Embracing Knowledge Management as a New Perspective for Librarianship

Abstract

The emergence of Knowledge Management (KM) has raised an on-going debate on how it may relate to pre-existing fields and schools of thoughts. The main dispute focuses on whether Library and Information Science (LIS) and KM are distinct fields of specialisation. Whilst one school claims that KM is merely a new name for what librarians have been doing for years, or information science in new clothes; the other and more prevailing school believes that KM not only greatly overlaps with LIS, but also extends the scope of the field. The authors argue that KM can act as a vehicle for enhancing and transforming the professional image and role of librarianship. Information professionals should expand their traditional roles by actively engaging in KM initiatives in a variety of organisations. This progression and new perspective of librarianship elicit major challenges to the existing structure of LIS education and in particular how KM is represented and taught. This paper revisits the conceptual basis of KM, presents a survey of KM education provided by the member schools of the iSchools Caucus, as well as shares experiences of teaching KM in Chinese library schools. Moreover, this paper advocates that a KM education framework should be developed through the collaboration of LS and KM researchers and educators across international borders.