The Australian Library Journal
volume 50 issue 4
John Levett
Educating for a knowledge management future: Perceptions of library and information professionals
Ross J Todd and Gray Southon
The emerging diffuse and complex discourse on knowledge management has, amongst many things, given some focus to the nature of education and training for professionals engaged in managing knowledge. The complexity of charting an educational and training pathway becomes apparent when considered against the plethora of perspectives of what constitutes knowledge management, as well as the various underpinning assumptions about its nature, contextualisation, role, and indeed, the meanings of its constituent terms 'knowledge' and 'management'
This paper is the second part of the findings of a research project undertaken in 1999 and 2000 to identify the perspectives of experienced professionals working in the library and information sector in relation to knowledge management, and in particular to identify directions for the education and training of library and information professionals who wish to be engaged in managing knowledge. Part 1 identified considerable variation in levels of awareness of the term 'knowledge management', in the perceptions of knowledge management, and its relation to information management, and in the perception of the institutional understanding of and responses to knowledge management (Southon & Todd, 2001).
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Electronic journal registering and access in an academic library
Stephen Crothers, Margaret Prabhu and Shirley Sullivan
The authors review the processes and problems inherent in providing online access to journal subscriptions where online access is supplied as part of the print subscription. Examples are used to demonstrate the difficulties and suggestions for improvement outlined.
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Lifelong learning and the library connection: a perceptual model for tertiary library customer education
Deborah Ann Cronau
'Lifelong learning and library connection' as a possible model for tertiary library customer education examines the literature and the transitional skill and ability expectations of a cohort of undergraduate students to propose a 'perceptual model' of lifelong learning as an alternative to behavioral and relational models which are more experientially- or practice-based. The hypothesis was that the individual perceptions of students would mirror personal reality; that what they believe they can predict they will pursue. Therefore a perceptual model can facilitate lifelong learning through education approaches geared to the sequential levels of skills needed by particular student (customer) groups.
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The superstitions in public libraries: alive and well?
Miroslaw Kruk
Social reformers in the nineteenth century thought that superstitions would gradually die out. Institutions of formal education, such as schools and universities, promoted progress through spreading positivistic and utilitarian ideas. Institutions of informal education, including public libraries and the press, spread the same ideas. The edifice of civilisation was firmly supported by three pillars: the state, science and institutionalised religion. At the beginning of the twenty first century, the social landscape has greatly changed. Science is treated with suspicion, and the state and religion have been weakened. Superstitions are alive and well, and they have even found their way to public libraries. Is the library's noble goal of the dissemination of knowledge in danger of being replaced by the diffusion of falsehood?
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In pursuit of flexible work places ('if I wanted to get there, I wouldn't be leaving from here')
Phil Teece
Governments, managers and men of affairs have usually considered that work was too important to be left to the workers. Great efforts have been made down the ages to change their attitude to it. Whether these attempts to change behaviour come from the political right or the political left, they are more likely to be rationally informed if they rest on knowledge, not only of the present structures of work and power, but also of the historical nature and origins of the behaviours concerned. This permits informed judgements about their persistence and deep-rootedness and - since every change has its price - about the social costs that would be involved if attempts were made to impose change against the historical grain. Massive and stubborn resistances are apt to be encountered by attempts to transform basic, long-standing responses by large numbers of people in their everyday behaviour ... they might be avoided by adapting the objective in ways which make possible its pursuit by methods that work with the historical grain'
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