provided by librarians since the emergence of the field. The unspoken object of these actions has always been printed material: books, journals, newspapers, and so on. With the creation of audio and video recordings, as well as microfiche, librarians quickly expanded their discipline to include non-printed material, but the process for discovery, cataloging, and distributing library materials remained relatively unchanged. In the last few years librarians have again had to expand their area of expertise to include digital information, including areas of the World Wide Web. And they are being asked to redefine themselves again. This time to include the vaguely defined realm of knowledge itself...

Taxonomy ....
Classification and Cataloging ...
Technology ...
Liguistsics and Cognitive Science ...

Bibliography:
Allix, Nicholas M. "Epistemology And Knowledge Management Concepts And Practices." Journal of Knowledge Management Practice. April 2003. Faculty of Education, Monash University, Victoria, Australia. Accessed September 25, 2003 http://www.tlainc.com/articl49.htm
Broadbent, Marianne. "The Phenomemnon of Knowledge Management." SLA Outlook. May 1998. Accessed Spetember 22, 2003 http://www.sla.org/pubs/serial/io/1998/may98/broadben.html
Bryar, J.V. "Taxonomies: The Value of Organized Business Knowledge." NewsEdge White Paper. NewsEdge Corporation (2001).
Church, Dough. "From Librarian to Knowledge Manager and Beyond: The Shift to an End-User Domain." Special Library Association. Accessed Spetember 22, 2003 http://www.sla.org/chapter/ctor/courier/v36/v36n2a1b.htm
Kanti, S. and Koening, M.E.D. "Knowledge Management for the Information Professional." Information Today (2002).
McCarthy, I. (1995) "Manufacturing Classification: Lessons from organizational systematics and biological taxonomy." Integrated Manufacturing Systems, (1995) 6: 37-48.
Satyadas, Antony. "Growing a Practical KM System." September 2003. Knowledge Management/Destination KM Accessed September 22, 2003 http://www.destinationkm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=1036
Weidner, Douglas. "Using Connect and Collect to Achieve the KM Endgame." IT Pro (2002).

Quote of the Year 2007

Jean-François David in Knowledgable? says, Librarians are the historically first "knowledge managers" in organizations. Now, all managers are supposed to be ! Are librarians out? Or any manager is the librarian?*

*See more on this: We the librarian @ Macehiter Ward-Dutton: Blog on IT-business alignment and related things

See also:

Quote of the Year 2006

Librarian's Interface with Knowledge Management

Quotable Quote:
"I think all of [us] as academic librarians, whether we work in administration, collection management, reference, or technical services, must take on new roles as knowledge managers." Joseph J Branin, Director of Libraries at Ohio State, quoted in Knowledge Jolt with Jack

Interesting readings:

A librarian's perspective on knowledge management, 19 Jan 2007 by Jack Vinson
"The Ohio State University library system has been developing a Knowledge Bank since 2002. Without knowing much about the program, I found the article Knowledge Management in Academic Libraries: Building the Knowledge Bank at the Ohio State University, by Joseph J Branin, Director of Libraries, 2003."

Library 2.0 reference, by John Tropea @ Library clips, November 27, 2006
[includes themes, such as: Common needs for a reference file, Sharing culture, The web 2.0 way, Non web 2.0 reference knowledge bases] Filed under: library, km

More on Darlene’s presentation: how do we get there from here?
@ The Library Rebooted, Library Technologies: Blogs, Wikis, IM & More by Thom on the November 16th, 2006

Beyond the OPAC: The Semantic Library @ The Library Rebooted, Library Technologies

Knowledge Management in the Workplace: the Librarian as Knowledge Broker
Thaneerkulam, Chitra, STC NJIT Student Chapter 2005

See more via Google

My similar posts:

Nexus between Knowledge Management and Library Science

Learning Activities for Virtual Reference

Information Literacy (for all) - A useful gateway

Visualization - EBSCOhost’s cool new integration of Grokker

My related posts:

Collection Development Templates

Pull and Push Communications: Ranganathan's Laws re-interpreted

Semantic Web and Facet Analysis

Role of Information Professionals in Knowledge Management Programs

NB. I found an excellent article, that highlights the role of library and information professionals in KM.]***

Role of Information Professionals in Knowledge
Management Programs: Empirical Evidence from Canada

[full article, in Adobe PDF]
Isola Ajiferuke
University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
iajiferu@uwo.ca

Abstract
The objective of this study is to provide empirical evidence of the role of information professionals in knowledge management programs. 386 information professionals working in Canadian organizations were selected from the Special Libraries Association’s Who’s Who in Special Libraries 2001/2002 and questionnaire with a stamped self-addressed envelope for its return was sent to each one of them. 63 questionnaires were completed and returned, and 8 in-depth interviews conducted. About 59% of the information professionals surveyed are working in organizations that have knowledge management programs with about 86% of these professionals being involved in the programs. Factors such as gender, age, and educational background (i.e. highest educational qualifications and discipline) did not seem to have any relationship with involvement in knowledge management programs. Many of those involved in
the programs are playing key roles, such as the design of the information architecture, development of taxonomy, or content management of the organization’s intranet. Others play lesser roles, such as providing information for the intranet, gathering competitive intelligence, or providing research services as requested by the knowledge management team.
Keywords: Knowledge management, information professionals, Canada, business organizations

***Serendipity brought me to this article. I was Googling for a recently published book,
The Executive's Role in Knowledge Management by Carla O'Dell

KM, IM, DM - Survival of the Fittest

NB. This is a continuously updated post--last updated Sept 2008 .

The Alignment of Information Management, Knowledge Management and Records Management Sally Gonzalez, Director of Navigant Consulting
John Szerkes, Director of Knowledge Management-Business Systems of Cleary Gottlieb
Peter Krakaur, Chief Knowledge Office of Orrick, Herrrington & Sutcliffe LLP
@ KM Space

Péter Jacsó1, University of Hawaii -- The Endangered Database Species: Are the traditional *commercial* indexing/abstracting & full-text databases dead?
In a word -- no! Commercial A&I/F-T d/bs are not extinct ... yet.
Depends on habitat. LiveSerials: Survival of the fittest

I think Knowledge Management (KM), Information Management (IM), along with archives and record management must evolve some ways to converge as part of future planning. Following are some value added resources in this perspective:

Can libraries replace or work as a KM center, Jaswinder Pal Singh Mehrok (2005) @ KnowledgeBoard:

Can library can work as KM center.I find some article that library in US use lotous notepad software.

REPLY: Denham Grey, @ KnowledgeBoard "Changing to a KM mindset is not about the software adopted. It requires a deep understanding of the differences between knowledge & information and a radical revision of traditional library dogma." Much more

Denham Grey (2005). KM in the library: "This is a thought experiment, applying KM principles to a library environment. My interest in this area stems from the work of Bonnie Nardi and Day, although I share their empathy with librarians as unsung backroom heroes, I find the library mindset to be a very limited view of knowledge work. Started by Denham Grey on 05/28/2000."
"Libraries need to shift their thinking to have a different orientation and value associated with knowledge management. This shift will be used to obtain a competitive edge. It should be a key focus to expand the access of knowledge for their users." Full article, bibliography and much more

Denham Grey (2005). KmWiki a collaborative persistent 'conversation' on all matters related to knowledge management.

More @ Google on this Survival paradigm

see also: Understanding knowledge management and information management: the need for an empirical perspective, by France Bouthillier and Kathleen Shearer, Information Research, Vol. 8 No. 1, October 2002

PUNCHLINE: Involving users and adapting newer knowledge sharing strategies:
David King (2006). Inviting Participation in Web 2.0. Quoted in The Changing Role Of Library Science

Previous posts:

Exact role of Knowledge Manager

Multifaith and Knowledge Management in Perspective