The Knowledge Management Section were awarded joint-winners of the 2017 IFLA Professional Unit Communication Award at the Closing Ceremony of the WLIC 2017.

The Knowledge Management Section was selected for its comprehensive communication plan and the use of various communication tools (website, Facebook, Twitter, Wiki, Newsletter and section leaflet).

The Jury particularly appreciated the Section's effort to communicate in all IFLA languages, and the Section's good team work.

Citation

The Section provides an example of a rich use of different possible channels of communication, in order to reach a wide audience, of timely information, in order to be effective and useful, and of the respect of IFLA recommendations, in order to help IFLA reach its goals.

The newsletter

The KM section’s newsletter, “The Voice of Global KM” is an excellent example of an inspiring and very effective way to relay information about the Standing Committee’s work and programmes.

It includes a wide range of information related to KM – information about upcoming seminars and meetings, best practices, interviews with KM leaders and updates on the overall IFLA global vision. 

An example from the June 2017 newsletter is the announcement of the IFLA KM Satellite meeting “New Directions in Knowledge Management.”  It included a thorough overview of the topics to be covered at the meeting, and it was preceded by a very interesting and insightful interview with the keynote speaker.

The newsletter is also global in its content and reflects IFLAs international membership. When appropriate, some articles may be in a language other than English emphasizing that we are indeed an association made up of people from around the world. For example the November 2016 edition had a column from the chair that summarized the content and stressed the main topics in 6 IFLA languages.

Finally, the newsletter is beautiful. The layout is professional and the quality of the colour photographs and announcements make the newsletter enjoyable to read.

The Website

The Section used the website, updating it regularly, following the indications from IFLA and assuring timely information about the activities through the Action Plan and its updates and the Annual Report (both documents made available in PDF and in the short but complete web format), the Communication Plan (see below), the brochures in the 7 IFLA languages, the news, and the links to the social networks (see below).

The use of social media

The Section systematically used social networks (all accessible through the IFLA web site – KM Section) as a tool for involving as many professionals as possible interested in the topic of KM.

The Section also enabled the IFLA Knowledge Management Wiki to increase understanding and awareness of the field of knowledge management (KM). This wiki contains background information about KM, updates about current events in the KM world, and contact information for active KM experts, and is open to contributions from everyone.

In order to be useful to the greatest number of librarians, the wiki includes a machine translation tool that enables you to read content in many languages, even if in a rough translation.

The Communication Plan [PDF]

The Section developed and applied a Communication Plan.

The Plan contains a very detailed description of the communication activities (along with their timings and responsibilities), necessary during the implementation of all the Section’s initiatives, projects and programmes to assure their success.

The plan includes all the tools mentioned above and more, and is a model ready to be adapted for continuing use in the coming years.