Delivering 'Information Capability':
The Application of Knowledge Management in the Defence Library Service¹

Abstract

The paper describes an initiative of the Defence Library Service (DLS) to develop a knowledge management application in collaboration with a commercial partner. The application, called the Research Information Manager (or RIM-r), applies many of the features of Lotus Notes to facilitate research work and provide related management information. RIM-r captures, stores and indexes both explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge accumulated in this process. Using Notes' embedded networking capabilities, the contents of RIM-r are made available at selected DLS sites, transforming it into a shared, actionable resource. The application is designed around a set of five functions: contact management, request tracking, a resource catalogue, a research advisory system and electronic publishing. RIM-r is considered relevant to any organisation conducting research that requires comprehensive management information on this activity.

Introduction

In confronting and defeating external threats against Australia and its people, military capability is everything.² Capability is very expensive. The Australian Defence Organisation is presently involved in a major re-organisation that will transfer 1 billion dollars in savings from rationalizing support and administrative arrangements to the acquisition of new capability. Increasingly, capability derives from access to the latest commercial, geo-political, scientific and technical information and having "knowledge workers"³ capable of assimilating and applying this information to give Defence the "knowledge edge". The DLS, Defence's key provider of open source information, must itself respond to this change by delivering new 'information capability'. This involves discarding the essentially passive task of data retrieval and partnering our "knowledge worker" clientele by locating, authenticating, synthesising and interpreting information on their behalf. There is no real option to remain a bystander in this internal revolution. That path can only lead to certain and quick extinction.

In the DLS, this transition has been given significant impetus through an innovative knowledge management (KM) application called the Research Information Manager (RIM-r). RIM-r is intended to provide 'end-to-end' support for the research process. At its core is an online repository of research case histories. DLS reference librarians create these case histories and use the application to manage their workloads and share insights on search methods, the relevance and quality of sources and more. DLS management uses RIM-r to gain insights into the patterns of research demand and to better support the process and the people involved. This paper presents the work-centred view of KM and KM software underpinning RIM-r. It describes RIM-râs development and changing business drivers, its current functionality, its development environment and benefits, presents the lessons learned from its development and highlights planned future changes to the product.

"Knowledge Management: Great Concept·But What Is It⁵·"

Knowledge management (KM), the latest entity conjured up by the consultancy "witch doctors"⁶, is the subject of vociferous debate. In the computing, management and library literatures, its proponents laud it with hyperbolic praise as the "·key to [our] information management woes"⁷ and a means of "·revolutioniz[ing] the way companies overcome infoglut".⁸ In contrast, it is subject to dyspeptic criticism as a "catchphrase"⁹, "·the worst sort of here-today-gone-tomorrow business fad"¹⁰ and "voodoo"¹¹. Nothing, however, including the lack of 'valuation metrics'¹², warnings about an impending "trough of disillusionment" or the confusion described above, stymies the billion dollar investment in KM.¹³ Descriptions of private-sector projects involving hundreds of databases and threaded discussion groups and tens if not hundreds of thousands of documents are not uncommon. From the perspective of marginalized and chronically under-resourced public-sector information service providers, these descriptions read like dispatches from a parallel universe where there are few constraints on resources or skilled staff and where the information politics are very different from the confused, fractious and reductive style not unknown in government.

Libraries and information centres are beset by fractionalized systems and services (e.g., integrated library systems, disparate commercial online databases and CD-ROM products) that "·create·problems for knowledge workers·faced with integrating information across the spectrum of the information delivery system in order to do their work"¹⁴. None of these systems support the analytical component of knowledge work; the authenticating, interpreting and summarizing of information and the authoring of new works on either an individual or workgroup basis. Constituting what Davenport calls "disembodied knowledge",¹⁵ faux KM systems comprising commercial news feeds, numbers of generic, open-ended discussion databases and passive document libraries threaten to simply compound our problems. At great cost, companies and organisations build these systems only to become disenchanted when they fail to deliver the productivity gains touted in the literature. They fail because they do not provide information in a work-centred context that magnifies its utility severalfold. Successful KM systems are those that "package knowledge"¹⁶in the process of doing real work. In contrast, the RIM-r Project was informed by a worm's eye view of KM; that realizing the claimed benefits requires that its practice be directly situated within core business processes.¹⁷ In the case of RIM-r, the real work is a business process that has been core to libraries for over 100 years - the provision of research services.¹⁸

Packaging knowledge involves the "·[f]iltering, editing and organizing pieces of knowledge·in such a way that itâs insightful, relevant and useful."¹⁹ Such actionable knowledge however, isnât cheap.²⁰ The cost-effective strategy adopted for RIM-r is to package knowledge in the process of doing work by building an online repository of real and complete research case histories. Case histories, as O'Leary suggests, constitute a "·particularly robust"²¹ form of knowledge management. In RIM-r, they include the following elements:

• the topic (or request) itself,
• key constraints influencing resource selection and use (e.g., urgency, chronological and geographical coverage, purpose),
• analytical notes on the resources used in the course of the research,
• all exchanges between the researcher and his/her client or client group, and
• all supporting and working documentation up to and including the finished product.

This functionality allows RIM-r accelerate problem solving through the "·adaptation and modification of general principles·in the context of specific library situations"²². It is an effective means of conveying best practices, of fostering innovation and could become a highly effective training and mentoring tool.²³

DLSâs work-centred understanding of KM provided a useful guide in sifting through the rank confusion surrounding KM software. Davenportâs prediction of a marketing "onslaught" where "·every database, application package, server and even peripheral vendor will be linking their products to knowledge" has become the tedious reality.²⁴ It is both oversold as almost anything²⁵ and condemned as "·mostly search engines on steroids."²⁶ Everything from browser bookmarks to push technology is included.²⁷

One of the more useful categorisations of KM software is by Bock²⁸ who suggests that products belong to one of four categories: text search-and-retrieval engines, software that hierarchically organizes knowledge, groupware²⁹ and survey software. Given the scope of RIM-r, clearly the DLS requirement was for much more than a search engine. End-to-end support for the research process requires an extensible, standards-compliant platform; (not a single application) but what Watson and Harty call an "infrastructure".³⁰ Groupware was the clear choice. Within a groupware infrastructure, the value of case histories as a form of KM is markedly increased through the capability to add integrated access to directory and messaging services, external information resources and services, corporate applications and local file systems. Given the innovative nature of RIM-r, it was essential that librarians be capable of actively participating in the application development process. Accordingly, we chose a mature groupware infrastructure with significant end-user development capability.

Background

In mid-1995, the DLS comprised 68 library sites in all States and Territories. The Network's purpose was to be "·the vital provider of information needed to meet the goals of the Defence Organisation."³¹ At that time it served a maximum potential clientele of 106,000 senior executives, managers, scientists, analysts and uniformed military personnel. In the ACT alone, it served up to 16,000 clients. Its clients were then and continue to be as disparate in both their work-related information needs and their information seeking behaviours as they were geographically dispersed.

Prior to the beginning of the Project, the provision of research services was one of the main issues of managerial concern in the ACT region. The core of the problem was that management found it hard to discover "·just what reference librarians actually do, and how much they do of it."³² There was evidence to suggest that a significant part of the work actually being done was ready reference. There were doubts fuelled, in part, by the "55 percent rule" reported in the literature³³, about how well the work was being done. These individual issues were compounded by the fact that the DLS had little capability to load-balance research work across multiple sites or to effectively exploit existing subject expertise among its staff. With most requests it was a matter of "beginning all over again"³⁴. Certainly, there was no method of capturing best practice research procedures, methodologies and insights from the most experienced researchers. With the Service confronting budget cuts and market testing, the then Director of Defence Library Services (DDLS-ACT), Ms. Dorothy Harris, considered better information on the research effort vital to convincing senior Defence executives that the DLS was making a real contribution. The threat was that "·in the absence of clear information about reference services from the reference librarians themselves, ·decision-makersâ views may be too easily swayed by marketers of for-profit information services·"³⁵

In summary, the original business drivers for the Project were:

• a lack of detailed metrics on the research effort
• a need to sustain a credible research effort in an environment of declining staff numbers and funding
• a need for greater managerial oversight of research work
• a need to improve personal accountability
• a need to apply information technology to an inefficient manual work-sharing and reporting system, and
• a need to raise the DLS corporate profile by moving beyond the basics of ready reference work.

The proposal to use groupware in support of research work was first raised in an internal working paper by one of the authors (Brown) in May, 1995. Following successful negotiations with regional Defence IT services, in-house development commenced in late August, 1995. The project involved coding an electronic version of the existing paper reference query form. The initial decision to use Lotus Notes as the development platform was made on the basis that it was the declared strategic direction for client/server messaging and that programmer expertise was available at no cost (albeit on a strictly rationed basis)³⁶. An initial form was created but found to be quite limited in actual use. Subsequent delays in the internal rollout of Notes and staffing constraints within IT support resulted in this initial effort being suspended in early 1996.

Despite this delay, the Director persisted with her vision for the application. Based on her ongoing requirements, information gained from the first abortive attempt and an extensive literature review, one of the authors (Brown) subsequently developed a proposal for an enhanced application that would cover all phases of the research process. It would accept queries direct from clients, re-formulating or translating the query, locating and connecting to appropriate information sources and delivering the required product to the client using a combination of forms, databases and discussion groups supplemented with integrated messaging services³⁷. The paper also argued that there was a viable market for such an application outside libraries.

The Director accepted the new proposal and was determined to get it built. In seeking a commercial partner interested in taking on a very speculative endeavour, Lotus Development Corporation was approached. Recognizing the innovative nature of the proposal and its potential commercial application, Lotus gave the project a chance by facilitating a partnership between the DLS and Random Computing, a Canberra-based Lotus Business Partner. In August, one of the authors (Brown) drafted a detailed Statement of Requirement for a product then called the Research Information Management (RIM) System.³⁸ Work commenced on the application in September, 1996. At the outset, both parties had quite limited resources to commit to the project.

In early 1997, management concerns about how to quantify and improve research services resulted in the implementation of the Defence Library Service (DLS-ACT) Reference Services Review coordinated by Lee Williams and Sonia Gherdevich. Based on detailed research including a time audit, interviews and self-observation by the participating librarians, the Review recommended that a new model of research work was required based on a two-tier service model and featuring a centralised reference help desk operation. The proposal was accepted and implemented mid-year. A basic implementation of RIM-r was installed in the four ACT sites the following September as part of the new service model.

In the same timeframe, the Commonwealth Government announced a major review of the entire Department called the Defence Efficiency Review (DER). As a consequence of the Review's findings and their implementation under the aegis of the follow-on Defence Reform Program (DRP), the original drivers and scope of the Project have changed significantly. The DER recommended that the DLS be rationalized and market tested. In response, an internal Library Review Working Group (LRWG) was established to review the Service. Their report, entitled Rationalisation of Library Services in Defence: Report of the Library Review Working Group (hereafter Library Review) required that the re-structured organisation have the following attributes.

Based on these attributes, the LRWG proposed a new service model for the DLS. The key elements of the model are:

• a single, cohesive, national library service;

• 20 subject specialist libraries located near major client groups;
• de-emphasis on print-based information resources;
• desktop access and delivery (of electronic information);
• a national research service accessible via a 1300 number; and
• network (i.e., intranet) access to DLS services.

The changes being effected by the implementation of the Library Review may be summarized as follows.

Clearly, what began as an ACT initiative to address regional research service issues has become a project central to the whole DLS organisation. As it is progressively extended to all continuing DLS sites, a mature implementation of RIM-r will become the means by which a leaner DLS organisation maintains and progressively develops its research services.

RIM-r: Functionality, Environment, Status, Benefits

Functionality

Building a research management application requires a detailed understanding of 'knowledge work'. Such work is, however, poorly understood. The key characteristics that give rise to this lack of understanding have been identified as:

• variety and uncertainty in inputs and outputs;
• unstructured and individualized work rules and routines;
• lack of precise separation among process, outputs and inputs;
• lack of performance measures;
• high degree of worker autonomy; and
• high variability in performance across individuals and time.³⁹

Research work typically exhibits these characteristics and is commonly portrayed as a highly interactive, recursive process involving constant reference back to the client(s), cross-comparison of sources, revision and repetition of search strategies and more.

The DLS approach to overcoming this uncertainty was to review the literature for process models of research, viz., models purporting to identify "·a specific ordering of work activities across time and place, with a beginning, an end, and clearly identified inputs and outputs: a structure for action."⁴⁰ The application of process perspectives to research work now dates back approximately 60 years. Accordingly, there are several models that offer the conceptual underpinnings for an inclusive research management application. One contribution influential in the development of RIM-r is the work of Gerald Jahoda and associates.⁴¹

DLS thinking about RIM-r was also influenced by a number of research proposals and projects including Jacobsen and Martinâs "SuperPAC" proposal⁴², the House of Commons Library Parliamentary Online Information System (POLIS)⁴³ and the U.S. National Library of Medicine's Sourcerer Project.⁴⁴

Based on these sources, DLS established a requirement that RIM-r:

• acquire, assess, parameterize and classify a clientâs information needs and requirements (the research request);
• locate, capture, classify, assess and manage appropriate reference print-based and electronic information resources;
• format and package a response to the clientâs research topic;
• communicate to and evaluate the response to the completed research from the clientâs perspective;
• facilitate the publication of the resulting research, and

• provide management information on the resources used in the research effort.

Subsequently, it was determined that RIM-r needed to address five main component areas.

1. Contact Management

The RIM-r SOR called for a contact management function that tracks relationships with both individual clients and client groups. Users should be able to create, save, modify and delete partial or full records for individual contacts or group of contacts; create an unlimited number of user-defined fields per record; create an unlimited number of phone and fax numbers and E-mail addresses per individual contact or contact group. It is now intended to provide these and other capabilities by exploiting the well-developed, vendor-certified Notes third-party applications market and integrating RIM-r with contact management applications such as ErgoTech's ACT! for Notes.

Current functionality of the contact management component includes the following:

• capture of full client contact details,
• access to existing Notes-based directory services and automatic transfer of client details into RIM-r,
• support for 'live' URL and 'mailto' contact details, and

• inclusion of records of conversation, E-mail and facsimile messages.

The RIM-r catalogue comprises a series of six detailed templates for individuals, organisations, events, services, objects (i.e., electronic and paper-based documents) and projects.

The templates are an extended implementation of the I[nternet] A[nonymous]F[TP] A[rchive] templates⁴⁵ designed by the IAFA Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force first published as an Internet Draft in July, 1995. The original aim of the authors was to "·construct a record format which could be used by [File Transfer Protocol] archive administrators to describe the various resources available from their own archives."⁴⁶ Access to URLs and 'mailtos' embedded in these records is supported via Notes' integrated Web browser.

The RIM-r catalogue describes resources actually used in the process of doing research work. It differs from the cataloguing modules in integrated library management systems (ILMS) in that it:

• includes templates for individuals, organisations, events and projects as information resources;
• aims at utility and access in a local research context not a standard dictated by some external authority; and
• captures site-specific knowledge, local access guidelines, 'best-used-for' guidance, fees and charges details and other information.⁴⁷

Current functionality in the resource catalogue includes the following:

• interactive templates for information resources and services;
• object-enabled storage for related binary files;
• 5,900 term subject authority list derived from the Library of Congress Subject Headings;
• search facilities including keyword, phrase, specific form or field with options for case sensitive searches, use of synonyms, proximity and soundex-type searching;
• bi-directional posting to and from Activity Notes in the Request Tracking component; and
• audit history of changes (person, date and time).

The Request Tracking component captures, stores and indexes the research work available for access and re-use throughout the organisation. ⁴⁸ Requests are initially keyed into the Research Request Form.

The completed form is saved to an unallocated requests queue. Requests are accepted (i.e., owned) by a librarian opening an unallocated Research Request Form and clicking a single button. Accepting a request spawns a Research Work Form. The researcher assigns two levels of subject categorization to the request (using the same authority list as the Catalogue) and commences work on the request.

On demand, users are able to view all requests by status, date due (in either a dd/mm/yy listing or a calendar view), owner (i.e., librarian), client, Group (Defence) or request number.

A key feature of the Research Work Form is an extensible table that provides doclinks to sub-forms called Activity Notes.⁴⁹

The Activity Notes record, in chronological order, what particular resource was used (e.g., an online database, personal contact, paper-based or electronic document) by the reference librarian and what use they made of it. The Activity Note also provides for the recording of the cost of the resource used, the associated staff time and a service loading for billing purposes. A running total of all costs incurred in the course of the research displays on the parent Request Form.

Each completed Activity is saved to the Work Form table in line-item format with an embedded doclink providing direct access to the Activity itself. RIM-r supports an unlimited number of Activity Notes per request.

The Activity Notes and the Resource Catalogue are closely integrated. If a user chooses to import an entry from the Catalogue for use in an Activity Note, its structure changes dynamically to facilitate use of that particular resource or service. Reverse posting is also supported, i.e., users can create a new Catalogue entry by keying resource details into an Activity Note. Users can perform a number of common actions on both catalogue entries and Activity Notes. They can:

• E-mail a new entry or note to one or more persons,
• add an entry or note to a personal folder and sort both the entries and the folders, and
• refer the entry or note to a discussion database.

The management reports in the Request Tracking component directly address the problems of currency and scope of reference statistics identified by Bunge and Tenopir.⁵⁰ Basic reports include:

• current requests assigned to each librarian,
• total elapsed time by request by librarian,
• requests by librarian by date due,
• number of requests by period, and
• requests by Group (Defence) listed by subject.

The detail captured by RIM-r facilitates the production of reports that provide a powerful insight into research activities including:

• cumulative and mean monthly completed requests by librarian,
• mean search activities per request by librarian,
• comparative use of electronic and paper-based information resources by librarian,
• comparative use of different types of electronic resources by librarian, and
• mean cost of request search activities by librarian.

These reports do contribute to explaining "·what resources are most helpful·" and they do "·provide information on the impacts of resource changes and technology in·[libraries]."⁵¹

Current functionality of the Request Tracking component includes the following:

• capture of research request details;
• capture of a wide-range of constraints (urgency, quantity, preferred source materials, geographical coverage, purpose, etc.) applicable to the request;
• capture of details of the client's previous endeavors to research the designated topic (to a maximum 8K per request);
• integrated messaging to clients for clarification of requests, progress reports and dispatch of interim or completed research material;
• global authority lists for subjects, personal and corporate names used to classify research topics, research catalogue and research advisory system entries;
• categorization of requests at two levels of subject classification;
• capability to refer (collaboratively progress) or re-allocate (transfer) one or more topics to other specialist library or research staff;
• excellent security with the capability to limit access down to the field level;

• storage of an unlimited number of individual research activities or searches (e.g., archival research, online searches, interviews, surveys, etc.) against a single research topic;
• fully object-enabled data repository able to store the results of research work in many disparate formats (text, still images, sound);
• capability to store 'live' Uniform Resource Locators and 'mailtos';
• recording of elapsed time on research topics at both the activity and enquiry level; and
• capability to monitor how research work is being done and intervene to effect improvements.

The specification describes the research advisor component as a collection of electronic subject 'pathfinder' documents, viz., a self-help service for users unfamiliar with the literature of a subject area. However, unlike other essentially passive listings common on library Web sites, the key advantages of RIM-r are that the service is database-driven and that it cost-effectively re-uses entries from the catalogue created in the process of doing actual work. The resources may be presented in many different schemas or views, e.g., by Group (Defence), Service, currency, geographic region, format and/or date. Each entry can be set to display selected detail for each resource including (as appropriate) the URL or other access details. Direct access to the full catalogue entry is available for users who are able to view the 'soft knowledge' and best practice usage guidelines for the specified resource.

The specification calls for the electronic publishing component to provide a means of publishing completed research work stored in the system. The concept is that exemplary work can be promptly shared with a wider audience in a secure environment with a minimum of additional effort. Potentially, this leads to integration with enterprise document management products such as Lotus' Domino.Doc that supports document checkin/checkout, revision tracking, version control, archiving and more.

Current functionality of the electronic publishing component is:

• 'on-the-fly' publishing to HTML without manual markup

Environment

DLS always considered that there were a number of alternate solutions capable of providing the functionality required for RIM-r. These included the following:

• commercial help desk applications (e.g., Advanced Help Desk, Quetzal, ServiceCenter);
• programmable PC-based relational databases (e.g., Microsoft Access);
• programmable, object-enable relational databases (e.g., Informixâs Universal Server);
• low-cost relational databases (e.g., m-sql) combined with custom CGI/Perl and/or JavaScript programming; and
• groupware packages (e.g., Lotus Notes, Microsoftâs Exchange/Outlook double-act or Novellâs GroupwiseWorkFlow).

The strongest candidates were the commercial help desk products. DLS literature searches and industry contacts subsequently located papers and sourced reports of libraries applying these solutions to request tracking.⁵² However, because request tracking is only one component of the RIM-r SOR, this type of solution was considered unsuitable on the following grounds:

• the more affordable PC-LAN-based solutions do not scale to network-wide deployment,
• the enterprise-level solutions generally require a heavyweight database backend raising issues of acquisition and support costs,
• source code is generally not available,
• SMTP messaging and Web browsing require add-ons or third-party applications,
• low level of integration with office productivity applications (in particular, Word 97 and Excel 97), and
• integration of external information resources (beyond commercial 'knowledge packs') requires extensive custom development.

Regular Web searches also disclosed an increasing number of libraries using native Internet protocols to provide E-mail reference services⁵³. Again, given the scope of the RIM-r Project, it was considered essential to avoid solutions that would involve extensive CGI/Perl and/or JavaScript programming and extensive coding of HTML documents and forms. This option was also rejected for other reasons including:

• mandatory requirements for RIM-r would have required purchase and integration of third-party applications (e.g., database services, discussion groups and news services);⁵⁴ and
• the workflow requirement alone involved a medium scale, site-specific programming effort.

Other literature searches confirmed the advantages of 'virtualizing' library services using Notes.⁵⁵ Influential though this material was, our decision to use Notes was ultimately made on the basis that it is widely used throughout Defence, that our initial experience with the product suggested it provided the requisite functionality and because Notes itself was changing. The traditional strengths of Notes seen as including:

• a single, consistent, multi-role desktop client;
• built-in E-mail, group calendaring and scheduling;
• rapid applications development environment;
• strong, multi-level security (with encryption down to field level);
• replication;
• support for remote access and offline working; and
• a strong catalogue of vendor-certified, third party applications.

were being augmented with support for an alphabet soup of Internet protocols.⁵⁶ On the server-side, Notes was paired with the Domino Web server, providing support for HTTP, CGI, POP and SMTP/MIME. The Notes client included a personal Web browser, support for Java applets, HTML, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and ActiveX controls. Subsequently, Notes/Domino offered support for HTTP 1.1, POP3/SMTP/MIME, IMAP4, LDAP, NNTP, SSL 3.0 and Java. Notes has "·come of Internet age."⁵⁷ Further, these changes have made the software "·an attractive option for those charged with integrating enterprise information." Support for ODBC and CORBA "·shows Notes as a formidable data connectivity software product."⁵⁸

The DLS decision to use Notes for RIM-r is considered fully justified. Recent announcements of Lotus KM initiatives and enhancements to the pre-production beta releases of Notes 5 simply confirm this choice.⁵⁹ Notes has emerged as the "·Swiss Army knife of knowledge management, with a blade for every purpose."⁶⁰

Status

In March, 1998, RIM-r received a Gold Award from the National Technology in Government Committee. The awards are made annually to government departments and statutory authorities that have improved productivity and client service using new software. Interest in RIM-r from elsewhere in Defence is strong. One other area is currently implementing the product and both the Army and RAAF have expressed strong interest.

By December, 1998, the RIM-r database was approximately 100 megabytes in size.⁶¹ It is visible from seven library sites in the ACT, NSW and Victoria. Currently, all seven sites are accessing the Notes server located at Campbell Park in the ACT. This will change to involve replication of the database to Notes servers located in each of the capital cities.

Random Computing provides software updates and Defence IT services in the ACT maintain the network infrastructure (server, local area network and other data communications facilities including asynchronous and facsimile gateway services). Both these parties liaise with the Defence Information Services Centre (HQ DISC) which is responsible for maintaining the metropolitan and wide-area networks.

Benefits

The specific benefits accruing to DLS clients include:

• facilitates more informed, timely and cost-effective decision-making;
• supports better quality reporting;
• reduces research-related costs through re-use of information; and
• facilitates cost-effective online training and mentoring through continuous exposure to best practices in information management work.

The specific benefits accruing to DLS staff include:

• delivers so-called "reference annealing"⁶² (i.e., minimizes the re-invention of work through re-use of existing case histories),
• facilitates quick recognition of requests from priority clients,
• facilitates personal work load management and load balancing across all libraries,
• promotes opportunities to strengthen subject expertise or interests,
• promotes the use of "work-ready" electronic information,

• reduces the loss of subject expertise when staff leave, and

• improves the perception within Defence of the competence and systems literacy of librarians.

The specific benefits accruing to the Department include:

• facilitates more informed, timely and cost-effective decision-making;
• improves productivity (saving money by reducing overall research time);
• improves available expertise (saving time by linking together subject experts where appropriate);
• improves responsiveness of services; and
• promotes team work between researchers and clients which is essential given the interdisciplinary nature of most Defence-related research.

Lessons Learned

Participation in the RIM-r Project has given the authors useful insights into the development of knowledge management applications. It is hoped that this information may be usefully factored into the plans, business processes and activities of those preparing or engaged in similar projects.

1. General

• Find an articulate and technically literate advocate within the user community to communicate the need for change and persuade others to accept the change.
• Recognize that KM systems have a pivotal requirement for an experienced practitioner to overview the operation of the system, enforce standards, review and edit content, test and evaluate new releases and more.⁶³
• Involve lawyers and finance people early in negotiations with prospective external partners but retain overall ownership of the project.
• Projects such as RIM-r require commitment from all parties and dedicated resources for a timely, comprehensive and stable deliverable. The development and implementation of RIM-r was conducted on an ad-hoc basis that repeatedly delayed the Project.

• Build a solid constituency among senior managers for the Project using a graduated marketing plan. Focus directly on added capability and cost-containment. Employ opportunistic marketing (e.g., associate the application with seminars, conferences, visiting experts, etc.).
• IT support across any organisation as large as Defence is a complex and difficult undertaking. It is important to keep internal IT support informed about projects involving external partners as a means of ensuring their collaboration when distributing the application across multiple sites.

• The partnership between DLS and Random Computing was formed to prototype the application. In that environment, it is important to have a partner who is empathetic to the overall aims of the project.
• It is essential that the partners agree to a structured approach to testing new releases.
• It is essential to maintain good version control. The speed with which Notes applications can be developed and modified can be a negative if this is not done well.
• In order to give meaningful advice to a partner, it is clearly advantageous for appropriate library staff to undertake vendor-certified training in the development software.

• "First, people donât like to share their best ideas. Second, they donât like to use other peopleâs ideas. Third, people that consider themselves experts usually donât like to collaborate."⁶⁴ The DLS experience with RIM-r contradicts this standard advice. The DLS-ACT reference librarians have shared their ideas and experiences with each other in an open, collaborative manner.
• By itself, the introduction of Notes won't develop a collaborative work culture.⁶⁵ The changes resulting from the DLS-ACT Reference Services Review were essential to the successful introduction of RIM-r into the ACT libraries.
• Training requirements for most staff were modest; most reference librarians found Lotus Notes a quick study and they became proficient with RIM-r after two group training sessions.
• There is "·still a strong need for what the U.S. Army calls 'face time'" among the staff using the application to develop confidence relying on the application.⁶⁶
• Staff have made consistent use of a general discussion database originally started in support of application development. It is important that the discussion is free-ranging and that the issues identified by staff are responded to quickly.
• Qualitative analysis of the accumulated Request Forms clearly indicates if there are gaps in the librarians' knowledge about a particular resource or service. Individual training, professional development and/or mentoring programs can then be developed to address these issues.

Future Directions

Random Computing has planned an aggressive development schedule for RIM-r including:

• re-developing the contact management component;
• redesigning the request refer/re-allocation mechanism;
• further developing the basic reports (including a report on searches run against the catalogue and request tracking components);
• developing of the research advisor;
• providing integrated access to external information services and corporate applications, developing the Request Tracking management reports;
• introducing a personal alerting capability using Grapevine Technologies' GrapeVINE for Notes; and
• Web-enabling the application using Java.

In this context, DLS staff will continue to be heavily involved "·us[ing their] specialized·knowledge [and] experience with information-seeking behaviors, to create a new and better research environment·"⁶⁷

By mid-year, the DLS anticipates having deployed RIM-r at another 12 libraries. It is a significant advantage that even our most distant sites (Darwin and Perth) are already using Notes. A combined 'roadshow' and small group training program will support the rollout. This effort will be augmented with extensive online help being added to the application and self-guided tuition using Notes itself and, possibly, Lotus' LearningSpace. National coordination of the service will reside with DLS-ClientLink (Sydney), the DLS business unit managing all client services.

Conclusion

For more than a decade there have been persistent calls for a new information professional, one adept at using the new information technologies to more closely integrate our research skills with our clientâs information needs. Within DLS, the RIM-r Project is one of the most visible representations of this new model professional. Its development is testament to the commitment and professionalism of the DLS-ACT reference staff. RIM-r has made possible their transition from bibliographer to information analyst. Staff use its case histories, integrated resources and services to partner our knowledge worker clientele by corroborating, interpreting and synthesising information on their behalf. Management use it to better understand the dynamics of research demand and performance. With RIM-r, the DLS is delivering new 'information capability'. In the era of information warfare, this is our new imperative.

Notes

1 The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Defence Library Service or the Department of Defence. We gratefully acknowledge the editorial assistance of Pam Piper and the technical assistance of Rob Tucker in the preparation of this paper.

² In this context, capability means the power and preparedness of Australia's military forces and their associated military and civilian support infrastructure. See Defence Efficiency Review, Future Directions for the Management of Australia's Defence: Report of the Defence Efficiency Review (Canberra, A.C.T.: Department of Defence, c1997), 5-7.

³A term first used by Peter Drucker in the 1950s. See Peter Schwartz, "Post-capitalist" [interview with Peter Drucker] [online] Wired 1.03 "Jul/Aug 1993" [cited 4 January 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.03/drucker_pr.html>. McGee and Prusak use the term "function-specific knowledge workers" to include "·accounting and finance professionals; public investors, and press relations people; business analysts; marketing and market researchers; internal consultants; R&D professionals; planners and strategists; and general managers." See James McGee and Laurence Prusak with Philip J. Pyburn, Managing Information Strategically (New York: John Wiley and Sons, c1993), 111.

⁴ The "knowledge edge" was originally interpreted to mean the advanced application of command and control, surveillance and intelligence-gathering technologies to maximize the effectiveness of Australia's comparatively small armed forces. The current approach is to consider the wide range of capabilities (technical, organisational, personal and process-related) that contribute to superior decision making in the Defence business. See Ian Chessell, "Managing the Knowledge Edge" Australian Defence Science News 21 (Autumn, 1998): 12.

⁵Jeff Angus, Jeetu Patel and Jennifer Harty, "Knowledge Management: Great Concept·But What Is It ö Information Week Labs and Doculabs Examine Five Products That Try to Help Companies Turn Abstraction Into a Reality" [online] InformationWeek [n.p.] "March, 1998" [cited 28 September 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?IWK19980511S0041>.

⁶John Mickelethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Witch Doctors: What the Management Gurus are Saying, Why it Matters and How to Make Sense of It (London: Mandarin, 1997).

⁷Jessica Budro, "Knowledge Management Possible Key to Information Woes" ADM: Australian Defence Magazine 5 (July, 1997): 18.

⁸Backweb Inc., "Overview of Knowledge Management" [online] [n.p.: Backweb, n.d.] [cited 13 December 1998]. Available on World-Wide Web: <http://www.backweb.com/km/overview.html>. See also Elizabeth Walton, "Deluged by Data" The Weekend Australian, 5-6 September, 1998: 11.

Owen Wilson, "Putting a Good Idea to Work" Managing Information 5 (March, ⁹1998): 31-33.

¹⁰Justin Hibbard, "Knowledge Management ö Knowing What We Know ö Knowledge Management, the Process of Capturing a Companyâs Collective Expertise, is Big Business. Itâs Appealing to Companies Ranging from Big Six Consulting Firms to Big Three Automakers" [online] InformationWeek 653 October 20, 1997 [cited 29 September 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?IWK19971020S0040>.

¹¹John Rutledge, "Youâre a Fool If You Buy Into This" [online] ForbesASAP "April 7, 1997" [cited 24 September 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.forbes.com/asap/97/0407/042.htm>. Also see Michael Schrage, "Why No one Wants Knowledge Management" [online] Computerworld "12/07/98" [cited 23 December, 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/all/98120780C6">.

¹²Information on the performance, cost, quality, reach and impact (or return for effort) of information services. See Robert Steele, "Open Source Intelligence: Executive Overview". Optimising Open Source Information Conference Held at the Rydges Hotel, Canberra, 7-8 October, 1998. [photocopied]

¹³The global market is estimated to be worth $US5 billion in software and services sales alone by 2000. Including hardware, software and services, TechData estimates a total annual revenue stream of $US12 billion. See "Lotus, IBM Embrace Knowledge Management" [online] KMWorld "Thursday, July 09, 1998 12:12PM" [cited 21 December 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web <http://www.kmworld.com/search/indexNEWSWIREsearch.cfm?NewsID=1604>.

¹⁴ Rosann Collins and Detmar Straub, "The Changing Information Environment" Journal of the American Society for Information Science 42 (March, 1991): 120.

¹⁵ Thomas Davenport quoted in Anne Stuart, "5 Uneasy Pieces: Part 2" [online] CIO Magazine "June 1, 1996" [cited 25 August 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.cio.com/archive/06196_uneasy_1_content.html>.

¹⁶ Paul S. Myers and Richard W. Swanborg, Jr., "Packaging Knowledge" [online] CIO Magazine "April 15, 1998" [cited 30 September 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.cio.com/archive/enterprise/041598_intellectual_content.html>.

¹⁷ "Until you've wrapped [data] into some key business process, it's not knowledge management." Mark Salser, Vice-President of Advanced Technology Solutions at Oracle quoted in Elana Varon, " From Data Management to Knowledge Management" [online] Federal Computer Week "May 04, 1998" [cited 21 November, 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web: <http://athena.fcw.com/FCW/archive.nsf/Search+View/BEA9FF0272BDCC42852565FB005F437D?OpenDocument>.

¹⁸ Research is here understood to mean "·service[s] rendered by special librarians by examining, appraising and summarizing information obtained from various sources and from individuals and organisations considered to be the authorities in the appropriate fields. This implies giving the solutions to problems, providing statistics and other information as distinct from supplying publications from which the information may be obtained." See Ray Prytherch, comp. Harrodâs Librariansâ Glossary, 8^th ed. (London: Gower Publishing, c1995), 549.

¹⁹ Myers and Swanborg, Jr., op.cit.

²⁰ "·high-quality, ready-to-use content can cost·$US1,000 per page·" Ibid.

²¹ Daniel E. OâLeary, "Knowledge-Management Systems: Converting and Connecting" IEEE Intelligent Systems 13 (May/June, 1998): 32.

²² Ibid.

²³ "·nothing short of an internship can convey the complexities of an actual work experience as effectively as the study and discussion of a well-written case." See Richard M. Kesner, "Employing the Case Study Method in the Teaching of Automated Records and Techniques to Archivists" American Archivist 56 (Summer, 1993): 524.

²⁴ Tom Davenport, "The Knowledge Biz" [online] CIO Magazine "November 15, 1997" [cited 18 November 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.cio.com/archive/enterprise/111597_intellectual_content.html>.

²⁵ Knowledge management software is "·any product that lets you share information in any way·" David Marshak (Patricia Seybold Group) quoted in Judy DeMocker, "Knowledge-Management Tools Billed as Key to Accessing Data on Intranets" [online] Intranet World "April 6, 1998" [cited 21 December 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://

²⁶ Judy DeMocker, "'Knowledge Management' Packages Focus on Search Tools" [online] "March 2, 1998" [cited 21 December 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web: < http://www.internetworld.com/print/1998/03/02/intranet/19980302-focus.html>.

²⁷ Push is defined as a"·model of media distribution where items of content are sent to the user (viewer, listener, etc.) in a sequence, and at a rate, determined by a server to which the user has connected." See "Push Media" [online] Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, ed. Denis Howe [London: Imperial College] [cited 23 December 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?push+media>. For a positive view of push, see Cheryl Gustitus, "The Push is On: What Push Technology Means to the Special Librarian" Information Outlook 2 (January, 1998): 21-24. Contrast Gustitus with Michelle Bing, "Push - A Technology with Staying Power?" Database 20 (August/September, 1997): 27-28, 30.

²⁸ See Dan Richman, "Rope in Knowledge With Powerful New Knowledge Management Software" [online] Datamation "June, 1998" [cited 21 December 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.datamation.com/PlugIn/issues/1998/june/06quiz.html>. "Users need to realize that when they go to a knowledge management vendor, they aren't getting a total solution and may not even be getting a new product. In many cases, "it's just old wine in new bottles," says Tom Davenport, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin and the director of its information management program. See Amy Malloy, " Supporting Knowledge Management: You Have It Now" [online] Computerworld "February 23, 1998" [cited 21 December 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www2.computerworld.com/home/features.nsf/all/980223rc2>.

²⁹ Groupware is "·[s]oftware tools and technology to support groups of people working together on a project, often at different sites. " See "Computer-Supported Cooperative Work" [online] Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, ed. Denis Howe [London: Imperial College] [cited 23 December 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?CSCW>.

³⁰ James Watson and Jennifer Harty,"Major Vendors Pushing KM Infrastructures" [online] KMWorld "October, 1998" [cited 12 November 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.doculabs.com/articles/Our_latest/KM_infrastructures.html>.

³¹ Defence Information Services, Strategic Direction for the Defence Information Services Network (Canberra: Defence Information Services, 1995), n.p.

³² Jerry D. Campbell, "Shaking the Conceptual Foundations of Reference: A Perspective" Reference Services Review 40 (Winter, 1992): 29-35. Campbell continues to hold views, viz., "Practices such as face to face reference services·are not scalable and should not be carried forward·" See Jerry Campbell, "Evolving Effective Organisations in an Age of Technology: Beyond University Libraries as Separate Divisions" International Conference on New Missions of Academic Libraries in the 21^st Century, Beijing, China, October 25-28, 1998. [cited 10 December 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web: <http://www.brandeis.edu/Beijing_Conference/JerryCampbell.doc>. Also see Doris Helfer, "Rethinking Reference and Research" Information Today 15 (June, 1998): 25.

³³ See Peter Hernon and Charles R. McClure, "Unobtrusive Reference Testing: The 55 Percent Rule" Library Journal 111 (15 April, 1986): 37-41; Janine Schmidt, "Reference Performance in College Libraries" Australian Academic and Research Libraries 11 (June, 1980): 87-95; Terence Crowley, "Half-right Reference: Is It True?" RQ 25 (Fall, 1985): 59-68 and Peter Hernon and Charles R. McClure, "Library Reference Service: An Unrecognized Crisis ö A Symposium" Journal of Academic Librarianship 13 (May, 1987): 69-80.

³⁴ Marydee Ojala, "Beginning All Over Again: Where to Start a Search" Online 22 (May/June, 1998): 44-45.

³⁵ Karen Storin Summerhill, "The High Cost of Reference: the Need to Reassess Services and Service Delivery" Reference Librarian 43 (1994): 74. Competition from domestic and foreign commercial research services is a real threat. Even the so-called "reference robot" services (Ask Jeeves, InfoPlease, Answers.com and Electric Library) must be considered. On the latter, see Michelle Rafter, "Online librarians Are Worth a Book" The Australian 15 September 1998.

³⁶ Readers unfamiliar with Lotus Notes may find the following texts of interest and/or use. Rob Kirkland, "Notes in a Nutshell" [online] Group Computing Magazine 2 "May/June, 1998" [cited 9 October 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.groupcomputing.com/Issues/1998/98MayJune/98MJp24_NotesNutshell/98mjp24_notesnutshell.html>, Roger Whitehead, "Lotus Notes: An Introduction" in Transforming Organisations Through Groupware: Lotus Notes in Action, ed. Peter Lloyd and Roger Whitehead (London: Springer-Verlag, c1996), 1-10 and Ken Yee, "Lotus Notes FAQ" "Last Modified: September 15, 1998" [cited 28 September, 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://metro.turnpike.net/kyee/NotesFAQ.html>.

³⁷ Defence Information Services Network Office, Enhanced Reference Help Desk System (ERHDS) Proposal Parts I and II (Canberra: DISNO, 1996, photocopied), 4.

³⁸ Defence Information Services Network Office, Research Information Management (RIM) System - Draft Statement of Requirement (Canberra: DISNO, 1996, photocopied). Unknown to the DLS, another area within Defence Headquarters had contracted for the preparation of a tender specification for a similar product. A later detailed comparison revealed that the two documents were near identical at the 95 percent level.

³⁹ Thomas Davenport, Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa and Michael C. Beers, "Improving Knowledge Work Processes" Sloan Management Review 37 (Summer, 1996): 53-65.

⁴⁰ Thomas H. Davenport, Process Innovation: Reengineering Work Through Information Technology (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, c1993), 5.

⁴¹ Gerald Jahoda, Judith Braunagel and Herbert Nath, "The Reference Process : Modules for Instruction" RQ Issue17 (Fall, 1977): 7-12. Other process models of use were found in M. Marland, Information Skills in the Secondary Curriculum (London: Methuen, 1981) and California Media and Library Educators Association, >From Library Skills to Information Literacy: A Handbook for the 21^st Century (Castle Rock, Colo.: Hi Willow Research and Publishing, 1994).

⁴² Trudi E. Jacobson and Lynne M. Martin, "Merging Critical Thinking and the Electronic Library: A Visionary Perspective of SuperPAC, an Enhanced OPAC" Research Strategies 11 (Summer, 1993): 138-149.

⁴³ Jane Wainwright, "An Enquiries Management Database At The House Of Commons Library Using Basisplus" Program 31 (July 1997): 211-223.

⁴⁴ R P Channing Rodgers, "Automated Retrieval from Multiple Disparate Information Sources: The World Wide Web and the NLM's Sourcerer Project" Journal of the American Society for Information Science 46 (1995): 755-764.

⁴⁵ Peter Deutsch, Alan Emtage, Martijn Koster and M.Stumpf, "Publishing Information on the Internet with Anonymous FTP", [Munich: Munich University of Technology] " Internet Draft Expires: March 1, 1995" [cited 4 January 1999] Available from World-Wide Web:<http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/iafa/iafa.txt>.

⁴⁶ Rachel Heery, " Review of Metadata Formats" [online] Program 30 (October 1996) "pre-publication draft version" [cited 4 January 1999] Available from World-Wide Web:

<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/review.html>.

⁴⁷ This can be a means of documenting the "·networks of information providers used by knowledge workers who "·"digest" and evaluate written information before forwarding it." McGee and Prusak, op.cit., 111.

⁴⁸ "Librarians sometimes provide a valuable service·information·about who in the corporation has looked for similar materials in the recent past·" Ibid., 109-110.

⁴⁹ The origins of the Activity Note construct are in a paper by Hartley that describes a "·set of programs and databases designed to aid the research worker in gathering, maintaining, and using notes taken from the literature." See D.S. Hartley III, "Research Notes System: A Database Manager for Annotated Bibliographic Citations" Information Technology and Libraries 8 (September, 1989): 298-309.

⁵⁰ Charles Bunge, "Evaluating Reference Services and Reference Personnel: Questions and Answers from the Literature" Reference Librarian 43 (1994): 201 and Carol Tenopir, "Reference Use Statistics" Library Journal 123 (1 May, 1998): 32-33.

⁵¹ Ibid., 32.

⁵² Catherine Gilbert, "Who, what and when: client request/job tracking systems for parliamentary libraries" Robots to Knowbots: The Wider Automation Agenda Proceedings of the 9^th Biennial Conference and Exhibition, Melbourne Convention Centre, January 28-30, 1998 (Melbourne: Victorian Association for Library Automation, [1998]), 79-86. Also see Mary Lee Kennedy, " Building Blocks for Knowledge Management at Digital Equipment Corporation: The WebLibrary" Information Outlook 1 (June, 1997): 39-42.

⁵³ Babson College, California State University at Fullerton, University of California Los Angeles among many others. On the impact of these services, see Amanda Moore "As I Sit Studying: WWW-based Reference Services" Internet Reference Services Quarterly 3 (1998): 29-36.

⁵⁴ See Lee Bruno, "Groupware vs. Webware" Data Communications Asia Pacific 25 (March, 1996): 123-124, 126, 128, 130.

⁵⁵ See Mary Ellen Bates, " Lotus Notes in Action: Meeting Corporate Information Needs" Database 17 (August, 1994): 27-38; Sue Cooper, "Taking It to the Limit: Using Lotus Notes to Empower the Executive End-User" Managing Information 3 (1996): 31-33; Kate Ehrlich and Debra Cash, " Turning Information Into Knowledge: Information Finding as a Collaborative Activity" Digital Libraries '94: Proceedings of the First Annual Conference on the Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, June 21 1994 - College Station, Texas, USA. [cited 21 December, 1998]. Available on World-Wide Web:< http://abgen.tamu.edu/DL94/paper/lotus.html>; Vera Giles, "InfoNotes: an Information Management Project ö Empowering the Customers of the Fletcher Challenge Information Resource Centre" New Zealand Libraries 48 (June, 1996): 102-106; K. Liberman and J. L. Rich, "Lotus Notes Databases: the Foundation of a Virtual Library" Database 16 (1993): 33-46; L. Allison Ounanian, " Adding value : using a Lotus Notes database to improve reference service" Business Information Review 13 (December, 1996): 259-278 and Jane L. Rich, "Effective Information Delivery" in Information for Management: a Handbook, ed. James A. Matarazzo and Miriam A. Drake (Washington, D.C.: Special Libraries Association, c1994), 121-127.

⁵⁶ Paula Rooney and Dominique Jackson, "Notes Isnât Notes Anymore" PC Week (Australia) 13 November, 1996: 12. Also see Kathleen Murphy, "In Release 4.0 of Notes, Renewed Focus on Web" [online] Web Week 2 "April 1996" [cited 4 January, 1999] Available from World-Wide Web:< http://search.internet.com/dual/http://www.internetworld.com/print/1996/04/01/intranet/notes4.html?InternetWorld+5372+lotus&notes>.

⁵⁷ "[Lotus] under new parent IBM moved quickly. It slapped a Web gateway onto Notes, re-plumbed the server with Internet protocols (renaming it Domino), and embraced the term "intranet."·Notes [was] a product transformed." For a timeline of the transformation of Notes, see Dana Gardner and Lynda Radosevich, "Notes' Double Life: Straddling Intranets and Groupware" [online] InfoWorld Electric " January 26, 1998" [cited 9 October, 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?/features/980126notes.htm>.

⁵⁸ Ray Trechter, "Using Lotus Notes for Enterprise Information Integration" [online] AIMC'97: The 14^th DOE Annual Information Management Conference, August 5-8, 1997, Red Lion Hotel, Portland, Oregon [cited 21 September 1998] Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.aimc.doe.gov/1997/proceed/trechter.html>.

⁵⁹ "Lotus·will [release]·a set of "K-tools", including IBM-derived search and discovery technology, that lets users search across multiple Notes databases as well as by Internet site and domain, and synchronous collaboration tools such as chats, whiteboards, and shared objects. It will also develop "K-apps"·[including] a new·version of·Learning Space·and the Expert Network, which combines profile listings, graphical maps, and backgrounds aimed at helping users locate people·based on expertise." See Jeff Sweat, "Lotus to Focus on Knowledge Management" [online] InformationWeek Online "Monday, January 26, [1998]" [cited 12 August, 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.informationweek.com/newsflash/nf666/0126_st10.htm>. Also see Christy Walker, "Lotus Moves to Converge Knowledge Management and Collaborative Computing" [online] PC Week Online "June 23, 1998 3:28PM PT" [cited 21 December 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web: < http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_display/0,3440,331696,00.html>.

⁶⁰ Jeetu Patel and Joe Fenner, "Notes and Knowledge Management" [online] Group Computing Online "September/October, 1998" [cited 9 October, 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.groupcomputing.com/Issues/1998/98SeptOct/98SOp52_NotesKnowledge/98sop52_notesknowledge.html>. Also see Tom Greer, "Lotus Domino Delivers" Windows NT Magazine, September, 1998: 86-89. On Microsoft Exchange, see Cara Cunningham and Bob Trott, "Microsoft Scrambles for Knowledge-Management Solution" [online] InfoWorld Electric "Posted at 4:14 PM PT, Nov 20, 1998" [cited 21 December 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web <http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?981120.whknow.htm>.

⁶¹ Contrast this business value with the findings of a recent UK survey that found the average size of an academic library Web site to be approximately 4.6Mb. Most sites surveyed were less than 2Mb in size. See "WebWatching Academic Library Sites" Library Technology 3 (June, 1998): 43.

⁶² Nancy Humphreys, "Reference Annealing : Let's Stop Reinventing the Answer" RQ 34 (Summer, 1995): 459-463.

⁶³ "The role of librarian is essential to maintaining a working knowledge management system." See Yun Wang, " Building a knowledge management system" [online] Netscape Enterprise Developer "April, 1998" [cited 24 September, 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.netscapeworld.com/ned-04-1998/ned-04-knowledge.html>.

⁶⁴ Chuck Lucier, Chief Knowledge Officer at Booz, Allen & Hamilton quoted in Noah Shachtman, "Group Think: employees are shattering the traditional corporate structure with intranets" [online] InformationWeek Online "June 1, 1998" [cited 11 October 1998]. Available from World-Wide Web:<http://www.informationweek.com/684/84iugrp.htm>.

⁶⁵ "The availability of Lotus Notes does not change a knowledge-hoarding culture into a knowledge-sharing one, alas." See Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak, Working Knowledge: How Organisations Manage What They Know (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, c1998), 18-19.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 159.

⁶⁷ Cheryl LaGuardia, "Desk Set Revisited: Reference Librarians, Reality, & Research Systemsâ Design" Journal of Academic Librarianship 21 (January, 1995): 8-9.