Librarians or Knowledge Managers? What’s in a Name,or is there a Real Difference?

Abstract

While there has been a trend in recent years for libraries to change their names to be called information or knowledge centres, and librarians have begun to be called by other names, such as knowledge managers, there is a tendency for these new titles and functions to be very poorly defined and the qualities needed to do the job are frequently not known or understood by potential employers. Producers and users of information services must take a wide variety of issues into consideration, including: the cost of information; whether it is priced or free; accessibility, whether the information is in the right place at the right time; the skills necessary to access information and use it efficiently; quality and timeliness; and the most cost-effective ways to produce and use information and the most intuitive ways of presenting it. Concludes that many skills are common to both librarians and knowledge managers. Both select, collect and disseminate information, link it to the users and train those users to use information efficiently and effectively. Both operate in the context of the organization or community that they serve. What may ultimately prove more important than any difference between them is the quality of their skills and the alliances they forge with other players such as the managers of the business’s technology and the most important users of the information service (‘superusers’). Viewed in these terms, it may be concluded that there is no difference between the skills of a librarian and that of a knowledge manager.