The Perspective of Library and Information Science (LIS) Professionals Toward Knowledge Management in University Libraries

Abstract

This study explores the general perspectives of library and information science (LIS) professionals on knowledge management in the university libraries of Pakistan. The study specifically examines the perceptions, understandings, role and responsibilities of Pakistani LIS professionals toward knowledge management. A questionnaire was used as an instrument to evaluate the perceptions, understandings, role and responsibilities of LIS professionals toward knowledge management. The questionnaires were administered to subject librarians who were included in the sample at the universities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Generalising the findings of this study over the population of LIS community in Pakistan reveals that knowledge management is for the improvement of library services and productive purposes. Accordingly, the Pakistani LIS professionals use knowledge management practices for the improvement of their respective library service. The LIS community is also very familiar with the term “knowledge management”. It succeeded mainly to generalise that majority of the LIS professionals mentioned that they have used knowledge management in their libraries.

Looking for knowledge management in library and information science research

“…Many researchers in the past two decades have worked on the intersection of LIS and KM fields and discussed how KM is important for LIS, LIS professional associations (Agarwal and Islam, 2016) and for libraries. Some notable examples of research involving KM and academic libraries during the past two decades include building a knowledge bank in a university (Branin, 2003); reference services (Gandhi, 2004); KM from an African perspective (Jain, 2007); adoption of library 2.0 functionalities (Kim and Abbas, 2010); digital libraries (Islam and Ikeda, 2014); knowledge retention and transfer: how libraries manage employees leaving and joining (Agarwal and Islam, 2015); KM practices in Europe (Balagué et al, 2016); KM readiness of academic libraries (Marouf, 2017); KM and service innovation (Islam et al, 2017); Nigerian context (Ugwu and Ezema,2018); and perspective of LIS professionals toward implementation (Ahmad, 2019). KM in LIS has also lead to doctoral dissertations in this area, e.g.…”

Evaluating the impact of digital library database resources on the productivity of academic research

“…Despite the financial constraints, the HEC of Pakistan stressing on maintaining the quality of research at universities. Similarly, university librarians are acquiring and organizing and disseminating knowledge to deliver services through the implementation of database and knowledge management practices (Ahmad, 2017). In this regard, our research aims are to learn about intellectual growth by exploring the country's research culture based on the preferred database usage among the top universities.…”

Knowledge Management Practices in the Public University Libraries: Librarian's Perspective

“…In LIS, there are close relations and well-established interactions with KM procedures. Some experts also stated KM was a new name for the LIS sector that professionals have used for many years (Ahmad, 2017;Branin, 2004). Similarly, previous study mentioned KM had become an independent academic field, but this subject has a high degree of interaction with other disciplines such as LIS (Liebowitz & Paliszkiewicz, 2019).…”