Jay Liebowitz has written extensively on expert systems, knowledge management (KM), and information systems, as evidenced by the publication of almost 30 books and more than 200 articles on the subjects. What They Didn't Tell You about Knowledge Management offers a concise practical guide specifically for the LIS professional. The book is best suited to those LIS professionals who are currently involved with a KM initiative, are interested in pursuing a career in KM, or are working in corporate or government libraries. The book is concise with only 84 pages of text and another 20 pages of appendices. This work provides only the briefest of overviews on KM, making it a starting point for the uninitiated. For richer descriptions and greater development of KM concepts and practices, The Knowledge Management Yearbook (Cortada & Woods, 2000) or Liebowitz's Knowledge Management Handbook (1999) should be consulted.
The book is filled with charts, bulleted lists, and excerpts from other publications meant to quickly guide the reader through the knowledgemanagement landscape. These examples are from KM in practice and provide the reader with a sense of how KM manifests itself in the workplace. While the examples are the strength of the book, Liebowitz does not explain or describe them in enough detail to integrate them into the work as a whole. However, the references that accompany each chapter are well chosen and provide the reader with the opportunity to explore in greater detail any of the concepts or practices presented.
Liebowitz draws heavily from his experience as the first Chief Knowledge Officer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. The successful integration of KM with the work of the library there is described throughout the book. Given Liebowitz's knowledge of the federal government, he is careful to describe the differences between federal and corporate knowledge-management practices. KM is a critical initiative for the U.S., as 60% of the federal government's General Schedule employees and 90% of the Senior Executive Service are projected to retire in the next 10 years (Fillichio, 2006). Appendix B consists of excerpts from the report Human Capital: Insights for U.S. Agencies from Other Countries' Succession Planning and Management Initiatives (General Accounting Office, 2003). This report examines the efforts put forth by countries with a federal employee situation similar to that in the U.S. The excerpts provide perspective on the types of problems to be addressed through KM, but again Liebowitz fails to integrate the significance of the excerpts into the work as a whole.
Chapter 1 addresses the assertion that KM might just be the "management fad of the day." In response, Liebowitz discusses the benefits that give knowledge management sustaining power within an organization: adaptability, agility, creativity, institutional memory, and internal and external organizational effectiveness. He speaks from his experiences at Goddard regarding the importance of implementing a strategic plan for KM and relating the plan to core competencies within an organization. In more detail, he discusses a case study in which he helped a large organization develop a strategic plan, and presents specific recommendations. He includes a chart that describes different KM practices: knowledge identification, capture, application, and creation-and