Brendan Loughridge
Introduction
This article considers some of the principles and practices commonly associated with ``knowledge management ' ' (KM) in so far as they seem to be of potential importance or relevance to library and information professionals. Competing claims and counterclaims about KM as expressed in a selection of recent professional and academic publications are reviewed, though a truly comprehensive survey of the topic would, as Holtham (1997) suggests, have to take into account the domains of information systems strategies, information policies, computer science, knowledge-based and expert systems, the economics of information and knowledge, intellectual capital, human resource management and organisational culture and learning. While various definitions, or attempted definitions, of KM are quoted or referred to, the complex conceptual and epistemological aspects of, for example, the meanings of and relationships between data, information, knowledge, expertise, know-how and wisdom, which are often confused or ignored altogether in much of the literature of KM, are beyond the scope of this article (but see, for example, McGarry (1993) and Badenoch et al. (1994) for interesting discussions of these topics). Although terms like ``knowledge economy ' ', ``knowledge worker ' ' and ``knowledge management ' ' have been in circulation for a considerable time, there appears still to be no real consensus of opinion about how, and to what extent, KM differs clearly from and/or represents an advance or improvement on established librarianship or, more specifically, information management or information resources management theory and practice (see Drucker,1967; 1969; Machlup, 1980; Svieby and Lloyd, 1987). There are also differing views about both the validity of the conceptual foundation and framework so far developed for KM and the claims made for it as a major
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