The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of knowledge sharing and what is experienced as being shared as knowledge sharing unfolds. In particular, the paper explores…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of knowledge sharing and what is experienced as being shared as knowledge sharing unfolds. In particular, the paper explores affect as a key aspect of knowledge sharing in an organisational context.
Design/methodology/approach
A practice theoretical approach is applied to the study combined with a phenomenological research methodology that focusses on the “lived experience” of participants.
Findings
Knowledge-sharing practice was found to encompass cognitive, social, bodily and affective dimensions. Affect was found to be a significant component of the practice as revealed by participant emotion and the use of conversational humour.
Research limitations/implications
In light of the findings, the researcher recommends a focus on participant sensings in practice theoretical research, in combination with sayings, doings and relatings.
Originality/value
The approach to the study is significant in that, in contrast to previous practice-based research in information studies, it applied a methodology adapted from phenomenology. This combination of approaches opened the investigation to the multi-dimensional experiential nature of knowledge-sharing practice highlighting the significant role of affect in knowledge sharing.
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The purpose of this paper is to review and outline changing paradigms in information management in the context of the modern media organisation and to realign and decentralise…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review and outline changing paradigms in information management in the context of the modern media organisation and to realign and decentralise library services according to such paradigms.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology was to review literature and international best practice in newsroom library, research and reference services and apply results to a restructuring process whereby librarians were “embedded” into newsroom operations.
Findings
The new “embedded” structure resulted in librarians playing a more active role in the editorial process, and establishing closer, more collaborative, relationships with library clients. Six months after the restructure, a 15 per cent increase in research and reference work was recorded with a corresponding enhancement in the profile of the library service.
Practical implications
Opportunities emerged to use the restructure as a chance to re‐brand the library and, when publicising the changes to users, to increase the library's client base by marketing to staff previously unaware of library services.
Originality/value
The paper applies a range of trends in traditional information management literature and practice to the specific context of the newspaper newsroom, accounts of which have not hitherto been reported.
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The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related…
Abstract
The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the twenty‐second to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1995. After 21 years, the title of this review of the literature has been changed from “Library Orientation and Instruction” to “Library Instruction and Information Literacy,” to indicate the growing trend of moving to information skills instruction.
IN the meridian of the year the librarian, like other people, turns his back upon his work, and with gleeful heart hies him away to sea or mountain side, there to forget for a…
Abstract
IN the meridian of the year the librarian, like other people, turns his back upon his work, and with gleeful heart hies him away to sea or mountain side, there to forget for a brief season book and pen and general public, and all the worries which vex the soul of the servant of these three mighty taskmasters. A little before the happy time of freedom a sudden and deep disgust for his work and everything connected with it will seize upon his soul. He feels the need of a wider horizon than that of five by three—the catalogue card. The neatness and order of his classified shelves in which he was wont to take such delight and pride appear to him now but a vanity and a vexation of the spirit. Oh, for something unclassified, like nature, where rock and tree and water and air and sky are not parcelled out and separated one from another, in the trivial sortage of the laboratory or shop, but all are piled together in grand and sharp confusion, or subtly blended in exquisite harmonies which defy the namer and confound the analyst. Then do the days drag slowly along until the curtain of the roll‐top desk is finally shut down, and the wearied labourer goes forth—free.
At a meeting of the Stepney Borough Council on June 20th the Public Health Committee submitted the following report by the Medical Officer of Health detailing the proceedings…
Abstract
At a meeting of the Stepney Borough Council on June 20th the Public Health Committee submitted the following report by the Medical Officer of Health detailing the proceedings which have been instituted against a certain milk‐vendor during the past eight years, and illustrating the difficulties which are experienced in obtaining convictions for adulteration of milk in consequence of the provisions of the “warranty clause” of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts.
Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).
This paper aims to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of experimental design and development in academic marketing since 1950.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of experimental design and development in academic marketing since 1950.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper does so by taking one experimental design, Latin Square, and describing its history and development within academic marketing in detail.
Findings
The Latin Square is a powerful experimental technique that first rose to prominence in agriculture in the 1920s and has remained a key tool in this discipline ever since. The technique was introduced into marketing in 1953, and enjoyed a period of great influence and popularity until 1973, when it abruptly disappeared from the publications of the discipline. Careful investigation of the research record of this period revealed that its demise was due to increasingly poor application method that led to compromised results, combined with an erroneous assignation of superior capabilities to full and fractional factorials that occurred at approximately the same time.
Practical implications
Two major implications arise from these findings. First, the discipline has incorrectly retired a tool that is still unmatched in some key research situations. Second, the errors that led to the technique's demise led to the rise of other techniques that do not have the capabilities that many researchers appear to think they have.
Originality/value
This is the first longitudinal historical case study of a single research technique that has appeared in print in a major journal, and it reveals aspects of the discipline's approach to science that could not have been illustrated in any other way.
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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of social capital to the literature on academic libraries as it pertains to leadership and management as well as to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of social capital to the literature on academic libraries as it pertains to leadership and management as well as to demonstrate the limitations that the current discursive use of the phrase “buy in” represents.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper brings critical insights from outside fields of intellectual inquiry, including business, knowledge management, computer and information systems, and sociology. The paper is organized around a series of questions posed at the end of the introduction and serves to introduce its audience to the key findings made in these fields as well as to apply relevant observations about social capital to the unique context of leadership and management in academic libraries.
Findings
The paper elucidates a number of limitations to the current practice of using the phrase “buy in” as a way of exploring the concept of social capital. The most significant risk that the phrase’s use incurs is a lack of context and clarity around critical concepts of leadership, including trust, trustworthiness, and shared vision and meaning.
Originality/value
This paper argues that a broader contextualization of “buy in” in the scholarship on social capital can lead to a richer dialog that allows academic library administrators to understand the concurrent and competing factors that accompany an exchange where “buy in” is given or withheld.
Details
Keywords
The new Management Team which is to take the new‐style Aslib into the 80's and beyond, is taking shape.
This article contributes to an emerging dialogue about how we can accelerate progress towards institutionalizing a commitment to campus environmental sustainability throughout the…
Abstract
This article contributes to an emerging dialogue about how we can accelerate progress towards institutionalizing a commitment to campus environmental sustainability throughout the university sector. It seeks to utilize progress made to date, in the field of “greening” universities, looking deeply into these experiences, to learn from them and to start revealing how they may inform us to move into the realm of widespread institutional transformation. It presents a range of insights, lessons learned and preferred approaches emerging from seven years of implementing campus environmental programs in universities both in Australia and the USA. Many of these ideas have been further informed during a Churchill Fellowship, spent investigating campus environment initiatives in over 30 universities in Europe and the USA. To assist in giving further weight to the material presented, it draws upon the work of a various authors of organizational change, leadership and management publications. The subject‐matter is wide‐ranging as it is intended as a starting‐point for the reader to pick and choose ideas that may warrant further investigation in their own university context. Even though many of the ideas presented need further exploration and development, in their current state they may prove of some value to the reader as a catalyst for a different level of institutional analysis.