Temporary Relief

It never fails that following the completion of a big class paper or project, I’m overcome with a huge sense of accomplishment and relief.  In this case, we as a class only finished a first draft of such a paper, but given the scope and the amount of concentrated effort that went into it, I’m not going to split hairs.  Yet there is still much work to be done.  In anxious anticipation of an initial grade and the comments of my student peers, I decided that my next set of article readings should be those that appeared to be tangibly related to my paper topic that I missed in the initial literature review, and that I should be actively looking for nuggets of wisdom I can either discuss directly in my revised paper, or use them as a springboard for further research.  For context, my paper dealt with how libraries can use wiki technology to facilitate intra-organizational knowledge management, with the Grace (2009) article serving as my initial inspiration.

The actual implementation of wikis in the library is one of the central discussion points of my paper, and so naturally I gravitated towards Chalmeta et al on the Methodology for the implementation of knowledge management systems.  In this paper, the authors outline a roadmap to be used in the development and implementation of knowledge management systems, arguing that doing increases the chances of success, and lowers the level of complexity.  Somewhat to my dismay, the article seemed to focus far more on the development of original KM systems, rather than implementing and modifying existing ones.  While it is certainly possible to development one’s own wiki software, that is mostly beyond the scope of my paper topic.  This is not to say I got nothing out of it – chief components of Chalmeta et al’s proposed methodology, such as “analysis and identification of the target knowledge” and “classification and representation” are relevant and applicable.  Having a methodology in general is critically important, with part of the reason wikis can fail is lack of direction and purpose.  I can also look at it in terms of setting up the IT infrastructure to support an internal wiki.  Christy’s blog post noted how methodologies for general information systems development are problematic when designing KM systems, and perhaps the same is true for implementation.

One of the ways in which I was hoping to expand my paper was to examine potential relation of wiki use to theories surrounding the “community of practice”.  Duguid et al on “The art of knowing”: Social and tacit dimensions of knowledge and the limits of the community of practice had one statement in particular that stuck with me

“You become an economist by entering an economics department in Chicago, or Berkeley, or Columbia—a route that may mark you for life, in part because the tacit knowledge of the local community profoundly shapes your identity and its trajectory.” Duguid et al, 2005, 113

Whether one intends to or not, the culture of one’s workplace is going to have some influence on how problems are approached, as well as what forms of technology will become familiar.  The libraries that tended to be most receptive to the adoption of wiki technology were those whose staff were familiar with it, whether it was in a previous workplace, or personal experience using Wikipedia or another wiki.  It is difficult to adjust to change when habits have been built up over many years, which was one of the challenges noted by the authors of my paper research.

The aim of Amin et al’s Knowing in Action: Beyond Communities of Practice was to determine if CoPs encourage a specific type of learning, and if the term should apply when describing the knowledge practices of very different types of communities (specifically craft/task-based, professional, epistemic/highly-creative, and virtual).   In each of the four types of communities, knowledge is produced in different ways, and the method in which people interact within the communities can also vary markedly.  My assumption is that many libraries fall into the “professional” category, where innovation comes incrementally.  Furthermore, tacit knowledge is highly important in this environment, perhaps more so than explicit, codified knowledge.  The paper uses the health care industry as their example, noting that part of the job is knowing who holds what knowledge, and thereby gaining the ability to accurately refer people others for specialized questions.  Knowing that the same is more or less true in the library environment, the implementation process of a KM system in the library should take these factors to heart.

Although my paper is primarily concerned with advocating for increased wiki use in libraries, the articles I reviewed expanded upon several challenges that should be acknowledged and addressed.  Is there an explicit reason why the wiki should be used/implemented?  Is the current work culture conducive to what might be a radical change in how the staff collaborate and share knowledge?  Reflections on current knowledge creation/exchange among library staff are also needed.

Amin, A., & Roberts, J. (2008). Knowing in action: Beyond communities of practice.
Research Policy, 37(2), 353–369.

Chalmeta, R., & Grangel, R. (2008). Methodology for the implementation of knowledge
management systems. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology, 59(5), 742-755.

Duguid, P. (2005). “The art of knowing”: Social and tacit dimensions of knowledge and
the limits of the community of practice. Information Society, 21, 109-118.