The Higher Education Databases, Annotated Bibliography Example

Preliminary Annotated Bibliography and Research Question

Preliminary Research Question: How are the past social influences on knowledge management reflected in the higher education databases?

Bibliography

Bradbury, R. (1951). Fahrenheit 451. Evanston: McDougal, 1998.

This is a short, classic piece of fiction written when screens which covered an entire wall were still imaginative. This particular postmodern masterpiece is an example of the early imagination of knowledge management and of ethical condemnation of technology for its own sake. It is also well-known and is often recognized even when the audience has not personally read the book. Thus, Fahrenheit 451 has- in itself- become a piece of tacit conceptualization for a larger interdisciplinary movement against technology.

Buckland, M. (1995). The Centenary of “Madame Documentation”: Suzanne Briet, 1894-1989.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 46(3), 235-237. Retrieved from  Academic Search Complete database.

This is a biographical essay which includes short summaries of her literature as part of her life. It gives broad generalizations of her theories, but the essay does not give much in the way of specifics. It is rather somber and feminist in tone, which can detract from the focus on the body of Briet’s life work.  Even as an essay standing apart from categories such as IM and KM, it is a short and rather idealized work. An extremely meager resource with rare information inside, this essay covers an entire page with a picture, another with references, and only two other pages with text. It lacks precision and professionalism.

Dalkir, K. (2005). Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice. Oxford, UK: Elsiever Butterworth- Heinemann.

This is an excellent, descriptive book and one that any manager should not do without. It is not limited to a particular scenario as much as a naturally developing exploration of the material. Techniques for conscientious selection of managerial practices are delivered in a potent and interesting manner which addresses the subtle differentiation between tacit and explicit knowledge and their respective places in work, but it lacks the spirit of the underlying theoretical framework, and thus does not provide the proper support for the brief, later exploration of data mining that is proposed in the research plan.

Day, R. (2001). Totality and Representation: A History of Knowledge Management Through European Documentation. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 52(9), 725-735. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Day (2001) presents a plethora of useful, accurate information from a variety of sources relevant to the historical and theoretical development of Knowledge Management (KM) “from the viewpoint of political critiques and resistances to knowledge management” (726). It provides the reader with a good understanding of the roots of debate concerning the application and breadth of information which should be provided to all students via academic databases. In a broader sense, the entire journal item is a higher-order exploration of KM’s constant struggle between policies and actions of privatization or publicity. The author abruptly halts after his study of the effects of assembly line production and omits from the survey the first steps toward KM and data mining and further proceeds to make a conclusion based upon a nearly-complete scope of KM’s development (Day, 2001).

Fallis, D. & Whitcomb, D. (2009). Epistemic Values and Information Management. The Information Society, 25: 175-189. Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

In one intuitive stroke of genius, Fallis and Whitcomb (2009) together wrote the academic journal article which easily combines the Information specialism of one man with the education in Philosophy of the other. As a result, the article is current and culturally responsive to the queries of the average reader with KM interest. Although (given the topics) it should have been titled Epistemic Values and Knowledge Management, the books only noticeable flaw is the preoccupation with the managerial aspects of sorting and utilizing knowledge. While it is invaluable for explaining the rationale of the experts involved in linguistically and topically grouping words for input into data mining (and other computer-assisted) programs, it succeeds to simplify the expectations for the workplace and the exact nature of the many challenges in any professional environment.

French, B., Thomas, L., Baker, P., Burton, C., Pennington, L., & Roddam, H. (2009). What can   management theories offer evidence-based practice? A comparative analysis of   measurement tools for organizational context. Implementation Science, 28 (4). Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

This article specifically targets tools and their relevance to the organizational context- as would be encountered in any professional interaction. Although it provides a large number of potential methods for combining organizational learning and knowledge management, the authors appear to advance the needs of technology above others. This provides excellent support for Briet’s theories on technology serving a Capitalist-modeled Knowledge Management system and encourages the openness of the exchange of ideas much in the manner of Morey et al. (2002). However, some excellent points can be missed because the abbreviations confuses, the theory development meanders, and the pro-health care perspective distracts.

Fuller, S. Knowledge management foundations. Boston, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002.

Fuller (2002) takes the stance of Otlet- that widespread access to knowledge is a public good. His account takes a very specific interest in the cultural roots of knowledge management. He does them justice and speaks with passion. It is not for the “green” reader to pick up on a whim and would not cater to the strictly-pecuniary sense of managing worth- but rather presents the value of intelligence as a social investment in an entire country’s future. It is a worthy source which will be useful to any reader studying the past of knowledge management, but it is a field of constant change and must be reexamined from a less-specific perspective.

Milam, J. (2005). Organizational learning through knowledge workers and infomediaries. New Directions for Higher Education, (131), 61-73. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Milam’s (2005) presents a pragmatic working definition of Knowledge Management (KM) as well as some common examples of barriers to its successful implementation in institutional research systems. However, the knowledge is presented in such a way that the reader feels that the issues are distant possibilities which only concern professionals in this career field, the presumed audience. This presumption narrows the confines of the periodical’s applicability. Furthermore, the astute literary connections of the author are discredited by the overwhelming number of direct quotes within the periodical, and the second half of Milam’s periodical does not apply to my research question.

Morey, D., Maybury, M., & Thuraisingham, B. (2002). Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works. Paperback ed. Massachusetts, U.S.A.: the MIT Press.

Morey, Maybury, and Thuraisingham (2002) provide a good introduction to their book with some lesser-known names of Knowledge Management (KM). The selections create a unified picture of the strategies, processes, and “scorecards” of KM. It seems to heavily favor the learning perspective and the essays of Peter Senge. The Strategy section is applicable mainly to workplace and other professional interactions- but bears no relevance to the epistemic roots of today’s various computer-assisted technologies and the selection of information to be included. The learning-centered models which they advocate cannot practically be replicated on the appropriate scale to address the problem. Instead, they are relegated to mere inspirational starting points for progress in KM.

Rayward, W. (1997). The Origins of Information Science and the International Institute of Bibliography/International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID). Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 48(4), 299-300. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

This journal article claims to examine the origins of the information science which blossomed into Knowledge Management. However, in this reading, Otlet’s name is used a synonym for both the Information and Knowledge studies themselves. While it is clear that the FID was formed in response to the Foucaltian theories and the philosophical and political perspective of Brussels at the time, little effort is made to explain the origins of Otlet’s theories. The section on databases will be helpful in the examination of databases, as is the study of systematic and organizational structure, but these theories are not related to their later developments or the state of Knowledge Management at present.

Sculley, D., & Pasanek, B. (2008). Meaning and mining: the impact of implicit assumptions in data mining for the humanities. Literary & Linguistic Computing, 23(4), 409-424.doi:10.1093/llc/fqn019.

Sculley & Pasanek (2008) study specific research and case studies concerning the development of data mining parameters based on perceptual differences by even the expert critics. According to the authors, any word choice will necessarily reflect an abstract social norm. The computer-generated methods for analyzing data are explained in accessible and certain terms- but convey the very vague imprecision which welcomes the assumptions which the study criticizes. In accordance with the perspective presented, the data is compared using the Mind is a Metaphor database, which is comprised of thousands of examples of word ambiguation. The results of this study support the correlation between specific metaphors and political leanings. These results supported by past studies using different methodological techniques. The presentation of the data does little to support their case, and some of their connections are trite and overdone. However, there is a great deal of merit to be found in their descriptions of the philosophical and technological practices and of the recommendations offered.

Wallace, D. (2007). Knowledge Management: Historical and Cross-Disciplinary Themes. Westport, CT, U.S.A.: Libraries Unlimited.

Wallace (2007) provides a complete, albeit slightly tired, book of the historical foundations of Knowledge Management (KM) and the systemic and organizational learning. The one single most valuable resource in this book is the description of the pecking order, the taxonomy of KM, as viewed through the cross-disciplinary perspective. This one single premise is applicable to every state of information within the vast range of the field and artfully explains the need for limits to information inclusion. The selections do not portray any bias. Wallace’s Chapter, Informantics and Information Technology presents an up-to-date and thorough representation of the postmodern dilemmas facing KM and information technology, such as data mining, and the implications for all of mankind.