ACQUISITION AND APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AMONG LIBRARIANS IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN IMO STATE

Abstract

Acquiring knowledge is crucial to the success and development of a knowledge-based organization like tertiary institution. This study, examined levels of acquisition, sharing and application of knowledge management by academic librarians in tertiary institutions in Imo State. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted correlation research design which involved the simple linear method. The population of the study was 155 librarians in the nine tertiary institutions’ libraries in Imo State. The entire number of the population was used as sample. Two rating scales were used for the collection of data for this study, titled: Level of Knowledge Management Acquisition Scale (LKMAS) and Application of Knowledge Management Scale (AKMS). The instruments were validated by specialists in Library and Information Science and Measurement and Evaluation. Cronbach alpha method was used for calculating the internal consistency of the instruments giving reliability coefficients of 0.89 and 0.72 for LKMAS and AKMS respectively. The researcher used Pearson Product Moment Correlation also called Pearson “r” statistics to answer the research questions while t-test of significance of simple linear correlation statistics was used to test the hypotheses at p<0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study indicated that there is a moderate positive and significant relationship between knowledge acquisition and application of knowledge management by academic librarians in tertiary institutions in Imo State; and there is a moderate positive and significant relationship between knowledge sharing and application of knowledge management by academic librarians in tertiary institutions in Imo State. It was concluded that the level of knowledge management (acquisition & sharing) are significantly associated with the application of knowledge management by academic librarians in tertiary institutions in Imo State. Based on the above findings, the study recommended, that University management or authorities should have an open door policy of information system in order to boost the level of knowledge sharing behaviour and management among library staff.