So first off, let’s talk about my tags. My most obvious tags are knowledge-management, knowledge, knowledge-creation, knowledge-sharing, and knowledge-transfer. That makes complete sense for a body of work I read for a knowledge management class.
Secondly, what patterns do I have? I noticed a pattern of REPETITIVE WORD-descriptor. For example, I used knowledge-WORD and organizational-WORD a lot (knowledge-management, knowledge-creation, knowledge-sharing, knowledge-transfer. knowledge-production, knowledge-society AND organizational-adaptation, organizational-change, organizational-knowledge, organizational-knowledge-management, organizational-learning). I think that’s an easy way to make sure I don’t use duplicate tags that mean the same thing. Like instead of saying knowledge-sharing and sharing-of-knowledge or organization-processes and processes-in-organizations I know that if there is the word ‘knowledge’ or ‘organization/al’ in the potential tag, I always start with the main word to keep the tags simplified (even if they make more sense the other way).
Another pattern I see is tagging unusual or weird words that may seem minor but are what stood out to me in the articles and will make me remember them. For example, I read multiple case studies but tagged the ones that I liked as ‘case study’. I tagged the two papers I read that referenced the same Xerox study as ‘xerox’. I tagged the paper about rural ICTs as ‘rural’ to remember. Same with ‘urban-planning’.
This isn’t a pattern but I did create tags before I read the papers and then went back and changed them or added to them after I read the articles in order to make sure they were completely accurate.
Lastly, what methodology would I suggest for future tagging? I would suggest a little more pre-planning. I would tag before reading like I did and would, if possible, tag as a collection so that you keep your tagging schema in mind OR I would write the schema down so it can be referenced. This is especially important as you first are starting to create your methodology so you don’t have to fix as many mistakes.
I also believe that you can’t really have too many tags but after looking at my tag cloud, I realize that, after the fact, I don’t know what some of these mean. That means I need to either a) be more explicit in my tagging so I have context or b) don’t use as many random tags. I think I would lean towards being more explicit because having more avenues to organize knowledge is a good thing to me.
I like tagging to be a mix of planning and organic thought. I like to go in with a vague plan and structure and then let the information I’m tagging guide me into how it wants to be tagged. I always find that a pattern emerges, whether you intend it to or not.
In the end, for my first try at tagging academic work (but definitely not tagging period because I’m an avid Tumblr user), I like it went pretty well. I ThinkILike CiteULike. 😀
I’ve put myself into all this debt to get a Master’s degree in order to join a specific profession but as I look for jobs, all of them are saying ‘5-7 years experience required’ or ‘expertise with xyz’ (xyz being all these systems you can’t get experience in unless you get a job that uses them…). It’s very disheartening. What’s all this education for if employers don’t use it as a foundation and mold you into their perfect employee? Rule and Besen even say “Much of the skill necessary for most work roles is acquired on the job”. Welp… Especially as I look for a job in the archives profession and they require “a MLS/MLS with a concentration in archival studies” which my school doesn’t even offer. I think the argument I’ve heard about why the LIS professions requires a Master’s degree can be summed up in one quote from this article:
So this week I read some intense articles. The first was Goggins and Mascaro’s¹ Context Matters: The Experience of Physical, Informational, and Cultural Distance in a Rural IT Firm. I have always liked learning about ICTs and their implementation. Their take on distance in relation to a rural IT firm is fascinating. The whole paper was interesting but the part that stood out the most to me was the commoditization of ICT labor. With technology and software that used to be extremely expensive and available only to large firms becoming open-source and therefore available to anyone, smaller region IT firms are able to offer services like larger urban firms. This means that rural areas no longer have to be ‘behind the times’. Rural area business can now be ‘cutting edge’. I also liked how they talked about how developing and training local workers in the mid-level data analysis skills a firm is looking for, the employees will have a greater impact of developing the local community than getting a dead-end job at a call center (for example! They used that examples!)
They mentioned how informal story-telling was paramount to how they shared knowledge and that their work experience led to their ability to find information for their customers quicker. This reminded me a lot of Mary’s post 
When I was dividing up the articles required for this class, three articles stood out to me as interrelated and extremely interesting. The first of the articles that stood out to me was Kumar and Chakrabarti’s³ article about the Challenger disaster. I was not alive when the Challenger disaster happened but I grew up hearing about it. I remember reading a story where the main character went back in time and witnessed a group of people seeing the disaster happen for the first time. This person knew what was going to happen and had known for decades by that point. However, witnessing this group react and be horrified for the first time really put into perspective for the main character how large and truly life changing this event was. Kumar and Chakrabarti’s article made clear the reality of the Challenger disaster through the managerial decisions made that day.
dividuals and groups within the organization that can make use of them”. Audrey spoke of social capital and the “importance of trust and the reputation of knowledge providers and recipients”. Once I read the article, these all made sense but (like always…) I thought back to my previous experience.
parties to meet them (aspect 1) or I don’t think we have the same motivations and goals (aspects 2, 3, & 4). Reading in a scholarly article about how trust in an organization leads to “increased knowledge transfer” and “full disclosure” made me realize how much I need to work on my trust issues. I need to trust that we, as a group, as working towards the same outcome and that our motives, while different, still mean that we will meet each others expectations. I really enjoyed reading my classmates views and then reading the article and coming to my own conclusions.
in Tampa had success with something, our site was then forced to do it. The problem with this, that Szulanski addresses, is that not every ‘best practices’ works the same with different groups of people. Szulanski talks about the ‘NIH syndrome’ or the ‘not invented here syndrome’ and it may seem laughable but it is really really real. When you create a workflow or guideline or best practice, you have stake in the game (or a horse in the race to use a work related metaphor). Having an outside force (even if it’s within your organization) tell you ‘someone else did it this way and it worked so therefore it must work for you and you’ll be punished if you don’t do it this way’ just plain sucks. It’s almost counterproductive. Szulanski also mentions ‘arduous relationships’ speaking about the tacit knowledge that comes attached to best practices that may not be known outside of that department therefore, when the successful best practice from one department is shared with others, it may not work.
membership in the ALA, SLA, and SAA. The most important one to mention here I think is the one called ‘Lone Arrangers’, a listserv “geared specifically towards those … working in small or solo repositories” (
kamrynwies 