Knowledge Management Fuses with Library Service

Law Times - May 26, 2008 page 11.  Daryl-Lynn Carlson wrote an article for the Law times describing how law libraries and the knowledge management functions are merging in many firms.  In fact, this has been happening for some time in professional service firms.  The work of librarians is so similar to the work of knowledge managers, it provides a natural way for librarians to increase their skills and participate in a more valuable role for the firm.  Librarians become expert at answering questions that require research into the law or business.  The work of the law firm adds value to  the work done by a librarian and with the research can deliver recommendations to a client.  Keeping a record of these decisions and the context of the decisions is critically important.  Who better than  a Librarian to index the content, create the access framework, and retrieve the data. 

This type of change should be driven by the management of law libraries.