Volume 58, Issue 3

This paper presents a real-life example as to how the world's largest environmental consulting firm – Environmental Resources Management (ERM) – recognises ‘information literacy’ as a critical component of its knowledge management program to create value for the company. With the rise of information technology which allows vast amounts of information to flow across an organisation very quickly, many employees have been complaining about ‘information overload’ and ‘knowledge underload’. Companies in the past 10 years have ‘recognised’ the value of information and knowledge, and it is becoming a strategic issue to provide employees with access to the right information at the right time. As a result, managing information and knowledge becomes a business critical agenda item discussed in the boardroom, with the aim to apply global knowledge to deliver the highest quality solutions to clients. Despite all the investment, however, employees find that the information/knowledge management systems generate too many reports/results which nobody reads, and when employees need information to support their work, they are not getting what they want. Why are employees not getting the full benefits out of a global knowledge management system? What is the common perception of the ‘information overload’ problem in the workplace? Is this a symptom of a much bigger problem? Is there an alternative perspective that can shed some light on this issue? The modern workplace requires employees who are confident and competent in interacting with information to deliver maximum business value. In this paper, the author argues there is a body of existing information literacy knowledge (mostly developed in the education context) which can be adapted to address ‘information overload’ in the workplace context.

The rapid evolution of information and communication technology in recent years has seen knowledge management become a key tool for the success of a variety of institutions. Many international organizations have developed knowledge management programs as key to their future development strategies. The number of international organizations that have identified knowledge management as one of their core management tools or formed a new knowledge management department is growing every day. Thus, the IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies), ILO (International Labour Office), United Nations and IMF (International Monetary Fund) have now created knowledge management divisions within their structures. Yet despite its growing popularity, knowledge management in international organizations remains a complex and challenging task. It calls for the management and integration of knowledge bases across national boundaries, in diverse cultural settings, and within organizations that may possess distinct values and sets of priorities. This study attempts to explicate the importance of including an information professional in all the systematic processes of knowledge management. The objective of the study is accomplished through a case study of the IFRC. It explicitly identifies the roles through which the librarians' professional training can be leveraged for knowledge capturing, organization, and dissemination in an organization such as the IFRC.

This article discusses a conceptual framework developed as part of ongoing PhD research looking at workplace information literacy (IL) and exploring its relationships to knowledge management (KM). An empirical study is researching conceptions of effective information use and learning practices of staff at a national, over the phone, health service operating 24/7, using a phenomenographic approach combined with a consideration of structural aspects of the workplace environment related to institutional initiatives for KM. The proposed framework involves three main elements: an epistemological approach to learning based on social constructivism and hermeneutics; the analysis of situated practice from a sociological and philosophical viewpoint based on critical realism; and a definition of literacy as a multimodal semiotic tool for learning. The concepts of literacy and literacies are discussed in contrast to information literacy, and it is suggested that seeing information literacy as an aspect of literacy, rather than as an independent concept, is a more fruitful approach to the study of the core processes involved in sense-making, learning and decision-making in situated practice and particularly in organizational environments.

This study examines how tasks influence information seeking behavior in the World Wide Web. There are three primary reasons for considering this issue: to understand the nature of people's information seeking tasks, to investigate the ways in which they attempt to execute tasks in their user-system interactions, and to facilitate the development and design of a system that serves people's task goals and supports their task-related information seeking behavior. Thirty students with backgrounds in library and information science participated in this study in a laboratory setting. Three different types of tasks were assigned. Significant differences were found in searching behavior on the Web among task types. Furthermore, the relationship of searching behavior with task difficulty, prior knowledge, and searchers' demographic characteristics varied by task types. The results suggest that information systems should be structured in ways that support users' tasks. Future study should focus on such issues and then propose how information systems and services can be tailored to the task in context.

Web search engines have developed into widely used services and essential tools for finding Web-based information. Research has found that although users typically follow ‘unsophisticated’ information-seeking patterns, they appear to be satisfied with the performance of search engines and themselves as information seekers. This paper argues that the development of information literacy skills in the context of Web search engines requires deeper understanding of the reasons underlying already established behavioural patterns. The study explored the information-seeking behaviour of sixty-six postgraduate students and examined user satisfaction through the perceptions of students about themselves as information seekers. It was found that the students were experienced Web searchers but they shared less appreciation for the value of more complex strategies in the Web environment. Although they were aware of the limitations of their information-seeking behaviour they had minimal motivation to change habitual behavioural patterns. The paper concludes that there is a need to place less emphasis on developing ‘optimal’ search skills through information literacy instruction and focus on increasing motivation and appreciation of more complex search strategies.

This paper offers an estimate of the impact of small public libraries in villages in Burkina Faso on reading habits. A survey of secondary school students was conducted in March 2005. Students were selected in eight villages that matched the criteria ‘with library’ and ‘without library’. Overall the reading level of students in the sample was quite low, but the results indicate that the presence of a well-functioning library leads to an increase in reading on the order of 50%.