Knowledge Management in Indigenous Medicine: the Expected Role of Ghanaian University Libraries

Abstract Indigenous medicine is regarded as an alternative medicine used in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of sicknesses in most societies. Unfortunately, some of the works of indigenous medicine practitioners are not documented. Although a great deal has been written about the importance of knowledge management relatively little attention has been paid to how knowledge creation process of indigenous healthcare can be managed, hence the need for the university library which serves as a repository of knowledge transmission to assist in the dissemination of knowledge in indigenous medicine. The library’s interaction with the environment together with the means by which it creates and distribute information and knowledge should be critically considered. The authors adopted the descriptive survey design, with the combination of purposive and simple random sampling technique to select the respondents. Professional librarians and indigenous medicine practitioners were the major respondents. Two data collection instruments were used; namely questionnaire and interview. Quantitative data collected were analysed using simple tables with frequencies and percentages, while qualitative data were analysed thematically. Some of the findings are that apart from the Library of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology; the remaining university libraries have little information resources on indigenous medicine since most of them have never thought of gathering documents on indigenous medicine. In addition, the study also indicated that some indigenous medicine practitioners want to keep to what they know, for fear of losing their patent right to others. The study recommended amongst others that; university libraries should intensify the advocacy role of acquiring, processing, preserving and disseminating of such information appropriately