Librarians as Knowledge Mangers

An overall view of knowledge management, and the role of librarians in its implementation are being discussed. The shift from traditional work culture to a learning organization cannot be accomplished quickly. It requires high-level commitment to change, a rewards system that encourages teamwork, and the sharing of best practices. The main idea of knowledge management is establishing an environment where information is shared and openly accepted. To built an effective knowledge management system, the knowledge system needs to work according to the work flow of the respective organization, and should be able to produce the relevant information to the ongoing projects in the organization. At the completion of the project, the system is able to produce key documentation, lessons learned and other useful information to be stored and disseminated for future use. Corporations want knowledge management because they realize it has the potential to help them use what they already know, and what they don’t know, to work smarter and quicker and to make more money. Librarians have significant advantages as knowledge management players and they are both effective and customer oriented, secondly, they understand the ways in which people communicate information needs. Thus, librarians as knowledge managers can provide value-added information to their user community by using knowledge management tools in their system