Page 8 - DLIS105_REFERENCE_SOURCES_AND_SERVICES

Unit 1: Reference and Information Sources

critical to an information intensive industry such as the practice of law. An important application of Notes
knowledge management involves the concept of intellectual capital, “knowledge that exists in an
organization that can be used to create differential advantage”.

Knowledge management (KM), defined as the deliberate modification of an organization
to improve its information and knowledge creation and sharing, seeks to aggregate
and manage an organization’s information environment to ultimately contribute to
improved organizational performance and productivity.

Empirical research exists that proves cost effective information services do provide its parent a
competitive advantage. Because this issue crosses multiple disciplines, research findings are
published in a scattered, sometimes obscure, body of literature across disciplines such as business,
economics, social sciences and library and information sciences. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, the
generally accepted measures of information services contribution to productivity were based on
valuing Library services. An example is cost savings accrued to the Library’s parent by having
professionally trained librarians locate required information. Highly paid, highly productive
employees can then focus on their primary duties instead of spending time finding information
themselves.
Organizations continuously strive for productivity improvements by seeking to maximize efficient
and effective use of its resources (inputs) to produce maximum goods and services (outputs).
Productivity has long been an accepted and highly desirable economic measure; one so important
that high productivity can be a competitive advantage ensuring sustainable market share.

1.2 Document Description

Men have been communicating with speech for about 100,000 years. This form of communication,
i.e., the oral form, reigned unrivalled for thousands and thousands of years. Gradually, it dawned
on man that message can be left on some surface using drawings or symbols. The great cave paintings
of Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France daubed on the cave walls some 20,000 years ago seem to
convey some distinct message [Odhams]. Millennia passed by before drawings and paintings took
the form of early pictorial writing. In some parts of the world pictorial writing gave birth to scripts.
The oldest known writing we are aware of is that of Mesopotamia inscribed as early as 3,000 BC by
the Sumerians. That only points to the fact that the practice of writing emerged only about 5,000
years ago. Printing that opened the floodgate for the production of books and revolutionised the
spread of education came into being much later.

Evidences suggest that the Chinese invented the method of block printing by 8 th
century AD.
Their method remained more or less confined to China and did not spread all over the world and
the production of books did not attain the necessary momentum.

In 1450s (according to some source 1454 AD) Johannes Gutenberg of Germany
invented the method of printing using movable types.

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