This Member Q&A generated a large number of responses, the most relevant of which are reproduced below. At the same time, a large number of thoughtful posts appeared on another KM forum in response to the question, "Could KM have saved General Motors?" None of the answers I've seen generate much confidence that organizations have figured out how to "manage knowledge."

Question
One of our members would like to know where KM staff are positioned in the organization structure (e.g. IT, Communications, Education, etc.). She is especially interested in KM in health care organizations.

My impression is that in many of our member organizations, the KM function grows out of the corporate library or information center, although the trend seems to be to fold the library function into IT once the physical library gets dismantled. I think there’s a good reason for this.

First, librarians have a cross-functional role; they usually deal with people from all over the organization, including international offices.

Second, they understand how to track, organize and package information for subsequent re-use. Communications and education do this too, but without the strong emphasis on re-use.

Finally, the KM role is a bridge between business requirements and technology, and most libraries have someone on staff who understands the nuts and bolts of that linkage.

Responses

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Created on December 22, 2008 l Updated on March 10, 2009