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Information literacy and personal knowledge management By Trine Schreiber Associate professor, Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark Karen Harbo Development consultant, Library of the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark Abstract The aim of the paper is to discuss a new subject called personal knowledge management and to compare it with the better-known concept information literacy. Firstly, the paper describes and discusses the course called personal knowledge management. People from three institutions, the Library of the Aarhus Business School, the Centre of Science, Communication and Mediation at Aarhus Business School and the Royal School of Library and Information Science, have de-signed the course. It has been offered twice as part of a MBA module in the autumn 2002 and 2003. The intention of the course is to teach the participants partly how to manage information in such a way that it supports a learning process, and partly how to negotiate with the colleagues about the information needs, locate the information, and mediate it in such a way that the colleagues will use it. At the end of the course the participants construct a ´knowledge map´. The course has got a very positively reception. Secondly, the paper compares the course of personal knowledge management with the concept of informa-tion literacy. There exist a number of different definitions of the last concept. In one of them, information literacy is broadly defined as the ability to recognise information needs and to identify, evaluate and use information effectively. In this definition information literacy seems to be related to an individual perspec-tive, which means that the individual identifies, evaluates and uses the information without any interaction with other people. However, in some of the other definitions the concept has got a communicative perspec-tive. Christine Bruce has found seven faces of information literacy and some of these refer to the influences of the communication for the identification and evaluation of information. The course called personal knowl-edge management gives a priority to this communicative approach. The paper concludes that compared with the definitions of information literacy personal knowledge man-agement highlights two elements. Firstly, it emphasizes that the individual learns how to structure the infor-mation. Secondly, it underlines the influences of the communication for the identification of information. We can find track of both elements in the definitions of information literacy, but often in an implicit way. The

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course of personal knowledge management may be of interest for many libraries today. Generally, libraries have been teaching their users in information seeking. Without doubt, these activities and the course of per-sonal knowledge management will complement each other.

Introduction Everyone has to co-operate with others in doing the assignments of the education or the tasks of the work place. No one is without influence from others during a learning process or a knowledge creation. All information involves some kind of social rela-tions. But it is not easy for the individual to be in a learning process and at the same time feel demands from the surroundings, i.e. from the fellow students or the work colleagues. At the same time, the indi-vidual receives too much information. He or she has to reduce the great amount of information but first of all the reduction has to happen in relation to the demands and wishes of the surroundings. Can we in some way help the individual to reduce the informa-tion concordant with the interests of the specific context? We think, we have an answer to this ques-tion, namely a course in the subject we called per-sonal knowledge management. The aim of the paper is to discuss this subject and to compare it with the better-known concept information literacy. Firstly, we will present what we understand as the key problem. The individual have to find the way through the information overload. The problem is especially urgent in relation to the information search process. Secondly, we will describe how we got the inspiration to talk about precisely personal knowledge management. There are some people, who already have used the name in connection with the design of a course and it was their initiative, which gave us some ideas concerning our own un-derstanding and design. Thirdly, we will give the definition of the subject personal knowledge man-agement. Fourthly, we will go through the central elements of a course in this subject. Fifthly, we will discuss the similarities and differences between the subject and the concept of information literacy. Finally, we make a conclusion concerning the rele-vance of personal knowledge management and its

contribution to the development of the concept of information literacy. The key problem Information seeking is a way of learning and find-ing meaning. Often, people use Carol Kuhlthaus six-stage model of the information search process as a framework for the design of information literacy programs for students. This model gives us an un-derstanding of the position of the information seek-ing in the learning process (see figure 1). In the following paper, a specific aspect of the model con-cerning the relation between information and learn-ing will be in focus. Kuhlthau describes in her book ”Seeking Meaning” from 1993, how the student at the first stage in the model, the task initiation stage, has got an assign-ment and becomes aware of a lack of knowledge or understanding. At this stage uncertainty is common. At the second stage, the selection, the student iden-tifies a general area or topic, and initial uncertainty gives way to a sense of optimism and readiness to begin the search. At the third stage, prefocus explo-ration, the student faces a lot of inconsistent and incompatible information and the frustration and doubt will increase. At the formulation stage a fo-cused perspective of the problem is formed and the frustration has changed to clarity. At the collection stages information pertinent to the focused problem is gathered and confidence begins to increase. At the presentation stage the student has finished the information seeking and got a new understanding of the problem. The mediation of the understanding to others is now possible.

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Stages of the model Affective Level: Feelings 1. Initiation Incertaint 2. Topic selection Optimism 3. Prefocus exploration Confusion, frustra- tion and doubt 4. Focus formulation Clarity 5. Information collection Sense of direction/ tion/confidence 6. Starting writing Satisfaction or dissatis faction Figure 1: Carol Kuhlthaus six-stages model of the information search process Without doubt, this model describes an essential side of the learning process of the student. But what about the problem at the third stage, where the stu-dent has some difficulty of coping with the large information amount? Kuhlthau has mentioned, that this is the most difficult stage in the process (Kuhlthau 1993, p.46). Some students may be in-clined to abandon the search altogether at this stage. Information encountered rarely fits with previously held constructs. Information from different sources commonly seems inconsistent. Will the student succeed in achieving the fourth stage, the focus formulation? Or, will the student remain at the third stage, the prefocus exploration, which at the affec-tive level means confusion, frustration and doubt? The problem guides us to the following question: How can we support the learners to cope, manage and use the information? How can we help them through the third stage? The aim of the paper is to bring this question in focus. It is this question, which personal knowledge management deals with. The background In 2002 Jason Frand and Aura Lippincott wrote the article ”Personal Knowledge Management: a Strat-

egy For Controlling Information Overload”. They presented the subject ´personal knowledge man-agement´ as a strategy reducing the negative effects of information overload, facilitating decision-making, problem solving and knowledge acquisi-tion. They defined personal knowledge management as a conceptual framework used to organise and integrate information so it became part of our per-sonal knowledge. First of all, it concerned the im-plementing of personal classification schemes, in-dexing and filing principles, which the person un-derstood and would make use of in the learning process. They described that the principles had to be developed in a meaningful way, which meant that the person could find the information when he or she needed it weeks or month later. At the same time, the article mentioned that it was important to develop the principles so they matched the person’s roles and tasks in his or her work place. With other words, the principles had to be co-ordinated with other people from the work organisa-tion. Unfortunately, the article did not give the reader further directions concerning how to develop such co-ordinated indexing principles for the infor-mation used by more than one person. In spite of this problem, the article inspired us to look closer at the subject. In the spring 2002, the associate professors Peter Kastberg and Marianne Grove Ditlevsen (Centre of Science, Communication and Mediation, Aarhus School of Business), development consultant Karen Harbo (Library of the Aarhus School of Business), and associate professor Trine Schreiber (Depart-ment of Library and Information Management, the Royal School of Library and Information Science) initiated a collaboration about the subject personal knowledge management. The group was character-ised by the interdisciplinary element, representing both the library and the education sector. We started the work by discussing how we understood con-cepts like ´information´ and ´learning´ and espe-cially the relation between them. It was our opinion, that there was a need among students to learn how to manage information and

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reduce the information overload. In autumn 2002 we held our first course in personal knowledge management. The definition of personal knowledge manage-ment A central question is how to understand a structure of the collected information. If the individual is able to structure his or her information, we can talk about a goal-oriented learning process. Structuring the information means that the person has to make a choice concerning what to give priority and what to do without. But, as known, the problem is that the process of learning will continue and all the time the individual will be inspired to look after new subjects or new elements of the subject. After a while, the individual will experience that the struc-ture of the information is not the right one anymore. It is necessary to choose a new way to structure the information. The old one will not be used and, fur-ther, it will make a barrier of the learning process. Thus, a flexibility concerning how to structure the information is necessary. The mentioned provide a background for the defini-tion of the subject called personal knowledge man-agement: Personal knowledge management is the process of making a structure of information, which supports the learning of the individual. Personal knowledge management is a method, which intends to reduce the information overload, but it has to happen without missing the opportunity of the learning of the individual. The course As part of the work of the interdisciplinary group mentioned above, we developed a course in per-sonal knowledge management. Until now we have held this course a couple of times in different con-texts.

The course has been part of a module in the MBA education called IT, Language and Learning (http://www.asb.dk/programmes/milsinfo/default.htm). We have held the MBA course twice, namely in the autumns of 2002 and 2003. Both times, the teaching was based on partly face-to-face commu-nications with the students and partly e-learning activities. The MBA course involves three basis elements, which can be described in the following way: Firstly, the students get lessons in the subject of structuring the information. This element of the course implies a discussion with the students about the management of information in relation to the learning process. They have to understand how the management bring along the opportunity to identify the information but also how it can be a barrier for changing the line of thought and, further, a barrier for changing the goal of the learning process. Fur-ther, the students receive lessons in the concepts of information, knowledge and learning, specifically in the process of transforming information into knowl-edge. The theories presented here involve the model of the “knowledge spiral” described by Nonaka and Takeuchi in the book “The Knowledge-Creating Company” from 1995. In this model a spiral is used to represent the fact that knowledge acquisition is an iterative process involving exposure to some information, dialoguing about it, linking it to other known things, and experimenting and working with the information. Secondly, the students are asked to focus at an in-formation need experienced in their daily life. Of-ten, they choose to analyse an information need experienced either in the education context or in the context of a work place. Their task is next to collect information in relation to this need. In the time of the collection they have to discuss with others from the chosen organisational context partly how to understand the need and partly how to collect the information. Afterwards, they are making a pro-posal of how to structure the information. Then, once again, they have to discuss with people from the organisational context how to understand the

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structuring and how to change it for future use. On the background of these discussions we have called the structuring for a “knowledge mapping”. Thirdly - and finally - the students make the infor-mation structuring or the knowledge mapping. Therefore, they receive lessons in the use of lan-guage and communication. The students make an investigation of who the target group of the infor-mation structuring is and how this group will under-stand the chosen information need and the chosen codes. Lastly, the students make an assessment of each other’s ´knowledge map´. The following are some examples of the work of the students with the knowledge maps. Thus, one of the participants in the course had experienced an infor-mation need in the field of a specific subject. In relation to this need, she collected a large amount of information and structured it in such a way, that the knowledge gaps appeared, i.e. places in the map where she still needed information. She presented the chosen structure of the information, i.e. the knowledge map, and the knowledge gaps for her work colleagues. They gave her feedback, which caused that the structure was changed and some of the gaps were filled. Another participant in the course was a teacher working in high school. She found that the teachers of her school needed information about how to ar-range, manage and carry out a travel abroad with the pupils. She searched information about the sub-ject, for instance information such like the rules and travel legislation of the school. Further, she talked with colleagues about the definition of the informa-tion need and they gave her what they considered was the essential information of the subject. She structured all these information in a graphic/visual map planned to be a web site in the future. The map was presented for the colleagues, who gave her their response. They had different demands and wishes concerning the map, which she had to give attention in this case, because they were the target group of the product. In this way, she experienced how the fulfilment of the information need depended heavily

on the communication with the colleagues and how the result was influences by the specific context. The course in personal knowledge management can be seen as a supplement to the existing courses in information seeking and library use. As said above, the MBA course has been held twice and both times we have experienced a great interest for the subject from the side of the students. We have also given some lessons in the subject in other educational contexts. It is on the background of these activities, that we feel there is a need for such a course and the need exist at many different levels of the educa-tional sector, i.e. from school to university. Personal knowledge management is a subject where the librarians and the teachers need each other, be-cause it presupposes knowledge and experience about both information seeking and management and the learning process. Therefore, the subject will be a kind of meeting place for two groups of profes-sionals. In this way, it is a subject, which means collaborative activities between the two groups in the future. In many years, we have been calling for collaboration between the librarian and the teacher. We have succeeded with this in the activities de-scribed. Discussion Is personal knowledge management a kind of in-formation literacy? If yes, then what are more ex-actly the similarities and the differences between personal knowledge management and information literacy? In 1989 American Library Association (ALA) gave the following definition of information literacy:

“To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the information needed…..

Ultimately, information literate people are those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how information is

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organized, how to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them” (American Library Association 1989, p.1).

It is our opinion that this statement consists of at least three different definitions. Firstly, information literacy is defined as the ability to recognise infor-mation needs and identify, evaluate and use infor-mation effectively. Secondly, the subject is defined as the ability to know how to learn because they know how information is organized. Thirdly, it is defined as the ability to use information in such a way that others can learn from them. In the following, we will compare personal knowl-edge management with the three parts of the ALA´s definition. Then, we will compare the course with Christine Bruces ´seven faces´ of information liter-acy. Lastly, we consider an article written by Carol Kuhlthau in 1999 concerning what she calls the ´intervention strategies´ in relation to the informa-tion search process. As said, we start with the definition of ALA. In the course of personal knowledge management the stu-dents have to recognise some information needs and further collect the relevant information. In this way, there are similarities between personal knowledge management and the first part of the ALA´s defini-tion of information literacy. In the course of personal knowledge management the students are confronted with the problem of learning. Thus, it is the intention to give the stu-dents an understanding of how the activity of struc-turing information is related to the learning process. In the one hand when the individual makes a struc-ture of the collected information it may support the learning process, but in the other hand the same structure may later be experienced as obstructing the learning. In other words, structuring information is a very important part of the course. When ALA in the second part of the definition is saying that in-formation literacy is the ability to know how to learn on the background of knowing how informa-tion is organised, it is not quite the same. In per-

sonal knowledge management structuring the in-formation is the activity of the student himself, while in the ALA´s definition the organisation of information is the knowledge organisation of the library. At this point, there is a difference between the two. As mentioned above, in personal knowledge man-agement it is the intention that the individual gets experiences about how to structure information and at the same time gets an understanding of the prob-lems related to this kind of activity. Some learning theories have the opinion that the individuals con-struct their knowledge (Kuhlthau 1993, Bruce 1997). It is this ´constructivism´ in the learning process that we want to support by saying that the students have to structure the information and un-derstand the problems of the process. Therefore, it is possible, that there is a difference between infor-mation literacy as defined by ALA and personal knowledge management concerning the understand-ing of learning. Further, personal knowledge management gives a priority to the mediation. The structure of informa-tion, i.e. the knowledge map, has to be mediated to the organisational context. In this way, the course is oriented at the communication process, where the student discusses the information need, the informa-tion resources and the structure of information with colleagues from the organisational context. Thus, the mediation process is in focus at all the different stages of the course. In the third part of ALA´s definition they say that information literacy is the ability to use the information in such a way that others can learn from them. In this way, the defini-tion of information literacy pronounced an interest in the mediation process or at least in the communi-cation element concerning the use of the informa-tion. However, it is not quite clear how much the communication element means for the definition as a whole. In 1997 Christine Bruce wrote the book ”The Seven Faces of Information Literacy”. Bruce describes information literacy as the ability to operate effec-tively in the information society. We agree with her

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concerning this viewpoint. Further, conceptualising information needs, organising information, making effective use of information, evaluate the informa-tion work are parts of both her theory and personal knowledge management. Her book describes an investigation into the experi-ences of information literacy among various types of professionals. The study identified seven ways of experiencing information literacy: First, informa-tion literacy is experienced as using information technology for information awareness and commu-nication. Second, it is experienced as finding infor-mation from appropriate sources. Third, information literacy is experienced as executing a process. Fourth, it is experienced as controlling information. Fifth, information literacy is experienced as build-ing up a personal knowledge base in a new area of interest. Sixth, it is experienced as working with knowledge and personal perspectives adopted in such a way that novel insights are gained; and sev-enth, experienced as using information wisely for the benefit of others. There is a similarity between personal knowledge management and Bruces fourth way of experiencing information literacy. In the definition of the fourth way she says: “In this category people are focussing on bringing relevant information within their per-sonal sphere of influence and managing it in such a way that it is retrievable. This category is about making connections between information, projects and people using mechanical tools (such as cards of files), electronic tools or the human brain” (Bruce 1999, p.39). In the first hand, this description of information literacy looks like personal knowledge management. It underlines “managing it (i.e. the information) in such a way that it is retrievable” for the people from the organisational context. (Bruce 1999, p.39). When we describe personal knowledge management as the process of structuring informa-tion resulting in a knowledge map and the process of mediating the map to the organisation, there is the same attention on the element of managing the information. On the other hand, the description of the fourth way is without any hint to the learning process. Personal knowledge management has the

intention to support the learning process, but we do not find this aspect in Bruces category. However, we find the aspect of learning in some of the other categories in Bruce´ s list. We find it in the fifth way of experiencing information literacy, where the individual is building up a knowledge base in the purpose of learning, and in the sixth, where the individual is working with knowledge in such a way that novel insights are gained. Both categories underline learning, but, on the other hand, both consider learning as only an activity of the individual without any influence from the com-munication and interaction with others. Once again, the missed element is found in some of the other categories. Thus, the element of communication exists especially in the categories three, four and seven. In many ways, Bruces approach to informa-tion literacy looks like the approach of personal knowledge management, but the elements of the course are distributed among the different ´faces´ of information literacy. Therefore, we can only say that her approach seems to have many similarities with the course. Finally, we will comment an article written by Carol Kuhlthau in 1999. In this article she discusses different intervention strategies. These strategies have the intention to support the individual through the information search process and to change the complex inquiry situation to a knowledge construc-tion process. In this way, her starting point is the same as the one of personal knowledge manage-ment. In the article Kuhlthau mentions a number of inter-vention strategies. Unfortunately, she does not ex-plain the different strategies very clearly. However, two of the strategies have got our attention. She calls these two strategies for respectively ´charting´, and ´collaborating´ (Kuhlthau 1999, pp.13-14). Charting is the strategy helping the student to depict a set of ideas in a graphic or pictorial form. This strategy is described as helpful for organizing de-veloping thoughts and for identifying that which needs further investigation. Thus, there seems to be

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some similarities between this intervention strategy and the process of structuring the information in personal knowledge management. It is quite inter-esting that she mentions the process of structuring information, i.e. called “organizing developing thoughts”, as an intervention strategy. In this way, personal knowledge management can also be called an intervention strategy. Collaborating is the strategy where the student in-volves others as partners or advisors. Kuhlthau de-scribes this strategy as beneficial in working through the more difficult stages of exploring and formulating in the process of seeking information. Talking, she says, enables thinking in process of constructing from a variety of sources of informa-tion (Kuhlthau 1999, p.14). Once again, there are similarities between this intervention strategy and the course elements of personal knowledge man-agement, i.e. the communication. As shown above, parts of personal knowledge man-agement have been recognised in different ways in the presented articles by Bruce and Kuhlthau. There are differences between the concept of information literacy and the course of personal knowledge man-agement, but at the same times the discussion shows that the course has turned to aspects, which are cen-tral to the concept.

Conclusion The comparison between the concept of information literacy and the course in personal knowledge man-agement has resulted in the following conclusion. There are many similarities between the two. How-ever, we have found that there are two elements, which personal knowledge management seems to emphasize more than the definitions of information literacy. The first element is the structuring information by the individual. ALA´s definition of information literacy does not include the element. Christine Bruce has the element involved in her seven faces, but respectively the structuring and the learning aspect was divided between a numbers of different

categories. Kuhlthau’s article from 1999 has called the element for an intervention strategy with the intention to support the individual through the in-formation search process and to change the complex inquiry situation to a knowledge construction proc-ess. The second element is the influences of communi-cation. Communication seems to play a roll in many definitions of information literacy. However, some times communication appears as an appendage to the rest of the definition. In contrast, personal knowledge management try to underline the com-municative element. Personal knowledge management has a strong focus on the two elements mentioned. With these ele-ments it is the intention to widen the field of infor-mation literacy. At the same time, we acknowledge, that there are other parts of information literacy, which personal knowledge management does not give sufficiently attention or perhaps does not in-volve at all. Receiving a great amount of information, it is diffi-cult for the individual to learn and to construct knowledge in relation to the demands of the educa-tion as well as of the workplace. In the beginning of this paper we described Kuhlthau’s model of the information search process. In relation to her model we have mentioned that it may be difficult for a person to reach the fourth stage called the focus formulation. The risk is that the person will remain at the third stage called the prefocus exploration. It is our opinion that there is a need for a course, i.e. an intervention strategy, to support the process of reducing the complexity of the information and to make a focus for the knowledge creation. Our pro-posal is called personal knowledge management. It is a subject, which is based on the acquired knowl-edge of library and information science. At the same time, it is a subject, which challenges our traditional way of looking at information by propos-ing a direct involvement in the relation between information and learning. The latter means that it is both a difficult and an exciting job to develop the subject.

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Literature American Library Association (1989) American Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report. Chicago: ALA. http://www.infolit.org/documents/89Report.htm Bruce, Christine (1997) The Seven Faces of Infor-mation Literacy. Adelaide: Auslib Press Bruce, Christine (1999) Workplace experiences of information literacy. International Journal of In-formation Management 19, pp.33-47. Frand, Jason & Lippincott, Aura (2002) Personal Knowledge Management: A Strategy for Control-ling Information Overload. http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/jason.frand/researcher/articles/info_overload.html Kuhlthau, Carol (1993) Seeking Meaning. A Proc-ess Approach to Library and Information Services. Ablex Publishing Kuhlthau, Carol (1999) Investigating patterns in information seeking: concepts in context. In: Wil-son, Tom & Allen, David K. (eds) Exploring the context of information behaviour. Taylor Graham.

Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. (1995) The knowledge-Creating Company. Oxford University Press. Biograpical notes Trine Schreiber, associate professor at the De-partment of Library and Information Management, the Royal School of Library and Information Sci-ence, Denmark. She has a ph.d. in Sociology from University of Umeå in Sweden. She gives lectures in knowledge management and is a researcher in sub-jects concerning learning and communicational theories. E-mail: ts@db.dk Karen Harbo, development consultant at the Li-brary of the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark. She is educated as librarian from the Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark. She is a team manager at the Library of Aarhus School of Business and a researcher at the same place in information and learning theories. E-mail: har@db.dk