UDC 027.7

KOLESNYKOVA T. O.

Editor-in-Chief,

PhD Social Sciences, Communication,

Senior researcher,

Director of the Scientific Library,

Ukrainian State University of Science and Technologies (Dnipro, Ukraine),

e-mail: t.o.kolesnykova@ust.edu.ua, ORCID 0000-0002-4603-4375

Library and Knowledge Management in Times of Crisis: Search for Effective Models of Activity

In this issue, our contributors share their thoughts, ideas, and doubts, describing how they and their library teams have worked hard during the recent crisis years to develop, improve, or find effective models of operation to prepare for high-level negative events and minimise catastrophic consequences. Knowledge management is definitely about university libraries, which have shifted their role from accessing and managing information to accessing, sharing and managing knowledge. The papers describe the library experience of knowledge management in times of crisis as a combination of information, communication and human resource management. The crisis experience is considered in the context of the conference "University Library at a new stage of social communications development" 2023 as the experience gained in the working library environment of universities around the world, created in the rapidly changing, chaotic and often dangerous for people's health and life conditions of large-scale crisis events. By illustrating the challenges, surprises, and rewards we face in library and information science in different countries, we hope that the articles in this issue will provide us all with the motivation to keep going in a difficult period. At the very least, these articles will help readers to appreciate how our understanding of higher education librarianship continues to evolve in times of crisis.

Full-length papers were selected, reviewed, and recommended for publication by members of the international editorial board.

According to the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (Dalkir, 2017), "Knowledge management (KM) is defined as a deliberate and systematic coordination of an organization’s people, technology, processes, and organizational structure in order to add value through reuse and innovation”.

Knowledge management during the large-scale crisis events of our time – natural and man-made disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, and armed conflicts, especially the Russian-Ukrainian war – has demonstrated its value in helping societies and economies of different countries adapt to unexpected and tragic circumstances.

Thus, I would consider the crisis experience in the context of the UniLibNSD 2023 Сonference as the experience gained in the working library environment of universities around the world, created in the rapidly changing, chaotic and often dangerous for people's health and life conditions of large-scale crisis events.

Knowledge management is definitely about university libraries, which have shifted their role from accessing and managing information to accessing, sharing and managing knowledge! This is how we "arm" our communities with the knowledge of the day, disseminate it among students, teachers, scientists, communities of cities and regions, integrate it into the international research and education space, and use it in the development of our own products and services.

By generating value from their intellectual assets based on knowledge, libraries share them among employees of their departments, universities, other organizations and associations to develop best practices, including those based on information technology.

The authors of this issue of the journal, initially presenting their thoughts as speakers at the international conference UniLibNSD 2023, describe the library experience of knowledge management in times of crisis as a combination of information, communication and human resource management.

Our authors share their thoughts, ideas, and doubts in the publication, describing how they and their library teams have worked hard during the recent crisis years to develop, improve, or find effective models of operation to be prepared for high-level negative events and minimize catastrophic consequences.

This applies to the functions of academic librarians as knowledge managers (Providing services to the user community; sharing Information and understanding of user needs; Analyzing documents, classifying and sorting them for easy retrieval; Building the indexes, etc.).

The authors also focused on the skills of librarians that contribute to knowledge management (Needs assessment; Quality filtering of information; Networking and community outreach; Teaching and training; Database development and maintenance; Writing for publication, etc.).

Emphasizing the need for university librarians to use technology and systems to manage all forms of information, the authors share their experience with automated systems, artificial intelligence, and human behavior and technology.

At the same time, the authors, librarians, understand that the most vulnerable group of users are representatives of Generation Z – young people born between 1997 and 2012 – who are growing up in an era of increased stress and anxiety, which is reflected in their active or passive behavior in various spheres of life. (Haydabrus, Linskiy, & Giménez-Llort, 2023; Yap, Nemeth, & Hajdu Barat, 2022).

A separate topic for the global library and information community is attempting to develop a library model of resilience in the event of war. (Antczak & Gruszka, 2023; Kolesnykova, 2023).

The authors of our issue have also addressed the topic of library resilience, sharing best practices on how to overcome adversity in the face of unprecedented challenges or crisis situations. Considering resilience as the ability to maintain or sustain work processes over time, the authors addressed the following topics:

- crisis library and information management as a basis for promoting organizational resilience;

- leading inclusive services for students, lecturers, and researchers;

- creating representative collections;

- barriers and catalysts for knowledge sharing;

- hospitality management in libraries during the war;

- information hygiene;

- leadership and perception of knowledge as a strategic resource;

- library and information education: formal, non-formal and informal;

- how to be inspired when witnessing the challenges of disruptive change?

By illustrating the challenges, surprises, and rewards we face in library and information science, we hope that the articles in this issue will provide us all with the motivation to keep going in a difficult period. At the very least, these articles will help readers to appreciate how our understanding of higher education librarianship continues to evolve in times of crisis.

And, as always, the publication provides direct open access to its content, based on the following principle: free open access to research results enhances global knowledge sharing.

The international editorial board appreciates the contribution of each author. We sincerely thank our readers for their interest in UniLibNSD, our reviewers for their competence, delicacy and goodwill.

We sincerely wish our partners and readers creative and professional success and confidence that the crisis will pass! As we like to say, after the darkest night, there will be definitely a morning!

We invite you to cooperate.

REFERENCES

Antczak, M., & Gruszka, Z. (2023). Library model of community resilience during the war. Activities of selected Polish academic libraries addressed to Ukrainians. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 49(5), Article 102752. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102752 (in English)

Dalkir, K. (2017). Knowledge management. In J. D. McDonald, & M. Levine-Clark (Eds.). Encyclopedia of library and information science (4th ed., chapter 253). London, UK: CRC Press. doi: https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ELIS4-120053698 (in English)

Haydabrus, A., Linskiy, I., & Giménez-Llort, L. (2023). Social media use, fake news and mental health during the uncertain times of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine. Behavioral Sciences, 13(4), Article 339. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/bs13040339 (in English)

Kolesnykova, T. (2023). Year of sustainability, openness, and new roles: A Ukrainian university library in wartime. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 21(2-si), 114-122. doi: https://doi.org/10.21511/ppm.21(2-si).2023.14 (in English)

Yap, J. M., Nemeth, R., & Hajdu Barat, A. (2022). Digital Civic Engagement and Youth Participation: Hungarian LIS Students’ Perspective of Political Information. University Library at a New Stage of Social Communications Development. Conference Proceedings, 7, 232-242. doi: https://doi.org/10.15802/unilib/2022_270384 (in English)

KOLESNYKOVA T. O.

Головна редакторка,

канд. наук із соціальних комунікацій, с.н.с.,

директорка наукової бібліотеки,

Український державний університет науки і технологій (Дніпро, Україна),

e-mail: t.o.kolesnykova@ust.edu.ua, ORCID 0000-0002-4603-4375

Бібліотека та управління знаннями в кризовий час: пошук ефективних моделей діяльності

На сторінках даного номера наші автори діляться думками, ідеями, сумнівами, розповідаючи, як протягом останніх кризових років вони та їх бібліотечні команди наполегливо працювали над розробкою, удосконаленням чи пошуком ефективних моделей діяльності, щоб бути готовими до негативних подій високого рівня та мінімізувати катастрофічні наслідки. Управління знаннями – це точно про бібліотеки університетів, які змістили свою роль від доступу до інформації та управління нею до доступу, обміну та управління знаннями. В статтях описується бібліотечний досвід управління знаннями в кризовий час як поєднання управління інформацією, комунікаціями та людськими ресурсами. Кризовий досвід в контексті конференції UniLibNSD 2023 розглядається як досвід, здобутий у робочому бібліотечному середовищі університетів світу, створений у швидко мінливих, хаотичних і часто небезпечних для здоров'я та життя людей умовах масштабних кризових подій. Ілюструючи виклики, несподіванки та винагороди, з якими ми стикаємося в бібліотечно-інформаційній справі в різних країнах, ми сподіваємося, що статті цього номера нададуть усім нам мотивацію не зупинятися на досягнутому у важкий період. Принаймні ці статті допоможуть читачам оцінити, як продовжує розвиватися наше розуміння бібліотечної справи в закладах вищої освіти у кризовий час.

Ключові слова: університетські бібліотеки; управління знаннями; кризові часи; кризовий досвід бібліотек; конференція UniLibNSD; Україна

Received: 14.10.2023

Accepted: 20.12.2023