Embedded Library Research Support Service: A Knowledge Management Service Framework in Academic Libraries

Academic libraries are facing challenges of how to effectively engage in academic communities and better support and facilitate new paradigms of teaching, learning and research. Academic libraries shift their service model from information-centered to knowledge-centered services in order to be adapted to the challenged environment. This article proposes an embedded library research support service model based on knowledge management and explains how elements and process of the framework function through a case study in which knowledge management services were delivered by a subject librarian of Xiamen University. The new service model, called embedded service model, is based on a theoretical assumption that library services could be defined as the process of building a community of practice, in which group members, including librarians and researchers, are tied by common interests in a domain. In this model, librarians engage in knowledge sharing within the community and play special roles in knowledge acquisition, organization, sharing, creation and application. This article concludes that knowledge management provides an effective and concrete foundation for librarian to establish relationships among users, technologies and resources in the context of research community.