Knowledge Mobilization in Rural Regions: A Proposed Study of the Public Library as Knowledge Catalyst*

Johan Koren

Abstract

Knowledge is not now just a resource but the resource. It remains to be seen, however, whether this is a paradigm shift, for it is clear that the concept of the exchange of information as a capital good has not been supplanted. But what is knowledge, and what is knowledge management, and how can it be mobilised in rural regions? This paper addresses this and other issues surrounding the debate.

The Knowledge Revolution

Knowledge is not now just a resource but the resource. [2] wrote Mike Bonaventura in an argumentation for the “Benefits of a Knowledge Culture,” adding that “knowledge is broadly speaking the key to effective competition, marketplace distinction and profitability.” Rui Chen, a doctoral student in library and information science at a Chinese university, went further and claimed that

. . .now we have seen the dawn of another age of information management . . . Knowledge management, the eighth stage during the history of information management. ...Today, the transition from the industrial age to the knowledge age is here, and the rate of change is accelerating. [5]

It remains to be seen, however, whether this is a paradigm shift, for it is clear that the concept of the exchange of information as a capital good has not been supplanted. Some writers appear even to use the two words knowledge and information interchangeably, as if they mean the same thing. [22] Nevertheless, a past president of the Special Libraries Association, Judith J. Field, has set her imprimatur on knowledge management (KM) as the “new competitive asset” that “if fully implemented has the potential to make our future as a profession both exciting and very rewarding,” and those who practice it “will be perceived as one of [their] organization’s change agents.” [10]

But what is knowledge, and what is knowledge management? Bonaventura provides a somewhat circular definition of the concept of knowledge and how it differs from information: “Information is not knowledge. Rather information is the potential for knowledge. ... Knowledge ... can be considered as output(s) from a continuous feedback loop which refines information through the application of that information.” [2] Karl Erik Sveiby, a Swedish pioneer of KM, now a world–wide business consultant and research consultant at the University of Queensland, also insists that information and knowledge should not be confused, but suggests a more pragmatic definition of knowledge:

Based on Michael Polanyi and Ludwig Wittgenstein,...I define knowledge as a capacity to act. ... One’s capacity to act is created continuously by a process–of–knowing. In other words, it is contextual. Knowledge cannot be separated from its context. ... In this book the dynamic and active properties of knowledge are emphasized, so the terms knowledge, competence, and process–of–knowing are all used. [23]

What, then, is Knowledge Management? Jarle Evjen, a self-styled knowledge manager and author, and Stig Linna provide a definition:

KM involves the following components:

  • Knowledge processes to create, spread and share knowledge
  • Development of an organizational culture and leadership which encourage the knowledge processes
  • Measurement of intellectual capital
  • Infrastructure and technology
  • Creating a focus through the organization's goals and strategies [9]

Sveiby, however, again offers a more pragmatic definition: “To me Knowledge Management is: The art of creating value from an organization’s Intangible Assets.” (Sveiby’s own emphasis). [24] Intangible assets are the invisible goods that benefit an organization, as better processes or new product designs (“internal structures”), customer relationships (“external structures”) and employee competence. [23]

Challenges for KM in Rural Areas

But we are in the world of special libraries and large corporations. Sveiby clearly assumes in his writings and on his own website [25], a certain size of organization. His examples include such companies as Benetton, 3M, IBM, Skandia AFS and WM–data, companies with several thousand employees. In addition, libraries receive meager mention in his writings. Only one instance of the word “librarians” was found on his site:

Knowledge has been “managed” at least since the first human learned to transfer the skill to make a fire. Many early initiatives to transfer skills and information can be labeled “Knowledge Management”, libraries being one, schools and apprenticeships others. Librarians, teachers and master craftsmen can be called knowledge managers. Later database managers were added to the list. Today's new professions include Chief Knowledge Officers, Knowledge Engineers, Intellectual Capital Directors and Intellectual Capital Controllers. (Sveiby’s own emphasis.) [25]

Bonaventura appears to make a similar assumption concerning the size of organization for which he is writing. [2]

The Plan for the Norwegian Research Council’s new research program Regional Development, on the other hand, makes the following points about business ventures in rural areas:

Small and medium–sized businesses (8MB) play a central role in processes of growth and innovation in rural areas. . . . SMBs are often hindered by relatively little national and international market experience and often have poor capacity for systematic renewal and little ability to make use of external expertise. A lack of resources for building up knowledge is one of the obstacles to innovative and aggressive strategies. [16]

Similar difficulties have been noted for rural areas in the United States. Steve Cisler reminded us that “it is more expensive to build infrastructure in rural areas than in towns.” [7]

Is There a Role for the Public Library Here?

Many writers and researchers have seen a central role for the rural public library in the social and educational life of the districts they serve. Professor Niels Windfeld Lund of the University of Tromsø, Norway, wrote of the public library’s role as a “strategic in–between element,” that there is

a need for creating local versions of the public library regarding selections of materials and forms of communication, so that the local library can be used as en arena for confrontation between the local and mixed cultures in the anthropological sense. The global culture of knowledge (part of the cultural sphere in society) is thus mediated by the librarian. ... If the library is to be a real resource for everybody in the community, it may be necessary to create a forum for discussions about the kind of life that people wish to create. [14]

The Center for the Study of Rural Librarianship at Clarion University, Clarion, Pennsylvania, has as its stated goal “to extend the knowledge relative to the nature and role of rural libraries on a national and international basis.” [3] Its director, Bernard Vavrek, has identified eight areas of needed research. Four of these are relevant in this context:

  1. What conditions or circumstances would encourage community agencies and institutions to more actively share resources and services? What is the librarian’s role as a community leader?
  2. In what manner may information services provided for Native Americans be improved?
  3. To what extent have rural and small communities utilized electronic information services for improving infrastructure? What models exist?
  4. What circumstances would insure that the public library is the focal point of the virtual community? [31]

Proposed research project

Applying knowledge management techniques for knowledge mobilization in rural areas has some obstacles. Reardon pointed out at a recent IFLA conference that at least Anglo–American “ILS education has concentrated upon skills, techniques, processes, and bibliographic and information resources management. Thus, it cannot be regarded as having produced knowledge managers.” [17]. Traditionally, Norwegian library education has done much of the same, and at the undergraduate level. But there is an additional problem, of which Vavrek was very much aware for the United States: “the most important factor limiting the present and future development of rural and small town information services is the lack of academically trained staff in America’s libraries.” [30] In 1992, only about 34% of full-time librarians in U.S. public libraries in communities of less than 25,000 population had a library degree. [6] In Norway the situation is grimmer. Nationally, although the Library Law of 1985 requires it, only 65% of public libraries have library directors with full library education, according to the 1997 statistics of the State Public Library Directorate. [20] In Nordland county alone, geographically right on the Arctic Circle, the percentages are reversed: approximately 62% of the 46 municipal library directors do not have a library degree. Many of them, in addition, are employed in part–time positions, some as low as 20–30% of full time.

Yet, there may be situations in Norwegian rural public libraries which might provide conditions conducive or catalytic to the development of knowledge management, or at least knowledge mobilization, in co–operation with local small and medium–sized businesses. According to the Norwegian Research Council’s Program Plan for Regional Development:

Further reductions in trade barriers, new technology and a continuing need for renewal of qualifications, new thinking and innovation create a need for change and conversion – not only for businesses, but also in the production environments and the local communities where they are situated. Based on these elements, the question of the factors that facilitate localization and development in rural areas will be central to this research program. We consider it desirable that an emphasis be placed on the role of technological, knowledge, economic and cultural factors, among others. It would also be important to shed light on the interplay between these basic structural processes of change and the effects on employment, residential and quality of life patterns in different types of local communities and regions. [16]

In essence, the Research Program seeks answers to the following questions:

A further question could be added:

A proposed research project seeks to explore these questions through case studies and follow-ups in order to shed light on how three situations where one of three different factors (technological, administrative and cultural) dominates can make for the development of a foundation for knowledge management in their respective regions through collaborative effort.

Proposed Case Study Methodology

Norway is divided into nineteen regional administrative units, known as fylker. The official English translation is county, which corresponds more to the equivalent British administrative districts than to US counties. Nordland county straddles the Arctic Circle. There have been a number of innovative library–related projects in Nordland, some of them under the direction of the Nordland Regional Library in Mo i Rana. One, “Træna bibliotek bruker fylkesbibliotekets datamaskin” [Træna Library Uses the Regional Library’s Computer], connected one of the remotest and smallest municipal libraries in Norway to the Regional Library’s computer in Mo i Rana by ISDN, and thereby to the Internet. Another has been the establishment of a bookmobile service to the South Saemi people (previously called Lapps) in Nordland, North Trøndelag and some of the eastern regions of Northern Sweden. A third project, not under the direction of the Regional Library, has seen the development of an experiment in decentralised local government in the municipality of Lurøy with the establishment of district councils in seven of the municipality’s school districts over its innumerable islands and on the mainland. These have some authority delegated by the central government on Onøy, as well as providing library services to the local community. Can these three cases have some elements which could encourage the development of knowledge management in their respective situations?

Proposed Exploratory Methods

Niels Windfeld Lund suggested that a public library might create or become a community workshop:

If the library is to be a real resource for everybody in the community, it may be necessary to create a forum for discussions about the kind of life that people wish to create. It is a question of trying to be integrated into the global knowledge community by totally changing the ways of life in the community or is it possible to sustain the local cultures by a partial adjustment to conditions in the modern knowledge society. How can I/we create a modern way of local life – what kind of knowledge do I/we need in order to do so? . . . Among the methods to initiate such a dialogue and to try to make it a dialogue among equals, one can mention the method formulated by the German activist Robert Jungk: The Future Workshop [13] ... One of the essential benefits of locating the future workshop in a library is that it is possible to integrate the library as a data workshop comprising media, databases, etc. in the future workshop process. This can lead to a new future workshop which is based on new knowledge from the materials in the library and various other places. ... the local library can become a permanent site for workshops based on local cultures, exploiting the knowledge communicated by the library from communities in other parts of the world. [14]

In addition to global knowledge there is also local knowledge, or, to use Sveiby’s term [23], local competence that needs to be assessed, organised, stored and made accessible to the community. Bingham reports on a partially successful attempt to create a database of references to “individuals within the region who have knowledge, experience or skills not common to the rest of the community.” [1] And there are methods that can combine Lund’s community workshop with a means of assessing local knowledge and competence.

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) has been applied mostly in Third World countries, but also in urban contexts [11] since the 1970s, first as Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) by agricultural developers, then as more participatory assessment involving the local people. [8] The evaluative techniques involved have their roots in the activist participatory research of Paolo Freire among others. According to Robert Chambers:

The goal is to enable rural people to do their own investigations, to share their knowledge and to teach us, to do the analysis and presentations, to plan and own their own outcome. In a PRA, knowledge is articulated and generated in more participatory ways; in which interviewing, investigations, transects, mapping and diagramming, presentation and analysis are carried out by the people themselves; in which they “own” more of the information; in which they identify the priorities. [4]

PRA is a cluster of qualitative survey methods combined in a triangulation that is intended to ensure that different perspectives and approaches eliminate bias as much as possible. The traditional application to agricultural settings means that geographical and seasonal understanding have played a large part, but interviews and social mapping, documentary and statistical analyses also have their role. Sturges and Chimseu, for example, evaluated the performance and use of information–providing agencies in rural Malawi by interviewing information providers and intermediaries and group discussions with information users [21,22]. On the other hand, PRA, as generally practised, can have its limits, however. David Mosse had some cautionary advice as a result of reflections on his experience with PRA:

What is often missing, in the employment of PRA methods, is an assessment of the limits of local knowledge and awareness, and the constraints to existing community systems of problem solving. . . . Translating individual, often fragmentary, experiences of a difficulty into the collective awareness of a problem with a view to change, and from this the formulation of a coherent programme of actions (some involving collective action) often requires new skills, knowledge, and some cases new institutional arrangements (usually implying some shift in the local distribution of power. In broad terms, this means matching PRA with techniques of animation, awareness raising, non–formal education or community problem solving which have been a central part of participatory strategies of social action organizations for two decades. In other words, PRA should not ignore the need to broaden and deepen this knowledge, to build on and develop local systems of analysis and problem solving, and to develop confidence and organizational resources necessary for action. [15]

These admonitions bring us back to Lund [14] and the library as a future workshop. For the future workshops which have been adapted from Jungk and Müller [13] and applied in various settings in Denmark [19], have a forward–looking and constructive mission:

The main structure of a future workshop consists of three phases. The first phase is the phase of criticism, where you just criticize. The second phase is called a phase of imagination, where you try to formulate all the dreams about how it could be, if. . . and then you go to the third phase, the most difficult and decisive phase: the phase of realizing. This method provides the possibility to be critical, open to different ideas and solutions and obliged to create a realistic solution at the same time. [14]

Combining these methods of PRA and the future workshop with case studies following up previous projects where single factors dominate could provide a picture of the strength of these various factors in the development of the local library as a knowledge mobilization centre. In other words, the aim will be to create a local, active group or groups that can together assess local resources and needs for knowledge, competence, and plan ways of developing these needs, and to ascertain to what extent the local library can act as a knowledge centre.

Case study 1: Træna

Træna is the smallest municipality in Nordland (population 497) on several islands right on the Arctic Circle, far out in the ocean, separated from its nearest neighbour, Lurøy, itself mostly an archipelagic municipality, by a broad, treacherous channel, the Trænfjord. Fishing has been the traditional means of subsistence (Træna bills itself as the oldest fishing community in Norway; there are Stone Age remains here), now supplemented by aquaculture and tourism. Its librarian does not have a library education and must make do with a 20% position, which in his case makes it essentially a second job, an adjunct to another, more full–time position. There are no other employees in the library. The project, “Træna Library Uses the Regional Library’s Computer” [29], was established in 1995 in order to provide a means of automating this small library and providing access to the Internet at a price that was affordable, in a situation where the library’s total budget for 1995 was NOK 103,000 (aboutUS$13,700). The library catalogue was created as a sub–database of the Nordland Regional Library’s database on the Unix machine which it shares with Rana Public Library in Mo i Rana, and a PC out on Træna connected to Mo through the ISDN network. The protocol used was TCP/IP, thus allowing for further access to the Internet. In essence, then, Nordland Regional Library functioned as an Internet Service Provider for the Træna library.

In this case, technology becomes the dominant factor in the equation for knowledge mobilization. But is this a sufficient factor for Træna’s business and adult community for “creating value from an organization’s Intangible Assets”? [24] Trond Nygard, Træna’s library director, reported that during the project period, the main users of the library’s only PC at the time were boys of 12–16 years of age, but that a few adults had used the machine for “genealogical studies and other technical information,” as well as email. [29] However, a public machine had newly been acquired, and he expected that the activity would increase. A follow–up, using PRA methods and the development of a future workshop might indicate whether the activity has, indeed, increased, and at the same time provide a means of involving the local business community in a potential collaboration for competence development.

Case study 2: Lurøy

Lurøy is the neighbour municipality to Træna, scattered over a large number of smaller and larger islands (1372 of them), but including also a few school districts on the mainland, for a total land area of 262 sq. km. Here, too, the Arctic Circle slices through the municipality. Some of the islands, like Sørnesøy and the picturesque horseman, Hestmannøya, only partly belong to Lurøy. Again, fishing has been the dominant traditional industry, and here, too, aquaculture has developed as a supplement. Lurøy has one of the largest salmon–farming plants in Norway on Lovund island. But land–based agriculture in combination with fishing has also been a significant feature on the larger islands, mostly in the form of meat (sheep) and milk production. Tourism is developing as a sizeable source of income, especially on Lovund, which is noted for its now protected puffin population.

But perhaps the most interesting development in the municipality is the local government experimentation with “neighbourhood” councils in seven of the school districts across the islands and on the mainland. Each council has authority delegated from the central municipal government, and a certain budget allotted. In addition, library services have been associated with each district office, some with a small collection, others with no collection, but because of frequent local boat connections, books and other materials can be quickly delivered. This means that Lurøy has essentially seven public library branches at a time when other public libraries are closing their branches and centralising collections! To date there appear to be no statistics or reports that describe any results of this experiment. Future workshops, for example, on the largest island Lovund (not the municipal capital) and one or two of the smaller districts, one on the mainland and another on one of the smaller islands, could therefore explore the use and interest, both potential and actual, by the local population and local business. Is such a decentralised local government/public library service combination attractive to business and the local population generally? Is it conducive to the development of knowledge competence? Are there any additional factors, such as access to the Internet and other technological elements, which might add to the usefulness of such a service?

Case study 3: The Southern Saemi

The Sámi are a group of indigenous peoples spread over the Barents region, from Røros and Hamar in Norway, through northern Norway, Sweden and Finland to the Kola peninsula of Russia. Nine language groups have been identified, distinct dialects with their own cultural traditions, some of which are different enough from each other to be mutually unintelligible. [18] The largest group, most often depicted as the Sámi or Lapps, are the Northern Sámi, whose range is approximately from Bodø to Northern Russia. Among the least in population of the nine groups, perhaps a mere few thousand, are the South Saemi people. Their language is so different from North Sámi that it does not use the extra diacritics, but limits itself to the same alphabet as Norwegian. Many words are completely different from North Sámi. The South Saemi are scattered over a large area from Røros in central Norway to just south of Bodø and eastwards, almost to the Gulf of Bothnia in Sweden, with small family groups spread among the Norwegian and Swedish population. Two South Saemi cultural centres have been established in Norway, Saemien sijte in Snåsa, North Trøndelag county, which provides museum services, and Sijti Jarnge in Hattfjelldal, Nordland county, which is responsible for educational and library service. In order to reach out to the scattered families with reading and educational materials, a bookmobile service was created in 1995 under the auspices of the Nordland Regional Library, which was intended to visit Saemi on both sides of the border between Norway and Sweden. When the project period expired at the end of 1998, the Swedish authorities decided to discontinue their support. Nevertheless, the bookmobile has had enormous success, especially as a symbolic means of signaling the distinctness and viability of the South Saemi culture. A South Saemi Library Plan [26] was approved in June 1997, with the aim of setting up a South Saemi Special Library at Sijti Jarnge in Hattfjelldal, connected to the Sámi Special Library in Karasjok. Its mission is “to build and to preserve the cultural identity [and] to provide a source of knowledge about the Saemi people, such as culture, industry, language, sociology and history.” [26] That project is still awaiting funding.

Saemien Sijte, the Saemi cultural centre in Snåsa, north of Trondheim, initiated in 1996 a pilot project in cooperation with tourist organizations in North Trøndelag and the North Trøndelag Regional Council. The aim was develop “market–oriented products and product packages both connected to and independent of Saemien Sijte” which could present South Saemi culture for the tourist market. [27] Because such product development would take time and financing, this pilot project found its significance particularly in an analysis of the cultural and political prerequisites for product development and stimulation for further development. Essentially, it could be said that this pilot project was the first step in a knowledge assessment/knowledge mobilization project.

The next step might be to coordinate the goals of the South Saemi Library Plan with the results and the know–how gained from Saemien Sijte’s pilot project: to consolidate the knowledge gained, and to press further on, to build the internal structure whose foundations have been traced. Can a Saemi Special Library function as a knowledge catalyst for the development and stimulation of South Saemi culture in cooperation with Saemien Sijte and the Saemi bookmobile? A future workshop using PRA methods might be able to find out.

Conclusion

According to the Programme plan for the Norwegian Research Council’s Research Program in Regional Development, we need to find out “the role of technological, knowledge, economic and cultural factors, among others” [16] in patterns of employment, residence and quality of life in rural areas. These case studies are aimed at investigating cases where one of these factors dominates (Træna - technological; Lurøy – economic and governmental; South Saemi – cultural), in order to gain a picture of the relationship between these factors and the possibility of collaboration between business and the local library in rural areas for knowledge mobilization. As Winston Tellis puts it:

Case studies are multi–perspectival analyses. This means that the researcher considers not just the voice and perspective of the actors, but also of the relevant groups of acots and the interaction between them. This one aspect is a salient point in the characteristic that case studies possess. They give a voice to the powerless and voiceless. [28]

The aim here is indeed to give a voice to groups that, because of their geographical position in the periphery, often are voiceless and powerless.



* Based on a paper presented at the 3rd Norwegian Conference on Library Research, Forbebu, Oslo, 18th–19th January, 1999.

References

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About the author

Johan Koren is Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dominican University. email jkoren@email.dom.edu.