Why Every Organisation Needs A Chief Librarian
The taxonomy and ontology of knowledge.
Background
I’ve been thinking about knowledge management for some time. We are clearly transiting from a digital economy to an information economy, and from there, further to a knowledge economy. Organisations are maturing in their capabilities to manage and exploit information, from data lakes to data science and AI. But organisations are terrible at keeping track of their knowledge assets and maintaining them. Could the ancient craft of library science shed some light? At its heart, library science is about taxonomy (attributes of classification) and ontology (how classified entities relate to each other); it’s about filing and accessing.
And so I dedicate my 69th article to arguing the need for a Chief Librarian in every organisation.
(I write a weekly series of articles where I call out bad thinking and bad practices in data analytics / data science which you can find here.)
Knowledge Economy
Let’s first start by talking about the key difference between an information economy and a knowledge economy. While they are sometimes used interchangeably, they are most definitely not the same thing. The essential defining characteristics of the information economy is the monetised exchange of data and information, whereas for the knowledge economy, it is about the utilisation of knowledge to create and innovate for differentiated advantage. Knowledge can be in the form of intellectual property, practices, and ideas. The knowledge economy relies on a skilled workforce — in the form of specialised technical skills and advanced cognitive skills.
Aside from the definition of the knowledge economy, let’s also unpack what we mean by Library Science. Library Science, sometimes also known as Information Studies, is an academic discipline focused on classification and preservation of knowledge and promoting literacy; it has obviously matured from simply cataloging books, which were the prevalent source and form of knowledge in medieval times.
Now, data has become plentiful, accessible, and “mine-able”. Being data-driven isn’t going to create sustainable competitive advantage. It is the internalisation and integration of knowledge (which each organisation uniquely produces) that will be the next competitive arena.
Why Catalog?
And this brings me to the key point of this article: every organisation that employs significant numbers of knowledge workers should consider creating the role of Chief Librarian. The role of the Chief Librarian is to catalog knowledge utilised or generated by the organisation. The outcome of the role is to make knowledge identifiable, accessible, and connected. To achieve this requires immense thoughtfulness on taxonomies and ontologies, a topic that has been sadly omitted from active discussions in the data analytics / data science domain; even the practice of data governance provides little direction on this.
Taxonomy is about classification schema — where to put what. It is underpinned by the principle of mutual exclusivity. The equivalent in Library Science is the famous Dewey Decimal System, which organises library materials by discipline or field of study. We’ve all seen these strings of numbers affixed to library books. For example, “100s” is the broad classification for “Philosophy and Psychology” — “101” is “Theory of Philosophy” and “105” is “Serial Publications of Philosophy”. Additional decimal numbers allow for detailed drill-down into sub-topics. Simple yet brilliant. It’s a filing system to reduce friction in “seek & search”.
Ontology, on the other hand, is about the relationships between classified objects based on systemically defined attributes and properties. For example, one can ask how Philosophy is related to Mathematics, what attributes they share in common, or what topics or disciplines they share in common. I would argue that ontology is what creates and supports knowledge, but it requires taxonomy as a “storage” foundation. And so, the utilisation of knowledge ultimately hinges on having robust taxonomies and ontologies.
Chief Librarian
An organisation’s Chief Librarian should be a C-suite role reporting to the CEO. He needs to work closely with all his C-suite peers to inventories and “permeate” knowledge across the organisation. The Chief Librarian’s scope covers processes, ideas, insights gleaned from failures. It is broad, and it is complex. It’s a whole new discipline that will need to ferment and mature. This is NOT data governance or information management. This is beyond the typical competencies of the CDO (Chief Data Officer) or the CIO (Chief Information Officer).
The greatest challenge in the role would be (the lack of) ontology. It requires some serious deep thinking on what logical first-principle approach to employ that can anchor the ontology or ontologies. Would the ontology be unique to the organisation, and/or to the industry? Or should it be anchored on some universal set of differentiating attributes?
A natural question that arises is “What kind of experience, competencies and skillsets should a Chief Librarian possess?” And here is where a skills ontology comes in useful. Because the role is new, there are no direct competencies; we would need to approach it adjacently. How much digital and technology skills must the Chief Librarian have? Is the role creative or procedural? Is the work process exacting, or is a large degree of flexibility required? Would a traditionally trained librarian (with an academic qualification in Library & Information Science be a fit?
Conclusion
One to two decades ago, the notion of a corporate chief librarian would have been ridiculed. The conceptual thinking was weak. The tools didn’t exist. With the rise of knowledge graphs and similar technological tools (necessary to support ontology development), there is no better time than now to lead the charge on organisational knowledge management and knowledge inventorisation.
