Throwback Thursday!

The first article I read for this week was Knowledge management in academic libraries: special tools and processes to support information professionals by Jantz. When I started reading this, I agreed with Jantz that the job of the reference librarians (and the profession in general, really) was evolving due to advances in technology. However, it felt like Jantz was saying that reference librarians are basically tech wizards for patrons, which I disagree with. I believe that technology certainly plays a large part in how librarians help patrons, but that is not the only important function they perform or way in which they help patrons.

So in this article, Jantz introduces the common knowledge database (CKDB) which is a tool developed by reference librarians at Rutgers University in order to "help librarians manage knowledge (p. 33)." What I thought was interesting about this article was that Jantz spoke about how knowledge management is rarely mentioned in libraries because it is considered a business concept, but then with the CKDB he tried to introduce a KM tool for libraries that sounded a lot like the KM tools of consulting companies as described in the Hansen, Nohria, & Tierney article I read and blogged about here two weeks ago, and Lisa blogged about here. In their article, Hansen et al spoke about how consulting companies like Ernst & Young focus on reusing knowledge in order to provide quality service with a minimal turnaround time. However, Jantz noted that they don't have "good techniques for extracting and sharing knowledge that is in one person's head (p. 39)." So it seems that there is great need for more research on how to format the CKDB tool, and other km tools so that they better fit libraries. For another perspective on the Jantz article, Joe blogged about it here.

The next article I read was Knowledge transfer in response to organizational crises: An exploratory study by Wang and Lu. This article also harkens back to the glory days of two weeks ago when I blogged here about Massingham's KM risk management article. In that article Massingham described a framework for KM risk management and a knowledge score. In this article, Wang and Lu focus on the "knowledge transfer channels used during organizational crisis and how they affect organizational performance (p. 3934)." These articles are as much alike as they are different, they are both talking about how to use knowledge management to aid in similar occurrences, but approach it differently. Of course risk management is different than organizational crisis. While you want to avoid/prepare for both, risk management gives the notion that the company is in trouble and it shows outwardly to clients, whereas organizational crisis makes me think that it is more of an internal issue. But maybe I'm just playing with semantics, regardless both concepts are very serious to organizations. This article and the Massingham article were written in the same year, so I'd be curious if Wang and Lu's would have approached their article different if they had known about Massingham's piece, because I think they would have really liked his approach with using the knowledge score to help provide clarity in risky times.

The last article I read was Knowledge management and reference services by Gandhi. The author starts off by describing the four principle components of KM as: knowledge, management, information technology, & corporate culture. The first three, I understand. But how is corporate culture a principle component of knowledge management? I see it being an aspect of it, but not a principle part of km. However, as I read further, the author later clarifies what he means by describing corporate culture's role in knowledge management as: "an open forum that encourages people to interact with each other, share ideas, experiences and viewpoints and be heard without fear of reprisals (p. 371)." So basically, collaboration, which makes more sense. Like Jantz, Gandhi said that the librarian's role is shifting: "They must move beyond the role they have always excelled at - finding, selecting, organizing, and managing information - to creating and managing knowledge (p. 379)." So the overall theme in this week's readings seemed to be about librarians embracing the changes in technology and adapting to it by incorporating knowledge management or knowledge management tools in order to better serve patrons.

References 

Gandhi, S. (2004). Knowledge management and reference services. The journal of academic librarianship, 30(5), 368-381.

Jantz, R. (2001). Knowledge management in academic libraries: special tools and processes to support information professionals. Reference Services Review, 29(1), 33-39. 

Wang, W. T., & Lu, Y. C. (2010). Knowledge transfer in response to organizational crises: An exploratory study. Expert Systems with Applications,37(5), 3934-3942.