Knowledge Management Practices at Goethe Institute Libraries Worldwide

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Zafar, Anil

Affiliations: Senior Library Associate, Bibliographic Representative, Library of Congress Habib University Foundation Karachi, Pakistan (Consultant), E-mail: Anil.zafar@huf.org.pk; Anil82.zafar@gmail.com

Abstract: This paper presents a case study of the present Knowledge Management practices at the Goethe Institute (GI) Libraries or Information centres. GI Libraries are serving as Public Libraries and because of their dynamic features, they invite everyone from all over the world to get information and knowledge about German culture, politics, society, and education. In this paper, I have studied explicit and tacit knowledge practices in GI Libraries. This paper mainly focuses on the concept of KM at GI Libraries in managing the knowledge and information in the digital environment. Research methodology obtained in this paper about theoretical and technical KM with the implementations of WEB 2.0 as a KM tool used by the GI Libraries are totally through the Email Questionnaire from GI libraries and GI websites. This paper also shows and explains how tacit and explicit knowledge are managed and distributed under the umbrella of social networking tools, WEB 2.0 Technology, and other networking tracks by Goethe- Institute Libraries. The implementation of KM concept and practices at GI has the potential of improving customer services by quickly providing new authentic information to communities of different nations. GI Libraries and their librarians convert the intellectual assets of workers and staff members in the organization into higher productive forces.

Keywords: Knowledge management, Explicit knowledge, Tacit knowledge, Information centres, Intranet, Web 2.0

DOI: 10.3233/WDL-120104

Journal: World Digital Libraries - An international journal, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 93-100, 2013