Search results

The intranet has emerged as one of today's most effective tools for knowledge management. This article reports on the extent to which three South African academic libraries, selected by means of the purposive sampling method, utilise the intranet as a knowledge management tool. Based on the literature, knowledge management and an intranet are briefly defined. The advantages of the intranet as a knowledge management tool as well as the content of an intranet are discussed. The opinions about knowledge management and the utilisation of the intranet as a knowledge management tool in the three academic libraries are weighed up against the findings in the literature. It is clear that a strong awareness exists of the importance of knowledge management and the value of the intranet as a knowledge management tool. However, the potential of the intranet as a knowledge management tool is not utilised fully.

The purpose of this paper is to advise the Library sector about the existence of a new approach to internal communications, in the form of an intranet which delivers “fresh news daily”, similar in format to a major online newspaper.

In 2007, and prior to the launch of its redeveloped intranet, the State Library of Victoria revolutionised its internal communications with the introduction of The Fridge – a new, online, daily news service. A small icon – in the shape of a fridge – was posted on the desktop of every Library staff member.

Today, The Fridge has become a widely used and highly trusted Library tool. It has demonstrated an enhanced commitment to “real‐time” employee communication through the ability to deliver fresh news and important information daily. It has demonstrably increased morale, productivity, performance and retention of valued staff, and has played a key role in quantifiably lifting the operating “climate” of the workplace. It has helped to build a stronger workplace community.

Because of its “real‐time” capabilities, The Fridge is used as an internal market research tool. It has been used to gauge employee opinions and feelings on a range of subjects, the responses to which can be fed back within hours.

Recent Fridge research has asked staff for their opinions on a range of topics, including their favoured subjects for future articles. The Fridge is used daily by the CEO and Executive to pass on critically important information about the organization, thus avoiding the dreaded “everyone” e‐mails. The Fridge is also used to post daily updates on current events and “What's on” activities.

This paper introduces a revolutionary and unique new approach in internal communications to Libraries, with the ability to transform internal communications.

The University of Oklahoma Libraries (UL) has created content management tools located on the staff intranet. These tools allow library personnel to control the content on the web site while the library systems office maintains site navigation and consistent site design. These tools have been in place for approximately three years, but this study is the first formal evaluation of these systems.

To evaluate usage of the content management tools in place at UL, the authors surveyed all levels of library personnel to see how they utilize the library intranet to manage web site content. The authors examined both self‐reported usage of the staff intranet and data collected from the systems office about actual usage.

This study provides insight on the intended use of content management systems versus the actual usage of these systems.

Future research should focus on how CMS is being used by regular users of the systems rather than usage of the system as a whole. Survey results were skewed by including student workers who seldom have reason to use the intranet or CMS tools within the scope of their positions.

Explores the issues surrounding the use of the intranet as a tool for communication and managing content on a public web site. Tools must be properly marketed if they are to be fully utilized.

This paper will benefit those in organizations that are considering locally developing content management tools or that are beginning to evaluate usage of their staff intranet.

A case study is described of how the Open University Library is developing a pilot departmental Intranet with the open source package, Zope and the Content Management Framework toolkit. The approach is to manage and share content held in a variety of formats, develop workflow for creating and approving new content before it is published to the site, separate content from presentation in order to support easy maintenance and consistency, and locate information through metadata and full text retrieval. Designing the Intranet involved content mapping and identifying library staff’s working needs before developing the structure and site framework. The Zope CMF has proved to be a highly flexible set of tools for creating a knowledge sharing Intranet, but the drawbacks are lack of documentation and training in the UK.

An evaluation of the current state of intranet usage in the UK newspaper industry. Librarians and information managers from all the UK national newspapers were contacted to establish which newspapers had, or were intending to introduce, an intranet. Those who had an intranet were interviewed. To provide a point of comparison with newspapers in the United States, who appeared to have quickly embraced intranet technology, email questionnaires were distributed via the Special Library Association mailing list. The paper shows that librarians are closely involved in the planning of newspaper intranets and describes the management issues, attractions and problems associated with them.

Intranets are frequently promoted as a route towards the sharing of knowledge in organisations. Experience demonstrates, however, that many intranets were launched without clear objectives or strategy and have evolved in an ad hoc manner, resulting in systems with limited relevance. This article is in two parts. Drawing on data collected through a survey of the use of intranets in several corporations and international organisations, the first section provides an overview on how intranets are currently being used. The second part discusses good management practices for the development of effective intranets which stimulate knowledge sharing and the role they could play in facilitating knowledge management initiatives.

There are few people who would claim that a library is simply a collection of books. The concept of a library embodies an acquisitions policy, collection management, finding aids, disposal policy, a variety of services to readers, a lending policy and so on. Without these additional facets, a collection of books is just that and not a library. In the same way, a collection of digital documents, even if linked together via hypertext links is not an intranet (or any other sort of net for that matter), although much that has been delivered in the name of intranets is no more than a collection of digital documents.

Knowledge Management (KM) in libraries refers to the systematic management and control of knowledge as an important resource when producing high-quality library and information services. If one wishes to make the optimal use and dissemination of organizational and other work life related knowledge, then one needs to acquire appropriate KM tools and to adopt a systematic procedure for KM throughout the organization. This can exert an energizing effect on the lifelong learning of the libraries’ staff which is essential in today’s rapidly changing scientific information environment. The purpose of this paper is to analyze KM practices is selected higher education libraries.

This qualitative research conducted in three academic libraries – IZUS/Universitätsbibliothek Stuttgart, Germany; Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) Library Barcelona, Spain; and University of Eastern Finland (UEF) Library, Finland – makes a comparison of the KM processes being implemented in each of the institutions to ensure the continuous learning of the libraries’ staff.

This comparative study revealed several key reasons and best practices for implementing KM procedures in the selected university libraries. They are collected under three main issues: KM advantages; KM technological opportunities; and KM organizational culture.

Based on three cases and thus are mainly examples of the KM implementation.

Paper gives tools for libraries and their management on the KM system implementation.

Based on the paper’s findings the KM implementation in all the selected libraries led to better management and better staff inclusion into the library service development.

KM implementation studies are still rare among the libraries.