Learning

Information literacy and personal knowledge

management

By Trine Schreiber
Associate professor, Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark

Karen Harbo
Development consultant, Library of the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to discuss a new subject called personal knowledge management and to compare it
with the better-known concept information literacy.

Firstly, the paper describes and discusses the course called personal knowledge management. People from
three institutions, the Library of the Aarhus Business School, the Centre of Science, Communication and
Mediation at Aarhus Business School and the Royal School of Library and Information Science, have de-
signed the course. It has been offered twice as part of a MBA module in the autumn 2002 and 2003. The
intention of the course is to teach the participants partly how to manage information in such a way that it
supports a learning process, and partly how to negotiate with the colleagues about the information needs,
locate the information, and mediate it in such a way that the colleagues will use it. At the end of the course
the participants construct a ´knowledge map´. The course has got a very positively reception.

Secondly, the paper compares the course of personal knowledge management with the concept of informa-
tion literacy. There exist a number of different definitions of the last concept. In one of them, information
literacy is broadly defined as the ability to recognise information needs and to identify, evaluate and use
information effectively. In this definition information literacy seems to be related to an individual perspec-
tive, which means that the individual identifies, evaluates and uses the information without any interaction
with other people. However, in some of the other definitions the concept has got a communicative perspec-
tive. Christine Bruce has found seven faces of information literacy and some of these refer to the influences
of the communication for the identification and evaluation of information. The course called personal knowl-
edge management gives a priority to this communicative approach.

The paper concludes that compared with the definitions of information literacy personal knowledge man-
agement highlights two elements. Firstly, it emphasizes that the individual learns how to structure the infor-
mation. Secondly, it underlines the influences of the communication for the identification of information. We
can find track of both elements in the definitions of information literacy, but often in an implicit way. The

106 Nord I&D, Knowledge and Change, 2004

course of personal knowledge management may be of interest for many libraries today. Generally, libraries
have been teaching their users in information seeking. Without doubt, these activities and the course of per-
sonal knowledge management will complement each other.
Introduction
Everyone has to co-operate with others in doing the
assignments of the education or the tasks of the
work place. No one is without influence from others
during a learning process or a knowledge creation.
All information involves some kind of social rela-
tions. But it is not easy for the individual to be in a
learning process and at the same time feel demands
from the surroundings, i.e. from the fellow students
or the work colleagues. At the same time, the indi-
vidual receives too much information. He or she has
to reduce the great amount of information but first
of all the reduction has to happen in relation to the
demands and wishes of the surroundings. Can we in
some way help the individual to reduce the informa-
tion concordant with the interests of the specific
context? We think, we have an answer to this ques-
tion, namely a course in the subject we called per-
sonal knowledge management. The aim of the paper
is to discuss this subject and to compare it with the
better-known concept information literacy.
Firstly, we will present what we understand as the
key problem. The individual have to find the way
through the information overload. The problem is
especially urgent in relation to the information
search process. Secondly, we will describe how we
got the inspiration to talk about precisely personal
knowledge management. There are some people,
who already have used the name in connection with
the design of a course and it was their initiative,
which gave us some ideas concerning our own un-
derstanding and design. Thirdly, we will give the
definition of the subject personal knowledge man-
agement. Fourthly, we will go through the central
elements of a course in this subject. Fifthly, we will
discuss the similarities and differences between the
subject and the concept of information literacy.
Finally, we make a conclusion concerning the rele-
vance of personal knowledge management and its
contribution to the development of the concept of
information literacy.
The key problem
Information seeking is a way of learning and find-
ing meaning. Often, people use Carol Kuhlthaus
six-stage model of the information search process as
a framework for the design of information literacy
programs for students. This model gives us an un-
derstanding of the position of the information seek-
ing in the learning process (see figure 1). In the
following paper, a specific aspect of the model con-
cerning the relation between information and learn-
ing will be in focus.
Kuhlthau describes in her book ”Seeking Meaning”
from 1993, how the student at the first stage in the
model, the task initiation stage, has got an assign-
ment and becomes aware of a lack of knowledge or
understanding. At this stage uncertainty is common.
At the second stage, the selection, the student iden-
tifies a general area or topic, and initial uncertainty
gives way to a sense of optimism and readiness to
begin the search. At the third stage, prefocus explo-
ration, the student faces a lot of inconsistent and
incompatible information and the frustration and
doubt will increase. At the formulation stage a fo-
cused perspective of the problem is formed and the
frustration has changed to clarity. At the collection
stages information pertinent to the focused problem
is gathered and confidence begins to increase. At
the presentation stage the student has finished the
information seeking and got a new understanding of
the problem. The mediation of the understanding to
others is now possible.
107
Stages of the model Affective Level: Feelings
1. Initiation Incertaint
2. Topic selection Optimism
3. Prefocus exploration Confusion, frustra-
tion and doubt
4. Focus formulation Clarity
5. Information collection Sense of direction/
tion/confidence
6. Starting writing Satisfaction or dissatis
faction
Figure 1: Carol Kuhlthaus six-stages model of the
information search process
Without doubt, this model describes an essential
side of the learning process of the student. But what
about the problem at the third stage, where the stu-
dent has some difficulty of coping with the large
information amount? Kuhlthau has mentioned, that
this is the most difficult stage in the process
(Kuhlthau 1993, p.46). Some students may be in-
clined to abandon the search altogether at this stage.
Information encountered rarely fits with previously
held constructs. Information from different sources
commonly seems inconsistent. Will the student
succeed in achieving the fourth stage, the focus
formulation? Or, will the student remain at the third
stage, the prefocus exploration, which at the affec-
tive level means confusion, frustration and doubt?
The problem guides us to the following question:
How can we support the learners to cope, manage
and use the information? How can we help them
through the third stage? The aim of the paper is to
bring this question in focus. It is this question,
which personal knowledge management deals with.
The background
In 2002 Jason Frand and Aura Lippincott wrote the
article ”Personal Knowledge Management: a Strat-
108
egy For Controlling Information Overload”. They
presented the subject ´personal knowledge man-
agement´ as a strategy reducing the negative effects
of information overload, facilitating decision-
making, problem solving and knowledge acquisi-
tion. They defined personal knowledge management
as a conceptual framework used to organise and
integrate information so it became part of our per-
sonal knowledge. First of all, it concerned the im-
plementing of personal classification schemes, in-
dexing and filing principles, which the person un-
derstood and would make use of in the learning
process. They described that the principles had to be
developed in a meaningful way, which meant that
the person could find the information when he or
she needed it weeks or month later.
At the same time, the article mentioned that it was
important to develop the principles so they matched
the person’s roles and tasks in his or her work place.
With other words, the principles had to be co-
ordinated with other people from the work organisa-
tion. Unfortunately, the article did not give the
reader further directions concerning how to develop
such co-ordinated indexing principles for the infor-
mation used by more than one person. In spite of
this problem, the article inspired us to look closer at
the subject.
In the spring 2002, the associate professors Peter
Kastberg and Marianne Grove Ditlevsen (Centre of
Science, Communication and Mediation, Aarhus
School of Business), development consultant Karen
Harbo (Library of the Aarhus School of Business),
and associate professor Trine Schreiber (Depart-
ment of Library and Information Management, the
Royal School of Library and Information Science)
initiated a collaboration about the subject personal
knowledge management. The group was character-
ised by the interdisciplinary element, representing
both the library and the education sector. We started
the work by discussing how we understood con-
cepts like ´information´ and ´learning´ and espe-
cially the relation between them.
It was our opinion, that there was a need among
students to learn how to manage information and
reduce the information overload. In autumn 2002
we held our first course in personal knowledge
management.
The definition of personal knowledge manage-
ment
A central question is how to understand a structure
of the collected information. If the individual is able
to structure his or her information, we can talk
about a goal-oriented learning process. Structuring
the information means that the person has to make a
choice concerning what to give priority and what to
do without. But, as known, the problem is that the
process of learning will continue and all the time
the individual will be inspired to look after new
subjects or new elements of the subject. After a
while, the individual will experience that the struc-
ture of the information is not the right one anymore.
It is necessary to choose a new way to structure the
information. The old one will not be used and, fur-
ther, it will make a barrier of the learning process.
Thus, a flexibility concerning how to structure the
information is necessary.
The mentioned provide a background for the defini-
tion of the subject called personal knowledge man-
agement:
Personal knowledge management is the process of
making a structure of information, which supports
the learning of the individual.
Personal knowledge management is a method,
which intends to reduce the information overload,
but it has to happen without missing the opportunity
of the learning of the individual.
The course
As part of the work of the interdisciplinary group
mentioned above, we developed a course in per-
sonal knowledge management. Until now we have
held this course a couple of times in different con-
texts.
The course has been part of a module in the MBA
education called IT, Language and Learning
(http://www.asb.dk/programmes/milsinfo/default.ht
m). We have held the MBA course twice, namely in
the autumns of 2002 and 2003. Both times, the
teaching was based on partly face-to-face commu-
nications with the students and partly e-learning
activities.
The MBA course involves three basis elements,
which can be described in the following way:
Firstly, the students get lessons in the subject of
structuring the information. This element of the
course implies a discussion with the students about
the management of information in relation to the
learning process. They have to understand how the
management bring along the opportunity to identify
the information but also how it can be a barrier for
changing the line of thought and, further, a barrier
for changing the goal of the learning process. Fur-
ther, the students receive lessons in the concepts of
information, knowledge and learning, specifically in
the process of transforming information into knowl-
edge. The theories presented here involve the model
of the “knowledge spiral” described by Nonaka and
Takeuchi in the book “The Knowledge-Creating
Company” from 1995. In this model a spiral is used
to represent the fact that knowledge acquisition is
an iterative process involving exposure to some
information, dialoguing about it, linking it to other
known things, and experimenting and working with
the information.
Secondly, the students are asked to focus at an in-
formation need experienced in their daily life. Of-
ten, they choose to analyse an information need
experienced either in the education context or in the
context of a work place. Their task is next to collect
information in relation to this need. In the time of
the collection they have to discuss with others from
the chosen organisational context partly how to
understand the need and partly how to collect the
information. Afterwards, they are making a pro-
posal of how to structure the information. Then,
once again, they have to discuss with people from
the organisational context how to understand the
109
structuring and how to change it for future use. On
the background of these discussions we have called
the structuring for a “knowledge mapping”.
Thirdly - and finally - the students make the infor-
mation structuring or the knowledge mapping.
Therefore, they receive lessons in the use of lan-
guage and communication. The students make an
investigation of who the target group of the infor-
mation structuring is and how this group will under-
stand the chosen information need and the chosen
codes. Lastly, the students make an assessment of
each other’s ´knowledge map´.
The following are some examples of the work of the
students with the knowledge maps. Thus, one of the
participants in the course had experienced an infor-
mation need in the field of a specific subject. In
relation to this need, she collected a large amount of
information and structured it in such a way, that the
knowledge gaps appeared, i.e. places in the map
where she still needed information. She presented
the chosen structure of the information, i.e. the
knowledge map, and the knowledge gaps for her
work colleagues. They gave her feedback, which
caused that the structure was changed and some of
the gaps were filled.
Another participant in the course was a teacher
working in high school. She found that the teachers
of her school needed information about how to ar-
range, manage and carry out a travel abroad with
the pupils. She searched information about the sub-
ject, for instance information such like the rules and
travel legislation of the school. Further, she talked
with colleagues about the definition of the informa-
tion need and they gave her what they considered
was the essential information of the subject. She
structured all these information in a graphic/visual
map planned to be a web site in the future. The map
was presented for the colleagues, who gave her their
response. They had different demands and wishes
concerning the map, which she had to give attention
in this case, because they were the target group of
the product. In this way, she experienced how the
fulfilment of the information need depended heavily
110
on the communication with the colleagues and how
the result was influences by the specific context.
The course in personal knowledge management can
be seen as a supplement to the existing courses in
information seeking and library use. As said above,
the MBA course has been held twice and both times
we have experienced a great interest for the subject
from the side of the students. We have also given
some lessons in the subject in other educational
contexts. It is on the background of these activities,
that we feel there is a need for such a course and the
need exist at many different levels of the educa-
tional sector, i.e. from school to university.
Personal knowledge management is a subject where
the librarians and the teachers need each other, be-
cause it presupposes knowledge and experience
about both information seeking and management
and the learning process. Therefore, the subject will
be a kind of meeting place for two groups of profes-
sionals. In this way, it is a subject, which means
collaborative activities between the two groups in
the future. In many years, we have been calling for
collaboration between the librarian and the teacher.
We have succeeded with this in the activities de-
scribed.
Discussion
Is personal knowledge management a kind of in-
formation literacy? If yes, then what are more ex-
actly the similarities and the differences between
personal knowledge management and information
literacy?
In 1989 American Library Association (ALA) gave
the following definition of information literacy:
“To be information literate, a person must be
able to recognize when information is needed
and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use
effectively the information needed…..
Ultimately, information literate people are those
who have learned how to learn. They know how
to learn because they know how information is
 organized, how to find information, and how to
use information in such a way that others can
learn from them” (American Library Association
1989, p.1).
It is our opinion that this statement consists of at
least three different definitions. Firstly, information
literacy is defined as the ability to recognise infor-
mation needs and identify, evaluate and use infor-
mation effectively. Secondly, the subject is defined
as the ability to know how to learn because they
know how information is organized. Thirdly, it is
defined as the ability to use information in such a
way that others can learn from them.
In the following, we will compare personal knowl-
edge management with the three parts of the ALA´s
definition. Then, we will compare the course with
Christine Bruces ´seven faces´ of information liter-
acy. Lastly, we consider an article written by Carol
Kuhlthau in 1999 concerning what she calls the
´intervention strategies´ in relation to the informa-
tion search process.
As said, we start with the definition of ALA. In the
course of personal knowledge management the stu-
dents have to recognise some information needs and
further collect the relevant information. In this way,
there are similarities between personal knowledge
management and the first part of the ALA´s defini-
tion of information literacy.
In the course of personal knowledge management
the students are confronted with the problem of
learning. Thus, it is the intention to give the stu-
dents an understanding of how the activity of struc-
turing information is related to the learning process.
In the one hand when the individual makes a struc-
ture of the collected information it may support the
learning process, but in the other hand the same
structure may later be experienced as obstructing
the learning. In other words, structuring information
is a very important part of the course. When ALA in
the second part of the definition is saying that in-
formation literacy is the ability to know how to
learn on the background of knowing how informa-
tion is organised, it is not quite the same. In per-
sonal knowledge management structuring the in-
formation is the activity of the student himself,
while in the ALA´s definition the organisation of
information is the knowledge organisation of the
library. At this point, there is a difference between
the two.
As mentioned above, in personal knowledge man-
agement it is the intention that the individual gets
experiences about how to structure information and
at the same time gets an understanding of the prob-
lems related to this kind of activity. Some learning
theories have the opinion that the individuals con-
struct their knowledge (Kuhlthau 1993, Bruce
1997). It is this ´constructivism´ in the learning
process that we want to support by saying that the
students have to structure the information and un-
derstand the problems of the process. Therefore, it
is possible, that there is a difference between infor-
mation literacy as defined by ALA and personal
knowledge management concerning the understand-
ing of learning.
Further, personal knowledge management gives a
priority to the mediation. The structure of informa-
tion, i.e. the knowledge map, has to be mediated to
the organisational context. In this way, the course is
oriented at the communication process, where the
student discusses the information need, the informa-
tion resources and the structure of information with
colleagues from the organisational context. Thus,
the mediation process is in focus at all the different
stages of the course. In the third part of ALA´s
definition they say that information literacy is the
ability to use the information in such a way that
others can learn from them. In this way, the defini-
tion of information literacy pronounced an interest
in the mediation process or at least in the communi-
cation element concerning the use of the informa-
tion. However, it is not quite clear how much the
communication element means for the definition as
a whole.
In 1997 Christine Bruce wrote the book ”The Seven
Faces of Information Literacy”. Bruce describes
information literacy as the ability to operate effec-
tively in the information society. We agree with her
111
concerning this viewpoint. Further, conceptualising
information needs, organising information, making
effective use of information, evaluate the informa-
tion work are parts of both her theory and personal
knowledge management.
Her book describes an investigation into the experi-
ences of information literacy among various types
of professionals. The study identified seven ways of
experiencing information literacy: First, informa-
tion literacy is experienced as using information
technology for information awareness and commu-
nication. Second, it is experienced as finding infor-
mation from appropriate sources. Third, information
literacy is experienced as executing a process.
Fourth, it is experienced as controlling information.
Fifth, information literacy is experienced as build-
ing up a personal knowledge base in a new area of
interest. Sixth, it is experienced as working with
knowledge and personal perspectives adopted in
such a way that novel insights are gained; and sev-
enth, experienced as using information wisely for
the benefit of others.
There is a similarity between personal knowledge
management and Bruces fourth way of experiencing
information literacy. In the definition of the fourth
way she says: “In this category people are focussing
on bringing relevant information within their per-
sonal sphere of influence and managing it in such a
way that it is retrievable. This category is about
making connections between information, projects
and people using mechanical tools (such as cards of
files), electronic tools or the human brain” (Bruce
1999, p.39). In the first hand, this description of
information literacy looks like personal knowledge
management. It underlines “managing it (i.e. the
information) in such a way that it is retrievable” for
the people from the organisational context. (Bruce
1999, p.39). When we describe personal knowledge
management as the process of structuring informa-
tion resulting in a knowledge map and the process
of mediating the map to the organisation, there is
the same attention on the element of managing the
information. On the other hand, the description of
the fourth way is without any hint to the learning
process. Personal knowledge management has the
112
intention to support the learning process, but we do
not find this aspect in Bruces category.
However, we find the aspect of learning in some of
the other categories in Bruce´ s list. We find it in the
fifth way of experiencing information literacy,
where the individual is building up a knowledge
base in the purpose of learning, and in the sixth,
where the individual is working with knowledge in
such a way that novel insights are gained. Both
categories underline learning, but, on the other
hand, both consider learning as only an activity of
the individual without any influence from the com-
munication and interaction with others. Once again,
the missed element is found in some of the other
categories. Thus, the element of communication
exists especially in the categories three, four and
seven. In many ways, Bruces approach to informa-
tion literacy looks like the approach of personal
knowledge management, but the elements of the
course are distributed among the different ´faces´ of
information literacy. Therefore, we can only say
that her approach seems to have many similarities
with the course.
Finally, we will comment an article written by
Carol Kuhlthau in 1999. In this article she discusses
different intervention strategies. These strategies
have the intention to support the individual through
the information search process and to change the
complex inquiry situation to a knowledge construc-
tion process. In this way, her starting point is the
same as the one of personal knowledge manage-
ment.
In the article Kuhlthau mentions a number of inter-
vention strategies. Unfortunately, she does not ex-
plain the different strategies very clearly. However,
two of the strategies have got our attention. She
calls these two strategies for respectively ´charting´,
and ´collaborating´ (Kuhlthau 1999, pp.13-14).
Charting is the strategy helping the student to depict
a set of ideas in a graphic or pictorial form. This
strategy is described as helpful for organizing de-
veloping thoughts and for identifying that which
needs further investigation. Thus, there seems to be
some similarities between this intervention strategy
and the process of structuring the information in
personal knowledge management. It is quite inter-
esting that she mentions the process of structuring
information, i.e. called “organizing developing
thoughts”, as an intervention strategy. In this way,
personal knowledge management can also be called
an intervention strategy.
Collaborating is the strategy where the student in-
volves others as partners or advisors. Kuhlthau de-
scribes this strategy as beneficial in working
through the more difficult stages of exploring and
formulating in the process of seeking information.
Talking, she says, enables thinking in process of
constructing from a variety of sources of informa-
tion (Kuhlthau 1999, p.14). Once again, there are
similarities between this intervention strategy and
the course elements of personal knowledge man-
agement, i.e. the communication.
As shown above, parts of personal knowledge man-
agement have been recognised in different ways in
the presented articles by Bruce and Kuhlthau. There
are differences between the concept of information
literacy and the course of personal knowledge man-
agement, but at the same times the discussion shows
that the course has turned to aspects, which are cen-
tral to the concept.
Conclusion
The comparison between the concept of information
literacy and the course in personal knowledge man-
agement has resulted in the following conclusion.
There are many similarities between the two. How-
ever, we have found that there are two elements,
which personal knowledge management seems to
emphasize more than the definitions of information
literacy.
The first element is the structuring information by
the individual. ALA´s definition of information
literacy does not include the element. Christine
Bruce has the element involved in her seven faces,
but respectively the structuring and the learning
aspect was divided between a numbers of different
categories. Kuhlthau’s article from 1999 has called
the element for an intervention strategy with the
intention to support the individual through the in-
formation search process and to change the complex
inquiry situation to a knowledge construction proc-
ess.
The second element is the influences of communi-
cation. Communication seems to play a roll in many
definitions of information literacy. However, some
times communication appears as an appendage to
the rest of the definition. In contrast, personal
knowledge management try to underline the com-
municative element.
Personal knowledge management has a strong focus
on the two elements mentioned. With these ele-
ments it is the intention to widen the field of infor-
mation literacy. At the same time, we acknowledge,
that there are other parts of information literacy,
which personal knowledge management does not
give sufficiently attention or perhaps does not in-
volve at all.
Receiving a great amount of information, it is diffi-
cult for the individual to learn and to construct
knowledge in relation to the demands of the educa-
tion as well as of the workplace. In the beginning of
this paper we described Kuhlthau’s model of the
information search process. In relation to her model
we have mentioned that it may be difficult for a
person to reach the fourth stage called the focus
formulation. The risk is that the person will remain
at the third stage called the prefocus exploration. It
is our opinion that there is a need for a course, i.e.
an intervention strategy, to support the process of
reducing the complexity of the information and to
make a focus for the knowledge creation. Our pro-
posal is called personal knowledge management. It
is a subject, which is based on the acquired knowl-
edge of library and information science. At the
same time, it is a subject, which challenges our
traditional way of looking at information by propos-
ing a direct involvement in the relation between
information and learning. The latter means that it is
both a difficult and an exciting job to develop the
subject.
113
Literature
American Library Association (1989) American
Association Presidential Committee on Information
Literacy: Final Report. Chicago: ALA.
http://www.infolit.org/documents/89Report.htm
Bruce, Christine (1997) The Seven Faces of Infor-
mation Literacy. Adelaide: Auslib Press
Bruce, Christine (1999) Workplace experiences of
information literacy. International Journal of In-
formation Management 19, pp.33-47.
Frand, Jason & Lippincott, Aura (2002) Personal
Knowledge Management: A Strategy for Control-
ling Information Overload.
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/jason.frand/re
searcher/articles/info_overload.html
Kuhlthau, Carol (1993) Seeking Meaning. A Proc-
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Ablex Publishing
Kuhlthau, Carol (1999) Investigating patterns in
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son, Tom & Allen, David K. (eds) Exploring the
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Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. (1995) The knowledge-
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Biograpical notes
Trine Schreiber, associate professor at the De-
partment of Library and Information Management,
the Royal School of Library and Information Sci-
ence, Denmark. She has a ph.d. in Sociology from
University of Umeå in Sweden. She gives lectures in
knowledge management and is a researcher in sub-
jects concerning learning and communicational
theories.
E-mail: ts@db.dk
Karen Harbo, development consultant at the Li-
brary of the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark.
She is educated as librarian from the Royal School
of Library and Information Science, Denmark. She
is a team manager at the Library of Aarhus School
of Business and a researcher at the same place in
information and learning theories.
E-mail: har@db.dk