Personal Knowledge Management in Outreach and Instruction

Abstract

The role of librarians today continues to evolve in response to the needs of their academic community. Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is one example of an untapped arena for outreach and instruction for librarians. To fully embrace this new facet of contemporary research and academic work will require librarians to learn new skills and utilize creative, big-picture thinking to create services and guidance for the faculty and students that they serve. This article will provide an introduction to PKM theories, exploring some of the key tools that support PKM practices. The article will present several examples illustrating some of the outreach and instruction opportunities for librarians as well as exploring some of the possible future directions of PKM where librarians could play a vital support role for their academic communities.