Evolution of Knowledge Management

Libraries as organisations, were dealing with documents alone for many years and are now dealing with “information” contained in the documents. The present information society is transforming gradually into a knowledge society and we, as librarians, have a significant role to play in managing knowledge. The paper attempts to trace the evolution of the concept of Knowledge Management (KM) and identify the role of librarians in KM functions. It also attempts to compare the Laws of Library Science and the Management principles of Fayol with Davenport's KM principles. In conclusion, it is felt that KM concept is not so new to librarians and for librarians to transform themselves into knowledge managers, they need to acquire some more IT and management skills.