Knowledge management (KM) is increasingly becoming important for organisations to enhance
their competitive advantage, performance and to become more effective. Academic institutions
and academic libraries, in particular, have come to the realisation that they too can benefit from
knowledge management and are increasingly looking to adopt appropriate means to effectively
manage their knowledge resources so as to improve the services rendered to their patrons.
Knowledge management systems (KMS) are suitable means for academic libraries to manage
knowledge and enable the processes of creation, storage, sharing and application of knowledge.
While issues related to the design and implementation of knowledge management systems have
been widely discussed within various sectors such as the business sector, there is a paucity of
research pertaining to KMS implementation in academic libraries yet libraries have started to use
several technologies for KM without putting certain issues that are critical to the successful
implementation into consideration. Therefore, this study, puts forwards the idea of a KMS in
Makerere University Library, exploring several aspects with the aim of discovering how the
library can successfully implement a knowledge management system and in so doing explore
the readiness of Makerere University Library to implement a KMS. An exploratory study was
done adopting the qualitative research approach with Makerere University Library as the case
study. The study involved interviews with eight library staff members in the librarian and IT staff
categories that were purposively selected to provide information to the study.
The major findings from the study revealed that, the majority of library staff at Makerere
University Library understand the meaning of knowledge and knowledge management concepts
though more training is still needed to clarify these concepts to some staff that do not have a
clear understanding of the two concepts. The study also revealed that, the technological
infrastructure of the library needs to be updated to support the KMS implementation. Other
factors discovered that are key for the successful KMS design and implementation include:
library management support, KMS budget, library culture, KM strategy, policies and guidelines,
rewards and incentives. The study also identified benefits of a KMS for the library as well as
challenges that the library may face in implementing a KMS. Finally, the study puts forward
recommendations in the form of strategies for the library to successfully implement a KMS. / Mini Dissertation (MIT)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Information Science / MIT / Unrestricted
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:up/oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/62110 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Manafu, Sylvia |
| Contributors | Schutte, Marietjie |
| Publisher | University of Pretoria |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Mini Dissertation |
| Rights | © 2017 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. |
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