Knowledge Management and L&I Specialist

An emphasis on knowledge, skills and creativity and on the capturing and sharing of information, are all issues that impact upon how people are managed. In many organisations responsibility for these activities is often focused within a specialist or a department. Over the past few years there has been an increasing interest from Library and Information (L&I) specialists in the area of knowledge management and the contribution they can make both individually and as a profession.

This has been reflected in the conferences and publications of the L&I Professionals world over. For L&I specialists there are no particular hurdles to overcome to make a contribution. Knowledge management is itself a multi-disciplinary area and it is necessary for L&I specialists to work with other disciplines, often having to develop new skills and understanding (particularly in the area of technology). L&I specialists, unlike HR specialist do not have the conflict inherent in reconciling seeing people as a cost to be controlled and as an asset to be developed.

A key role for L&I specialists is to help bridge the gap between what people know – the information and expertise that are available to them – and what they do. In the knowledge economy, it is what people do with their knowledge that is the driver for competitive advantage rather than the investment in information systems, intranets, and electronic communications. Effective knowledge management is not possible in an environment where people are disenchanted, de-motivated and demoralised.

KM and Information Services

It makes an interesting reading that KM is an area that needs manpower who understand the importance of sharing knowledge. In its explicit form, knowledge is easily documented, organised and shared. From the perspective of an information professional it is "information or library work" that has been going on since the days of library science education. If information professionals or library professionals understand the essence of KM in a traditional way, all it needs is the mindset to undertake such projects.

Even tacit knowledge that cannot be easily captured or documented; can be easily shared. Networking with users, facilitating networking among users have been one among the initiatives that library or information professionals have been doing since long.

When we see that these band of professionals can take up KM work why is it that industry does not accept this and employ library professionals for KM work. There are only a very few examples that could stand in favour of library or information professionals in India. In addition to change in mindset of library and information professionals, it may require the HR people in industry to open their minds to this cadre of manpower for successful implementation of KM projects.

Anil