Knowledge Management: Can Librarians Do It?

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Knowledge ManagementCan Librarians Do It?

• Lee Chu KeongNanyang Technological University

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Short Answer

• Yes!

discomfort
But, some changes are needed!
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Changes That Are Needed

• A shift in perspective on the concept of
  knowledge
• A shift in perspective on the concept of
  silence
• A shift in perspective on the concept of
  intermediary

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Traditional Role of Libraries

• Selection Selecting and acquiring available
  information in the marketplace, based on user
  needs and quality standards, within the available
  budget
• Storage maintaining the availability of
  publications through long-term storage and
  preservation
• Service making the information resources
  available through facilities and procedures for
  on-site consultation, lending and document
  delivery
• Support giving the user guidance and assistance,
  including the development and maintenance of
  support systems such as catalogues, on-line help
  systems, websites,

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Traditional Role of Libraries

• Selection Selecting and acquiring available
  information in the marketplace, based on user
  needs and quality standards, within the available
  budget
• Storage maintaining the availability of
  publications through long-term storage and
  preservation
• Service making the information resources
  available through facilities and procedures for
  on-site consultation, lending and document
  delivery
• Support giving the user guidance and assistance,
  including the development and maintenance of
  support systems such as catalogues, on-line help
  systems, websites,

Books
Periodicals
documents
CD-ROMs
Databases
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Knowledge Perspective 1

• As Object vs As Process

Positivist Axioms ? knowability of the universe ?
factual nature of scientific knowledge ?
irrelevance of value judgment
Interactional ? environmental ? relational ?
context
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Knowledge Perspective 2

• As point on a continuum

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Knowledge Perspective 3

• As potential of a very powerful sort

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Information Sources

• Information Sources

dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies,
almanacs, handbooks, directories, atlases,
gazetteers, biographies, abstracts indexes
annual reports, patents trademarks, statistical
sources, market research reports, white papers,
stock data, company information,
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Knowledge Sources
Knowledge Sources
human being(s)!
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Knowledge A Public Good

• non-excludable
• non-rivalrous
• Goods are excludable if a person can be prevented
  from using it
• Goods are rivalrous if one persons use of the
  good diminishes another persons use

He who receives an idea from me, receives
instruction himself without lessening mine as he
who lights his taper at mine, receives light
without darkening me.
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What IS Knowledge Sharing?

• Knowledge sharing takes place each time you
  communicate what you are doing, who you are, or
  what you know to one person or to many people,
  and covers a variety of activities a talk with
  a colleague at the coffee pot, an educational
  situation, a document in a database, an email, an
  information board with notices, etc.
• Petersen Poulfelt (2002)

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• Knowledge sharing involves networking to become
  acquainted with what others know.
• Wiig (1999)

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• Knowledge sharing is the deliberate act in which
  knowledge is made reusable for one party through
  its transfer by another.
• Lee and Al-Hawamdeh (2002)

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Be Careful

• If nature has made any one thing less susceptible
  than all others of exclusive property, it is the
  action of the thinking power called an idea,
  which an individual may exclusively possess as
  long as he keeps it to himself but the moment it
  is divulged, it forces itself into the possession
  of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess
  himself of it.
• Jefferson (1813)

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Knowledge Sharing Critical to Knowledge
Management
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Why Share Knowledge?

• To prevent the reinvention of the wheel
• To minimise loss of knowledge through various
  means
• To enable the spread of best practices
• To construct meaning together
• To build social capital
• The practical problem, however, arises precisely
  because these facts are never so given to a
  single mind, and because, in consequence, it is
  necessary that in the solution of the problem
  knowledge should be used that is dispersed among
  many people.

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Knowledge Sharing Types
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Sharing Knowledge Reasons

• A need to learn
• ? to size up a person
• ? to increase understanding of a complex
  issue/phenomenon/problem
• ? to clarify concepts
• A need to tell
• ? to inform
• ? to express opinion or stand
• A need to get another opinion from outside the
  box
• A need to short circuit
• A need to teach
• A need to build or maintain relationships
• A need to self-aggrandize

? Participation in knowledge sharing
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Silence

• Attitude of most libraries Silence Please!
• In knowledge management
• Silence denotes a lack of knowledge sharing
• Silence implies an unwillingness to share ones
  knowledge
• Rethink the concept of silence!

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The Framework
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Barriers Attributable to Actors

• Communication People Skills
• Absorptive Capacity
• Reputation
• Appreciation of Importance of Knowledge
• Incompatible Personality
• Disciplinary Ethnocentrism
• Status Hierarchies
• Technophobia
• Cognitive ? Hinds Pfeffer
• Motivation ? Hinds Pfeffer

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Barriers Attributable to Channel

• Document
• Inability of the actors to tailor the knowledge
  shared to the needs and situation of the user
• Knowledge is fixed, sometimes for posterity
• Low bandwidth (zero social presence)
• Face-to-Face (Unmediated)
• Ability of the knowledge recipient to request
  customization, clarification, or elaboration of
  the knowledge shared

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• The richest form of knowledge sharing (High BW)
• The knowledge can be tailored directly and
  immediately, and made relevant to the needs of
  the user
• Coincidence of both time and location is required
  in this mode of knowledge sharing
• Often unrecorded (little or no permanence),
  therefore lending itself to distortion
  attenuation
• Face-to-Face (Mediated)
• Dependent of technology

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Barriers Attributable to Knowledge Being Shared

• TACIT vs EXPLICIT
• Sharing ones expertise can be risky because of
  the difficulty involved in articulating
  preferences based largely on tacit knowledge
• user-interface specialists (simply know, but
  cannot explain)
• nurses (insistent inner voice, hunch)
• In organisations that insist on hard data,
  sharing ones tacit expertise via opinions and
  intuitions can convey a lack of certainty or
  clarity, undermining ones standing in the
  organisation

logic rationale evidence
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Barriers Attributable to Organisational
Environment

• Organisational structure
• Reward system and incentives for knowledge
  sharing ? compensation for time energy
• Availability of time
• Availability of knowledge sharing champions
• Office layout (Third Space, storking)
• Staff tenure or length of service
• Management support
• Organisational culture

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Barriers Attributable to Climate

• Barriers arising from the larger picture, which
  may affect the relationship with the
  organisation
• Economic condition of the nation, governmental
  policies, and societal culture
• When jobs are at stake, networks are withdrawn
  and individual knowledge is closely guarded as
  protection against termination (Bonaventura,
  1997)
• Foreign talent policy
• Societal culture (e.g. collectivistic pressure)

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Librarian as Barrier Breaker

• Traditionally, libraries have perform an
  intermediary function between publishers (and
  other information producers) and end-users
• Can libraries now reinvent themselves and be
  intermediaries between knowledge source and
  knowledge source?
• Can libraries break barriers and build
  people-to-people links
• Can libraries be knowledge intermediaries

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Conclusion

• Libraries and their librarians CAN do knowledge
  management
• Rethinking / repositioning / new perspectives are
  needed
• Three areas have been suggested
• Rethink the concept of knowledge
• Rethink the concept of silence
• Rethink the concept of intermediary