Interestingly enough, my research
questions have remained fairly stable since the beginning of the term. Coming
into the course, my main questions were: will art libraries die out, that is to
say, will they just slowly cease to exist or be replaced by self-service models
when seasoned professionals retire or relocate to new positions? What protocols
and policies are in place in these institutions to retain or transfer the
knowledge of these workers?
Up until a couple of months ago,
I had never considered knowledge management practices for tacit knowledge
capture and succession planning within the library, specifically the art
library. But in thinking about the questions associated with this subject (What
happens when institutions are faced with the retirement or departure of senior
librarians and archivists? How can tacit knowledge be captured? Is oral history
an effective method for this capture? How can this information be used for
succession planning and institutional memory retention?) I have discovered a
surprising lack of research addressing it. When I attended the ARLIS/NA (Art
Libraries Society of North America) conference in Seattle back in March I
discussed this topic with various art information professionals and their
reaction was, “Wow, that’s an interesting subject, and very relevant given
current conditions in the field.” Yet it seems that many people, or
publications pending, are actively pursuing this line of research.
Initially, I was planning to use
an ethnographic approach to conduct this research. This would be in the form of
observation by immersion. But as I continued to flesh out my questions and
ideas I thought of oral history. This methodology is recommended for use in
succession planning, most notably discussed (though briefly) by Jay Liebowitz
in Knowledge
Retention: Strategies and Solutions. I found myself looking forward to
becoming an oral historian and training myself in the art of interviewing
despite knowing that I won’t, unfortunately, be working on this project, at
least not in the very near future.
I think my biggest concern in
going forward with this research is this concept and practice of capturing
tacit knowledge. Loosely using Michael Polanyi’s evolutionary theory of tacit
knowledge (“we know more than we can tell”), I’ve been thinking about how we
can actually capture the knowledge we can’t put into words (1966, p. 4).
This, of course, would require an astute attention to detail in preparing
questions and in determining cues for spontaneous discovery through conversation
during the interview (Batty, 2009, p. 110-13). Once all of this information is
captured and transcribed and organized and coded, what then? How would I, as
the researcher, go about creating policies? Is that even my place? How do I
influence or inform policy makers within an institution to use this data to
develop strategies to prevent knowledge attrition? I hope that one day I’ll be
able to answer all of these questions.
References:
Batty,
E. (2009). Reflections on the use of oral history techniques in social
research. People, Place & Policy Online, 3(2), 109-121.
Liebowitz,
J. (2009). Knowledge Retention: Strategies and Solutions. Boca Raton:
CRC Press.
Polanyi,
M. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books.
Very interesting stuff, Angélique. I was reading ACRL's 8Rs report when I was researching a paper on organizational culture this semester, this one: http://www.carl-abrc.ca/uploads/pdfs/8Rs%20REDUX%20Executive%20Summary.pdf about strategic human resources implications for libraries and the authors suggested that one tool that libraries should try to implement as part of succession planning is mentoring. Librarians are super busy and organizations should consider devoting more resources/paid hours of labour to creating formal mentorship programs in order to deal with normal rates of attrition, but also the particular pressures that the on-going exodus of baby-boomers is causing. A lot of traditional library skills risk being lost as this demographic group continues to retire in large numbers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this Bridgette! This is really interesting. I think I was also reading something recently about the value and importance of mentoring, but it might have been in a health sciences context. Though I think mentoring is important regardless of the institution. The only problem is that with so little funding, many special libraries don't have the resources to hire new professionals until seasoned ones leave. The AGO Library and Archives, for example, was supposed to have 12 staff members when they relocated in the 90s but the most they ever had was 8 and now they only have 5. But regardless of the type of library, this is a crucial issue that I'm not sure anyone is quite prepared for.
ReplyDeleteDuring my undergraduate studies, I did an independent research project on 'unofficial' transmission of histories; namely the every-day behaviours, skill sets, work and knowledge of women living in rural Ontario communities and how that transmission has changed over time.
ReplyDeleteWhile it isn't oral history, exactly, my research led me to looking at sources like opinion columns of newspapers and letters to the editor, different archival documents including journals and day planners, and even things like blogs.
I found evidence of a lot of tacit knowledge through these sources, and I think a careful coding of the language used in informal places like that could also be a way of getting at that information.
I'm not sure if that's of much use to you, but I found that it complimented the principles of oral histories nicely, providing contextualized records and documents in order to frame and understand oral records.
That's actually very interesting and not something I had considered. I like the idea of having textual materials complement the oral interviews. Actually, I wonder if correspondence such as letters, newsletters and emails would work in this context. Definitely something to consider!
ReplyDelete