knowledge audit final

Knowledge Audit: Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library

Kerri Rosalia

Management and Leadership in the Knowledge Domain; IKNS 4301

November 11, 2012

Client: Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library

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Executive Summary

The following is a knowledge audit of a suburban Public Library and specifically the Intranet for

the purposes of examining existing knowledge culture, knowledge/information flow, access to

explicit and tacit knowledge resources and knowledge management tools. The audit will

examine if knowledge management, services, and development can be enhanced with the

appropriate investment in an enhanced institutional Intranet.

____________________________________________________________________________

Audit Scope: Public Library Intranet

The following knowledge audit was undertaken to study the current Library Intranet

including departmental pages, contributors, and information/content. In addition to a

knowledge audit, a small information audit of content sources along with usage statistics

was completed as well. The scope will include a general overview of the institution to

contextualize the information presented with regard to KD/KS.

Specifically my analysis will look to identify inefficiencies in information flow and/or

knowledge gaps. I will create a knowledge management strategy for the Intranet and

related content. Recommendations will likely include capture of institutional information

and project data that is currently unstructured, in poorly accessible formats, or stored

across various platforms and software products.

“In most knowledge audits, the intention is to start small, with a named group or unit, but

once the project begins, the audit team can expect a considerable cross-functional

operational exchange of information, knowledge, and strategic learning references, a

situation that often requires a re-focus and a second look at resources committed to the

audit”, and clearly that has occurred in my audit. (St. Clair & Stanley, 2008) While I

originally set out to exclusively audit the Library Intranet, the quality and quantity of

knowledge resources which are shared through it or reside in it are reflective of the

knowledge culture of the broader institution. As such the scope of this audit has been

broadened to an institutional scope in some areas.


Relevant Stakeholders

For the purpose of this audit the following stakeholders were identified to target.

Board of Trustees (5)

Library administrators (2)

Director of the Information Technology Department (1)

o Senior programmer (1)

Library department managers (10 out of 10)

Sample of general staff (25 out of 200+)

Organization Summary

Overview

The Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library is a large suburban Library located in

Suffolk County, NY that has been in existence since 1974. The institution is considered a

small government municipality based on the public tax base funding structure and

original charter with New York State to operate. The Library serves over sixty-thousand

residents with a staff of over two hundred employees. A ten million dollar annual

operating budget and a four million dollar capital reserve budget cover operational and

capital costs.

Governance and Roles

The Library is governed by a five person elected Board who are granted ultimate

authority over the finances, personnel, and long term strategy for the institution. The

Library Director is employed to run the day-to-day operations, handling all the strategy

design and implementation, achievement of objectives, oversight of personnel issues,

finance, legal, human resources, public service plans, information technology planning

and implementation, budgeting, customer service, research services, community

outreach, project management, and general oversight.

Organizational Mission

The following represents the official mission statement of the Mastics-Moriches-Shirley

Community Library as adopted by the Board of Trustees.

The Library (Community) provides Technology, Learning and Culture – all personalized

with a caring, friendly and non-judgmental attitude.

The Library does this by giving accurate information, supplying cutting-edge technology,

and supporting and promoting lifelong learning, the arts, entertainment, cultural

awareness and intellectual freedom.


Library’s Slogan: Excellent Service Always

Organizational Philosophy

The Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Library (Community Library) Philosophy as adopted by the

Board of Trustees.

PHILOSPHY OF THE COMMUNITY LIBRARY

A philosophy of service constantly develops, broadens, grows, and changes. It is

useful from time to time, to evaluate where we are as an institution. What follows

is a summary of the Library’s current philosophy.

A community establishes a library to provide its public with service. Through its

elected representatives, the community itself decides what services it wants (and

is willing to pay for) and, to a large degree, how those services are to be

delivered.

After receiving input from the Trustees and the wider community, the staff

attempts to provide the type of service the public wants, in the manner the public

requires, as economically as possible. The Staff response is constrained only by

economic, legal and practical considerations.

That response should be two-fold. First, after ascertaining what the community

wants, resources are allocated by the priorities established by the public and

interpreted by the Library’s Board of Trustees. The collection is developed to

fulfill the needs of the public. It should not reflect the interest, biases, whims or

passions of the Staff, but should reflect those of the community, taken collectively

and in proportion.

Second, our public also decides the manner in which services are delivered.

What is convenient, comfortable, necessary, wanted, or expected by the

collective public always takes precedence over the way the staff would like to

deliver or is used to delivering services.

Organizational Purpose and Objectives

The following represents the official purpose statement as adopted by the Board of Trustees.

The Community Library’s purpose and function is to provide library service to the

entire population of the William Floyd Union Free School District. The wide variety of

services offered should give opportunity for the education, cultural enrichment and

development, recreation and entertainment of citizens of all ages from infancy through

the senior years.

Immediate objectives which will enable the Library to fulfill this purpose and


function are as follows:

I. To offer the services of the Library at a strategic location or locations through-

out the District so that all citizens have reasonable access to its facilities.

II. To provide general reading materials, audio-visual materials, reference and

information materials and other library services—including programs – for

all ages. The means to this end is to build a stronger collection of all

kinds of materials and make the Library an important center for

information.

III. To provide programs that will enlighten and enrich residents of all ages.

IV. To improve and enhance the public image of the Library in the community

and acquaint the public with its many services.

V. To strengthen and improve the library staff so that the best possible services

are delivered.

Organizational Knowledge Culture

Philosophically the public library as an institution was founded on the ideal of shared information

and access to the world’s knowledge. Library employees are trained to capture, organize, store,

and share information/transfer knowledge with/to our customers. Employees utilize both tacit

and explicit knowledge transfer. The culture readily supports knowledge sharing and transfer

when and where information/knowledge is codified, or where there is a traditional process/role.

(ex., staff is quite comfortable recording an oral history related to our local history, entering the

media file into a CONTENTdm™ system (CMS), assigning metadata for indexing and search,

and publishing to the Web. Resources are located on our public facing web site

http://www.communitylibrary.org/Adult/localhistory.aspx.) Employees do not currently undertake

any activity to capture their own tacit knowledge to share across the institution or with the

greater community they serve.

There are many reasons why knowledge is not being readily shared within the

institution. This can include: a lack of trust; different cultures, vocabularies,

frames of reference; lack of time and meeting places, narrow idea of productive

work; status and rewards going to knowledge owners; lack of absorptive capacity

in recipients; belief that knowledge is the prerogative of particular group;

intolerance for mistakes or need for help”. (Davenport & Prusak, 1998)

Where knowledge resides tacitly with employees the institution fails to capture that knowledge in

any codified way for future reuse or sharing. In conducting this audit it became clear to the

auditor that this will be a recommendation in the Knowledge Strategy.

The institution is segmented into ten major departments as represented in the organizational

chart (See Appendix A) It is apparent there is some level of information and knowledge sharing

taking place across the departments utilizing different mediums of communication including the

Library Intranet. The benefits of KD/KS have not been well articulated or supported by

http://www.communitylibrary.org/Adult/localhistory.aspx


administration at this time. Employees are making an effort to collaborate on work utilizing

Google Drive and other cloud-based consumer focused product. More could be done to

increase and improve knowledge sharing. This will require a commitment from leadership to

organizational learning, change management, transformational leadership, and an investment in

a technology infrastructure to support the change.

Technology and Infrastructure Capacities

The following represents an overview of the Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library technology infrastructure as prepared by the Network Administrator, Dan Costa. There is a serious need to rewire the facility with Cat 6 cabling, redirecting cabling to central wire drops and closets. The clients and servers are on a technology rotation replacement schedule and are kept current. There are adequate financial resources allocated to technology upgrades in the operating budget to purchase a product such as Microsoft SharePoint ™ or a competitive groupware product.

o Network: ISP - Verizon Business, currently a dedicated 20 Mbps. Planned

upgrade to a dedicated 30 Mbps line, Verizon Business… date to be determined)

o Firewall provided by Fortinet (Fortigate 100D).

o Web content filter provided by Fortinet (Fortigate 100D)

o Wiring: mixed Cat 5 and Cat 5e

Switches are small business Linksys and/or Netgear. Closet mounted

switches are Gigabit, there are several 10/100 switches near endpoints in

offices

o Secured Wireless

Powered by 5 Cisco business level devices

Connected to our private wired network

WPA-2 secured

Broadcasting on a/g wireless

o Public Wireless

Internet provided by Cablevision “power to learn”.

Cable (shared) max 20Mbps line.

5 Netgear/Linksys home devices around the library are broadcasting the

open wireless

g/n wireless networks available

This network is unfiltered

o Servers

o 10 physical servers

o An additional 6 virtual servers split between two physical servers

o Operating systems include:

Windows server 2003 R2

Windows server 2003 R2 64bit

Windows server 2008 R2

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit

o Clients


o Approximately 210 clients (staff and patron, desktops and laptops combined)

o Approximately 95 staff machines, approximately 115 patron machines (including

10 web OPACS)

o OS is mixed from Window XP up to Windows 7. There about seven Windows

Vista Laptops

o Antivirus on Staff Computers is Kaspersky Endpoint Protection version 6 or 8.

o Patron desktops/laptops are using Faronics Deep-Freeze.

o Productivity suite is currently MS Office 2007 professional Plus

o We also have about 14 Ipad 2’s and about 15 Ipods. Each public service

department had a staff Ipad as well (5).

o We have three public copiers and six private. One public fax.

o We have three b/w and three color public printers. 14 staff network printers (five

of which are copiers too)

o Web: Two physical web servers, one virtual.

o All websites were hand written using the free Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2007,

2008, or 2010. Graphics were edited with Photoshop CS3

o Public website is running on Server 2003 iis6.

From Google analytics from October 2011 to October 2012:

115,211 Unique visitors

265,738 Visits

600,930 page views

2.26 pages/visit

Average visit duration: 3min 37sec

Approximately 300 active pages

o Friends of the Arts – Library 501c 3 website is running on Server 2003 IIS 6

From Google analytics from October 2011 to October 2012

783 Unique Visitors

926 Visits

1,801 Page views

1.94 Pages/visit

Average visit duration: 1min 15sec

12 active pages

o Intranet staff pages running on Server 2008 r2 IIS 7.5 & (virtual) Ubuntu server

Apache 2

Running Wordpress (10 blogs) – open source blog software (on ubuntu)

Dokuwiki - open source wiki software (on ubuntu)

IIS portion approximately 40 active pages

o Security:

o Network Security :

Network resources are protected by an Active Directory domain

username/password

Private wireless is protected by WPA-2 password encryption

Fortinet firewall & virus intrusion protection on the perimeter of our

network


o Website Security:

Geotrust SSL certificate protecting & verifying our secure sites, including

the program registration payment sections

o Program Registration e-commerce

o Provided/processed by authorize.net

o Site secured by Geotrust SSL certificate

o Digital Signage

o Powered by Xibo – open source signage software.

o Meeting Room Technology

o Smartboard (1)

o Two mobile projectors and two mounted projectors

Organizational Structure:

o See Appendix A: Organizational Chart

Public Library Industry SWOT Analysis

The great American institution of the Public Library has a strong foundation in information and

knowledge sharing and transfer. Explicit knowledge in form of books, periodicals, databases,

and media line the shelves and pervade the computer networks in the form of reference

databases. Public Librarians filter information resources for the public through subjective

collection development. They are charged with providing timely and authoritative resources on a

broad range of subjects. Many act as SME’s for the internal and external customers, as well as

within the consortium in which they operate. Communities of Practice in public libraries abound

both informally and formally. Some formal CoPs are comprised of staffers brought together for

specific projects, systems, or processes while informal CoPs develop around staffers who

gravitate to each other based upon similar interests, work tasks, or challenges at hand such as

outreach services, digital services, services to a specific demographic group [teens, seniors,

etc], literacy services and more. CoPs extend beyond traditional departmental boundaries,

drawing members from across the institution and the broader regional library consortium. Most

are informal and supported by management.

Public Libraries are customer focused service business and are ever moving toward a demand driven model for collection development, technology services/support, programming and education. Based on Michael Porter’s description of different strategies it seems the Public Library strategy is implicit. (Porter, 2008)

Strengths

Libraries offer a unique and encompassing service to the residents of their community in a cost effective manner. They partner with other libraries in their geographic areas to gain efficiency in providing digital information and databases, delivery of materials, centralized staff training, shared software platforms and more. Savings are realized through economies of scale. The last few years have brought an acceptance and move


toward outsourcing of certain processes as well as a heavy investment in shared technology for materials management (RFID).

Weakness

As consumers demand more of their resources (both informational and recreational) in digital format libraries struggle to compete with commercial enterprises that provide content. Libraries must contend with limited supply and products that are subject to DRM. E-books and streaming media offer immediate gratification through commercial providers. Libraries are struggling to provide digital content utilizing an outdated lending model fraught with wait times. Confounding the situation are publishers who are concerned with DRM and new revenue streams and refuse to make titles available to public libraries at all. The big six publishers who control the high demand author are squeezing out the middleman. Libraries will need to find a way to gain access to the most popular materials in digital format or they will cease to remain an effective provider of these materials to the consumer.

Opportunities

There is an opportunity to re-define the Public Library and its services through strategy and deliverables while the core values remain the same. The Public Library remains a source of filtered/faceted information and knowledge resources that was designed as the “people’s college”. Their mission is to make knowledge and information available to the people in a democratic fashion. Through the explosion of data, information sources, e-resources, and mobile computing, the Library has the opportunity to assist with information overload, technology training, literacy services, and community based programming. Outreach efforts continue to expand as library staff is distributed in a de-centralized model into the business, government organizations, schools, community partners, and more. Library facilities function as community centers, one of the last great public places…the community resident’s “third place”.

Success is defined by maintaining public support, and branching out into our community in new ways that help redefine our role. Libraries are actively embedding our services within partnering agencies and groups, adding value to their organizational goals.

Threats

The Library industry is undergoing rapid transformation as consumers are increasingly obtaining information, education and entertainment directly from the providers in a digital and mobile format. Professional Librarian’s position of being the information experts working repositories of all types of media has shifted. Today they aggressively try to compete with consumer based information resources such as WebMD, Wikipedia, and on-demand providers. Libraries are constantly practicing abandonment and realigning their strategy, services, and deliverables to rapidly respond to market challenges. There is a threat that the public will conclude their limited tax dollars could be spent for a different purpose, or perhaps not spent at all. The recently enacted NYS Property Tax Cap limits tax revenue increases to two-percent or CPI, whichever is lower. Decreasing revenues and increasing fixed costs pose a threat to public institutions in general.


Change management has become the norm as our business must remain agile and adapt to unprecedented market challenges. Leadership is challenged with maintaining trust and shared vision with the Board, customers and staff of the institution. Many resist the substantial changes and challenges we face, clinging to past practice, strategies, market positions, and activities that are no longer relevant to the public we serve.

Leaders are acting as change agents, re-defining strategy and a course of action for the short and long term future. Defining the role of the public library for the next generation of customers and financial supporters is consuming a great deal of time. Management is charged with selling the new reality of public library collections, programs, and service to our internal and external customers. Transformational leadership combined with change management skills is pivotal to the future of our industry. The threat exists that we will not be successful and the concept of the public library will be abandoned by the public themselves. Lack of relevancy and perceived need are tangible threats as well.

In relation to Porter’s Five Forces we see biggest risk that public libraries face in general are multifold. The threat of entrants is high. Low cost, high speed, business models are gaining consumer favor which leads to conjecture as to the need for public library services in today’s digital marketplace. This ties directly to a high threat of substitutes as consumer generated information and ready access to online resources replaces professional staff knowledge and traditional reference materials. The “products” Libraries provided as middlemen are now available to consumers directly. As much of Libraries do is reliant on the skills of Information Technology staff the threat of supplier power is also high. It is difficult to attract and retain highly skilled staff most of whom will command higher salaries in the for-profit arena. Buyer power is also high as consumers have ready access to free products and information (Spotify, Wikipedia, WebMD, et al) (Porter, 2008).

Our Business in the Marketplace:

Where Do Public Libraries Compete?

We compete with regional libraries and for-profit providers of print and digital content. Information consumers today have unprecedented access to digitally streaming media, cloud-based content, downloadable books, and personal mobile technologies. Finding answers to questions and gaining access to the world’s knowledge has never been easier. Immediate gratification is the norm which is not a model that public libraries have been able to adopt. Public Libraries are competing with companies such as Amazon, Spotify, Apple, and crowd-sourced reference tools such as Wikipedia.

How Do Public Libraries Win and Sustain?

Through differentiation from regional libraries, and by offering free access to products that compete with the low-cost immediate access of commercial providers. Libraries work to stay on the competitive edge of supply by providing in-library and remote access to online products through our web page such as:

o Zinio (online magazines); o Freegal (downloadable music); o Overdrive (downloadable audio and e-books); o Proprietary databases; (online periodicals)


Lend hardware to access all these materials free of charge. Among the offerings are laptops, e-readers, tablet computers, and more.

Codify and make explicit the knowledge of the organization and a portion of the community’s knowledge in relation to local history, events, et al

How Do Public Libraries Adapt and Sustain Competitive Advantage?

Provide access to high quality and quantity of print and digital materials with highly personalized services

Contract with third party vendors to aggregate digital services for residents obtaining high value due to economy of scale

Codify knowledge and give access to “local” content that is not available in the for-profit arena, and “local” conversations on social media

Encourage the community to create knowledge providing residents access to content creation tools/training, and the platform to share information they create

Build strong partnerships with organizations that can’t do this for themselves. Focus on local history projects that make tacit knowledge explicit. (for example, recorded oral histories with long-time residents, digitization of local civic, historical, and service organizations)

Build customer loyalty to ensure continued tax support through outstanding customer service; market one-on-one personal assistance as a value added proposition

Invest heavily in continuing education for staff particularly in the area of digital technology and communication and knowledge capture and creation

Select and implement DRM or ERS as well as a groupware tool to improve our ability to harness our own knowledge and share it with internal and external customers

Implement a change management philosophy to remain agile in the marketplace Adopt mission statements, goals, and objectives that align with strategic plans reflective

of the changing market conditions

Current Intranet Analysis

Third party vendors typically supply the information architecture and access systems that the

public/students/corporate clients see when they are looking for information in the public library.

At this time there are a limited number of information/knowledge assets created by the Library

staff themselves. Many of the content repositories are not accessible in a digital format or

through search, thus remain largely unused.

The Library currently has one Intranet that was created by IT staff to improve access through

wiki/blog/web tools to a small subset of internal documents that have been deemed crucial to

all, such as:

Policies (public and staff)

Emergency manual

Human resources

o PTO forms

o Time card management software

Meeting room management calendar


Communication Tools

o Management blog

o Staff blog

Department blogs

Department schedules

Department by department knowledge resources

FAQ’s (Adult Services)

e-book how-to’s (Children’s Services)

Library app information (Digital Services)

Digital subscription information (Digital Services and Adult)

Departmental emergency procedures (Children’s Services)

Job descriptions (Teen pages)

Employee Information

o Employee contact list (includes photographs, phone #, email, birthday)

o Employee benefit information

o Employee newsletter

o Employee suggestion form/link

Links to Library Web Page third party content repositories

Links to Library catalogue

Links to regional Library consortium web services

Security incident logs

Documents that reside on the Intranet are in Adobe format, or hyper-linked and are do not have

any custom metadata attached. They are accessed by a hierarchical taxonomy. Procedures are

posted by department managers in blogs and are not efficiently available for reuse. Important

information is exclusively available in one department rather than in a central content repository

for all to access. The site does not have a search engine or search feature. Documents that are

included are not indexed, have no metadata attached, etc. Ironically the one knowledge

resource we created “Library Link” a director of local resources and agencies is only available

on our public web page yet its primary function is as a staff tool.


Intranet SWOT Analysis

The following analysis relates to both the existing and proposed Intranet.

Strengths Weaknesses

High visibility to staff and administration Single access point for information and knowledge Improved work efficiencies

Staff training may be extensive for less skilled employees (student workers, clerical staff) Maintenance of site needed Content monitoring necessary Adherence to taxonomy/metadata schema monitoring necessary

Threats Lack of content resulting from low staff adoption Knowledge hoarding precludes sharing, lack of trust Funding required, resources limited Technology becomes obsolete Low demand

Opportunities Build partnerships across institution Increase collaboration Reduce costs resulting from staff looking for information/knowledge High reuse potential Staff elevation among peers Staff rewarded for sharing

Information Flow

o See Appendix B: Knowledge Flow Map

Tools and Investments Made by Organization to Improve Flow

The library invested in labor costs related to Information Technology staff creating an Intranet site to improve access to information and improve communication. There has not been an investment in groupware or any content management system for internal assets.

Currently there is no digital access to internal information assets of the library such as:

personnel records; board meeting agendas, minutes, and supporting documents; original

invoices from vendors; project documentation and residual project "knowledge".

The Library does have a document management system (CONTENTdm ™) however the

system is only utilized to capture and give access to local history files, documents, oral

histories and the like for external customers.

User Opinions of the Intranet – See Appendix C: Stakeholder Surveys


Knowledge Resources

Following the basic principles of knowledge codification as described by Prusak and Davenport managers must decide what knowledge employees have and what knowledge to codify (1998). The following knowledge was identified during the course of this audit.

People Based (Tacit)

Institutional history

Project management information

Contextualized service information

Management techniques and best practices

Technology skills and process knowledge

Standard operating procedures

Organizational progress towards strategic goals and objective in context.

Cataloguing and technical processing best practices

IT best practices.

The first step in any knowledge management program is to identify where knowledge is being created, where it already exists and where it is needed to support decisions and actions. Organisations that have not yet developed a strategy for managing their knowledge, or those that have a strategy in place that could be working better are in an ideal position to go back to basics and find out exactly what knowledge they need to manage to gain a competitive advantage using an established information management methodology. (Henzcel, 2000)

Most of the library knowledge is being created by administration and management. Library administrators and managers posses a high degree of tacit knowledge and information. Communication of information and knowledge with non-managerial employees is lacking. The current Intranet and management blog posting function more as online bulletin boards, conveying data and facts required for compliance or HR issues. There is not an appropriate means or method to deliver strategic information, project updates, or evolving objectives and goals. The main method of communicating this information is through face-to-face staff meetings and “water cooler discussions”. As the institution is open sixty-two hours per week over seven days it is almost impossible to gather all the staff together to share information this way. There are tremendous knowledge gaps between what leadership/management knows and what non-managerial staff knows. This is a pressing issue for the institution as it is undergoing tremendous change and relies on the employees to help facilitate the changes and embrace them. There is no appropriate way to share documents, studies or project information across the existing network. At best folders that reside on the servers are “shared” with specific staffers.

Content Based (Explicit)

Contracts and licenses

Employee information and data

Official Library records (minutes, financial statements, financial audits)

Library records

Project management documents

Business communications (letters, emails, blog postings)

Demographic data about customers


Business statistics

Transactional data relating to our ILS

Transactional data relating to our Web page, Intranet, Social Media outlets

Budget data

Computer logs

Marketing and public relations information

Federal and state reports

Databases (See Appendix D)

Functions and Positions that Organize and Improve the Flow of Information Assets

Library administrators and the IT staff have a direct impact on knowledge creation, information

asset development and the flow of information to the internal and external customers. All work

related to the original designing of the Intranets was done by IT staff without substantive input

from other staff.

Findings and Knowledge Audit Recommendations

Current Knowledge Management Practices in the Organization

As stated earlier, Library lacks a document management system or electronic records system for internal purposes. The lack of facilitated access to internal assets results in management and administrators spending valuable time searching for information through print files or across network folders. The lack of structure and governance for record lifecycle makes record retention compliance a labor intensive affair. There is little to no employee engagement in the creation and sharing of knowledge based in part on the absence of these platforms. Employees are not engaged in the process of formal knowledge creation and we see they are not adding value to what does exist.

The public library is clearly a social sector institution devised for the public good. “The decision

workers face regarding whether to participate in knowledge related activities has been

compared to a classical public good dilemma, with the knowledge workers have access to in

their own organizations being considered a public good” (Hislop, 2009) The challenge remains

for leadership and management to encourage and champion knowledge sharing within the

institution. The concept of a knowledge culture and KD/KS to achieve strategic goals should be

a logical fit.

Current Impediments to KM Success

As mentioned in the introduction, based on interviews I conducted, we know our managerial staff spends up to twenty percent of their time looking for information that is not digitized, indexed, searchable, faceted, filterable, or readily shareable. This inefficient utilization of time distracts from employee ability to focus on customer engagement and project implementation. Staff is engaged in tasks and process that can be improved with the aid of technology and knowledge management tools.


Content is stored onsite and offsite in print format

Library owns the content and has full access to it

Governance structure is in place related to the required retention of information according to New York State records retention laws for municipalities

Redundant storage is an important consideration as part of the institution’s disaster plan

Although some knowledge is codified but there is a lack of personalization. Management and staff do not have an efficient way to share codified knowledge with others in the organization

Our plan must involve the digitalization of records; creating a taxonomy for indexing and metadata; as well as finding tools such as an internal search interface/engine

In addition to the formal taxonomy we will consider enabling certain classes of employees to tag documents and create context knowledge in a shared database. Employees who can share lessons learned related to large projects will be able to do so

Knowledge Management Goals

The goal of a KM plan is to improve employee and customer experience and operations through the creation of knowledge management tools. The KM Intranet project will improve access to our own internal knowledge, and improve efficiencies in process with the addition of a stronger information technology infrastructure. The creation of knowledge management tools through the codification of information and knowledge will support our further goal to improve collaboration among employees through a groupware product.

Short-Term Goals

o Improved process and efficiency in locating institutional information and knowledge

o Governance and policy outlined by management and board of trustees o Information technology staff heavily involved in evaluation, selection and

implementation of technology to support the KM strategy o Improve worker engagement in the process of creating knowledge o Data will be tagged to create useful information o Managers will have ready access to internal documents they need as part of

their daily work o Share knowledge across the institution and with the customers through

social platforms where possible

Long Term Goals/Outcomes

o Realize a substantial return on investment in labor costs saved and improved efficiencies

o Management and leaders in the corporation can reallocate their time to align with our strategic goals, utilizing knowledge management to support them

o Achieve long-term sustainable access to internal knowledge and information that can be codified and contextualized


o Business performance outcomes improve as our processes for retrieving information will be streamlined and more efficient

o Personalization strategy will improve our social process through the sharing of knowledge internally and externally

o The institution will be positioned to push personalized knowledge and information to employees and customers

o Metrics will be developed to gauge internal and external adoption and participation in the knowledge management project

o Continue the practice and reinforce the value of change management while remaining agile in the marketplace

As illustrated in the following graphic, developing a KM strategy and governance plan is a pre-

requisite to moving forward with other KM initiatives. Once the strategy and governance are

clearly articulated, and there is leadership buy-in, data and information created by the

employees need to be codified. Processes should be evaluated and technical platforms should

be put in place to support the information/knowledge needs. Only then can various initiatives

take place to work collaboratively, share and transfer knowledge, and contribute to the

knowledge repositories.

Remembering “information technology is only the pipeline and storage system for knowledge

exchange. It does not create knowledge and cannot guarantee or even promote knowledge

generation or knowledge sharing” (Davenport & Prusak, 1998), the Library Board and

administration must be sure that through transformational leadership and KD/KS champions

they proceed with the following recommendations to ensure success.

Graphic IKNS 4300


KM Strategy and Governance

Before undertaking any expense related to technology solutions or major project management

costs:

Gain administrative support and the resources necessary to implement

recommendations

Redefine the mission of the institution to meet current industry trends and the

expectations of customers.

Redefine goals and objectives to align with the mission and are SMART (Specific,

measurable, attainable, realistic, time bound ),

Identify opportunities that exist as stated in the SWOT analysis and determine how the

new Intranet (Knowledge Nexus) will aide in taking advantage of those opportunities.

Align the KM initiatives with the vision, mission, values, goals and objectives of the

institution.

Commit to explicit and tacit knowledge sharing, particularly between Library

administrators and managers and general staff. Consider online meeting forums

embedded in the intranet to enable staff to participate from remote locations.

Meet the knowledge management mission of convening others by forming a community

of practice around the project including internal and external customers

Identify change agents and early adopters in each department to support the process

Engage staff at all levels in the re-design of the Intranet and creation of KM tools through

feedback and input into the new system design and organization.

Clearly identify and share the value of the new system over the old.

The knowledge audit, if it is successful, will be thought of as a “living” process, and the

procedure will be looked at on a regular basis, with up-dating as required, and treated as

a standard management tool. (St. Clair & Stanley, 2008)

Support Organizational Learning by formally creating/supporting communities of practice

around strategic areas of the services and functions of the Library

Promote a knowledge sharing culture with recognition and incentives

KM Content and Structure (Includes Information Audit recommendations)

There is substantial work to be done on the data/information front before KM initiatives can be

completely effective. Data cannot become information that is transformed to knowledge made

explicitly available if it is not captured in the first place. The following recommendations are

made based upon the information audit that was conducted.

Begin assigning metadata to internal documents with the use of a controlled vocabulary.

Require employees to save work-related documents in a central repository. Without this

centralization employees will make it impossible for others to find and benefit from their

information.

Develop a schema for internal documentation or use one the Library already have

access to (MARC, Dublin Core)


Develop curatorial and governance policies for internal documents

Begin assigning metadata to internal documents that fit curatorial and governance

policies

Utilize LOC authority files for controlled vocabulary subject metadata

Develop a faceted taxonomy to achieve relevant search results in the future

Create internal document content repositories to eliminate employees looking for their

own information/knowledge resource

Digitize and make accessible institutional knowledge and information content that is

currently in an unstructured format or stored across multiple platforms

Link explicit information to the Intranet (databases, journals, etc)

KM Technical Platform

Make information/knowledge access more efficient through the redevelopment of the

Intranet. Solicit employee feedback and assistance in development of the new product to

align with strategic goals through a formal CoP

Purchase groupware to facilitate collaboration

Develop an expert locator KM tool identifying staff by language spoken, educational

background, advanced certifications, technology skill (ex. Drupal, XML, Dublin Core,

Photoshop, Wordpress and SMEs)

Include social networking tools on platform that include “digital incentives” for staff who

contribute knowledge

Make search available on the site

Create a “lessons learned” tool for sharing experience and knowledge. This should

include both explicit and tacit knowledge particularly focused on project management

topics.

Create an internal helpdesk for IT requests on the Intranet. These range from supply

requests to new hardware/software purchases. Technology services are at the core of

the new Public Library. Utilize the technology to improve the process by which requests

are generated and filled. Develop an FAQ for the IT department to shift routine questions

and tacit answers into an explicit format.

Enable RSS feeds for customization “My MMSCL”, similar to MyPfizerWorld as

developed by Bob Libby enabling users to customize the information, knowledge

repositories, and resources that are “pushed rather than pulled”.

Expand self service by “enabling administrative processes to be reengineered

particularly in the HR area and migrated online via the Intranet. This can make the

process far more cost efficient (and effective) for the organization and the users (IBF,

2008). Enabling the request for PTO, professional travel, and reimbursements are likely

processes to be considered for reengineering. HR staff can “spend up to 80% of their

workday administering benefits and answering routine questions (IBF, 2008).

Develop and HR FAQ knowledge tool that transfers the routine, repeatable work from

HR staff to a technological solution or purchase a product that incorporates explicit

knowledge in HR.


Archive Library and staff newsletters on the Intranet for rapid access and retrieval.

Improve usability of the existing Intranet. “According to a recent study by Accenture,

middle managers spend more than a quarter of their time searching for information

necessary to their jobs (IBF, 2008). Find out through survey tools and face-to-face

interviews what our managers need to meet their objectives and goals.

Consider the concept of “gamification” with digital reward embedded in employee

profiles. (Carey, 2012).

Establishing of e-training through the Intranet to improve process efficiency and reduce

costs.

Establishing an e-procurement process through the Intranet to improve process

efficiency and reduce cost.

Future Knowledge Management Initiative Concepts:

Whether located on the Intranet or on both the Intranet and the Extranet:

Add user tagging, crowd sourcing, folksonomy in addition to the structured taxonomy

Utilizing the document asset management software and collaboration platform for community documents and media (local history photos, oral histories of residents, capture/search/access to primary documents related to local history. This expansion of the project would:

o Offer an external knowledge management share component o Enable social network expansion to build customer loyalty through

engagement o Allow for the capture, tag, organize and store of community knowledge

assets, and the knowledge of the long-term community residents for historical purposes

o Improve the likelihood of spontaneous collaboration with unknown networks in the community (historical society’s, businesses and residents, civic groups, government agencies)

Improve customer engagement through participation

Design metrics to measure participation, uploads and downloads to document added value to the project

Perceived Risks of a Knowledge Management Initiative:

Perceived time intensive start competing for valuable employee resources

Perceived scope and budget and the allocation of budgetary resources for the projects may be criticized

Compliance/legal issues related to the Freedom of Information Law

Access to some portions of the knowledge management project and tools will be limited to management and directors due to compliance issues. This may discourage general employee participation and engagement

Time line for implementation may be perceived as long


Conclusion Fully integrating KD/KS into the Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library present a number of challenges that will require transformational leadership, excellent change management skills, support and championing of services from management and leadership, project management related to the overhaul and potential acquisition and implementation of software to achieve the goals, the project is quite achievable. There is a high likelihood of success as many employees are information professionals and knowledge workers. They have an inherent understanding and appreciation for the projected benefits of undertaking this project.

For information professionals, specialist librarians, and other knowledge workers, the future looks bright. They are - or will become - the knowledge thought leaders, knowledge consultants, and knowledge coaches for their parent organizations. They recognize that putting KM to work is critical to their and their organizations’ success, and they delight in bringing a practical approach to their work through the convergence of information management, knowledge management, and strategic learning. As organizational leadership and management come to understand the relationship between technology and knowledge and to understand better the relationships between quality in knowledge transfer and organizational success, knowledge services—as a management and service delivery methodology—becomes the route to that success. These information professionals are prepared and ready to play their part, leading their organizations in the creation of knowledge value through KD/KS. (St. Clair & Stanley, 2009)

There is alignment with the institution’s overall values, missions and goals. A fully developed Knowledge Strategy will be developed for the library to further explore implementation of the new Library Intranet which will foster KD/KS and serve as the “Knowledge Nexus” for the organization (St. Clair & Stanley, 2009).

In conclusion, an investment in the technological infrastructure to support a knowledge management initiative at the Library will result in improved process, improved efficiencies, conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge, improved access and sharing of knowledge and will convene others to participate in the strategic goals of the institution. These initiatives are deemed critical in this time of rapid change in the marketplace requiring our institution to remain agile. The KM project will enable more efficient utilization of employee time. As seventy-five percent of our operating budget is allocated to employee costs the return on investment may be substantial.


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28-29

Davenport, T., & Prusak, L. (1998). Working knowledge. President and Fellows of Harvard

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Henzcel, S. (2000). The information audit as a first step toward effective knowledge

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Hislop, D. (2009). Knowledge management in organizations: A critical introduction. (2nd ed.).

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IBF. (2008, August). 12 ways to use your intranet to cut costs [Online forum briefing]. Retrieved

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Porter, Michael E. "The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy." Special Issue on HBS

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knowledge culture. Retrieved from

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http://vizedhtmlcontent.next.ecollege.com/CurrentCourse/Henzcel_KnowledgeAudit.pdf

http://www.ibforum.com/experience-ibf/ibf-shop/free-report-12-ways-to-use-your-intranet-to-cut-costs/

http://www.ibforum.com/experience-ibf/ibf-shop/free-report-12-ways-to-use-your-intranet-to-cut-costs/

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