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In order to manage library or information functions you must be able to persuasively communicate with your management. To accomplish this, you must communicate in the language of your management, marshalling trendy and persuasive points on your own behalf With that as a given, there has been a very heartening development over the last few years for library and information managers—a burgeoning management attention to information.

This chapter updates earlier research that analyzed mergers, collaborations, and similar trends in LIS education, and provides a more comprehensive current summary of those trends. Three distinct patterns are beginning to emerge in both organizational structure and collaboration: changes in the nature of LIS program partnerships within parent educational institutions; the impact on LIS education by prominent academic associations that are not reliant on ALA accreditation recognition; and the growth in the number and type of academic offerings in LIS schools themselves. Among some notable changes are the establishment of the Consortium of iSchools Asia Pacific (CiSAP), continued growth in the iSchool caucus and its increasing international membership. Additionally the number of dual degree master’s programs in which LIS departments partner is on the rise, as is the number of degrees now being offered at LIS schools (both at the undergraduate and graduate levels) that are not “traditional” MLS degrees. Inter-institutional collaborative MLIS programs are also emergent, evident in such programs as the Web-based Information Science Education (WISE) consortium. The data presented here seem to suggest that the face of LIS education continues to change as the 21st century gets underway.

The role for librarians in knowledge management (KM) in terms of designing information systems, creating classification systems and taxonomies, and implementing and operating those systems is obvious. Not so obvious is a key role for librarians in user education and training. A recent study by KPMG of KM systems implementations reveals an alarmingly high failure and disappointment rate, with more than half of the failures attributable to inadequate user training and education (though remarkably this goes essentially unremarked upon). Librarians are skilled in user education and training. The need and the match is obvious. Develops that theme and draws on two other key information phenomena. and draws conclusions from them about the potential role for librarians in user education and training in the context of KM initiatives.

Discusses the current business enthusiasm for intellectual capital and knowledge management and how the librarian should, in principle, take center stage in the intellectual capital and knowledge management process. Proposes a general prescriptive for the process and the librarian′s potential role therein. Specifically, recommends initiating this process with an annual report of the “state of the union” of intellectual capital, from a “value added to the learning organization” viewpoint. Identifies specific items that could be treated in such a report and concludes with an annotated bibliography of key articles in both the business and library literature.

We have recently begun the third stage of the electronic information revolution — what we will probably come to call the Internet Age. This may seem pretty obvious, but let me try to present it in a fashion that perhaps makes it more compelling and hints more effectively at what the consequences will be.

The term “library management” covers many different aspects of the way that a library is operated and conjures up different concepts in the minds of different people, depending on their own interests, agendas and requirements. Research into the subject is even more difficult to define because the application of research in one field can be vital to the development of another. Some researchers would not consider their research central to library matters at all, whereas the practising librarian might well see it as casting new light on a difficult area of understanding or development.

There is a very important principle in financial management, one so basic that it has never really been named. The sort of title that might be attached to it—for example, the principle of minimum non‐allocated cost—is dull and unexciting. Therefore, a metaphoric name—the principle of “minimum unsprung weight”—has been borrowed for this article.

There are a number of issues affecting the pricing of CDROM technologies, but two of them are both contentious and could potentially have a serious impact upon the field. Their resolution at the moment is not clear. Since CDROM technology holds great potential for library service, and it is particularly attractive in the context of the less well developed countries (Beaumont & Balson 1988; Brito 1989), it is therefore important that the field address these potential issues early on. The two concerns are lapsing ownership and metered pricing.