KM Education at LIS Schools: An Analysis of KM Master's Programs

摘要

LIS embraced knowledge management (KM) during the mid 1990s, and in the context of the adoption of KM, this study explores the current state of KM education offered by LIS schools. The study conducted a survey of homepages of 600 LIS schools worldwide, followed by an analysis of selected LIS-based KM master's programs. Data were also col lected from the World Guide to Library, Archive and Information Science Education (Schniederjurgen, 2007) and from the Internet. The survey shows that 1 7.7% of LIS schools adopted KM education in 140 different degree programs. The diffusion of KM education was high in master's degree programs, offering 65% of the KM programs or courses. The analysis of KM master's programs indicates that LIS schools concentrated more on IT and information than on business and human perspectives of KM. Implications of the study are to define the boundaries of KM and to integrate major perspectives of KM in designing KM education programs for LIS.