'You can never have too much knowledge': by connecting people with other people rather than with information, special librarians can better contribute to the knowledge base of an organization and make themselves more valuable.

The future of information used to appear bright indeed, but lately its star seems to have waned. Whereas information used to be considered almost an end in itself, and organizations and even entire nations dedicated themselves to becoming "information societies" many people now complain that there's too much information, and experts are touting "knowledge societies" and urging businesses to identify and retain "knowledge workers."

What does the future hold for information--and, by extension, information professionals? Has information been permanently eclipsed by knowledge, or will it begin to regain its luster when futurists identify the "next big idea" in organizational development?

Information Outlook posed these questions to Larry Prusak, a former SLA member who consults on knowledge and learning within organizations. His responses are especially timely given the findings of SLA's Alignment Project.

Q: What's the difference between information and knowledge, and why is the latter considered more valuable than the former?

There's a world of difference between knowledge and information. One easy way to answer this is to assume you're going on a trip, and you start saving your money and making plans. Which would you prefer to do: read a guidebook about the place you're visiting, or talk to someone you respect who's been there?

Overwhelmingly, people say they'd choose to talk to someone who's been there or lived there. And that's the difference between knowledge and information. The book would have a lot of information about Paris or India, but talking to someone who has knowledge of these places is much more valuable to people. It's interactive, it's limitless, there's emotion and trust and passion involved, and there are all the cues that come with talking to someone.

That's a very quick and dirty answer to your question. Put another way, knowledge is what a "knower" knows, whereas information is codified. You could say that information is represented knowledge--that's probably as good a way as any to describe it. It's a little cut or slice of what a person or a group knows, and it's represented in some codified form, be it a book or a painting or a piece of music. It's frozen; it's stuck. Now, of course, we love these things and we need them to run the world, but they're not the same as knowledge. Information is a codified piece of what a knower knows at a particular time.

Q: Can there be too many of these codified pieces--too much information?

Yes, there can be too much information in the sense that there's too much to absorb, but you can never have too much knowledge. That's one of the differences between information and knowledge. Who would ever say they have too much knowledge of something? Would you want to go to a doctor who says, "I know too much about your illness?" You want people who help us in our lives--doctors, politicians, economists--to have a lot of knowledge.

Q: Does knowledge come from information?

You can have knowledge without information--there is such a thing. Generally speaking, however, information is one of the inputs of knowledge, but it's just one. This is a big debate among philosophers and social scientists. I would argue that participation and experience are bigger chunks of knowledge than information is.

Let's assume someone says to you, "I'll give you five million dollars if, over the next three years, you read everything you can about organic chemistry and pass a test." Well, for that much money, you'd probably do it. But you really wouldn't have much knowledge of organic chemistry when you finished. You would have absorbed a great deal of information and spat it out to pass a test, but to really be acknowledged as a chemist, you have to do chemistry--you have to participate in the activity we call chemistry. And that's just as true of medicine, law, management, or almost any other field you can name.

Experience, participation, and some information, surely, are all elements of knowledge. But I wouldn't say that information is the major chunk of what I would call knowledge.

Q: So, where does that leave information professionals? The common perception is that they bring information into the organization and it gets passed up the chain to the top, and along the way it gets filtered and distilled into knowledge.

I would disagree with the chain scenario--I don't think that's an accurate description of what happens. I think people at the top of organizations make their decisions based on all sorts of things, but information wouldn't be at the head of the list. I think they make decisions based on peer knowledge--asking their bankers, their lawyers, their peer executives within the firm. They may read some things, perhaps an article or report, but generally, by the time something's in print, they already know it. It's old news. There isn't that much in print that's new for business executives.

That's why librarians don't have the--what's the right word here?--the position, the respect, the authority that maybe they think they might, because what they're dealing with is stuff that's not absolutely essential to the running of the firm. If it was, it would make a big difference.

Q: What can special librarians do to make a difference? How can they get a seat at the table with executives and be seen as essential?

I can think of a few things they can do. Let me make a few points here that I think aren't generally known and that are fairly important.

One of the great macro events that's going on in our world is the absolute plummeting of information transaction costs. There was a time when a person with access to information, be it a librarian, a travel agent, or an analyst, could make a lot of money. They could position themselves pretty well--they had access to information that was costly for someone else to get, and they could sell it.

Because of disruptive technological advances, this has completely changed. For example, I'm flying to India tomorrow and it's a 16-hour flight, and how long did it take traders to travel this distance 500 years ago?

The same is true of information. The cost of transacting information--which is identifying it, negotiating for it, buying it--has dropped like a stone. And it's not something you can fight against, this dropping of information transaction costs. It's just a fact, one that really has not been absorbed by information professionals. The work they do can easily--maybe not as perfectly, but it doesn't matter--be replaced by an algorithm, a new technology, or a worker in China or India. They're really stuck. And if they don't think of something else to do, they'll slowly just become functionary clerks.

I don't mean something else totally different, like become a marketing executive or play center field for the New York Mets. I mean something that's aligned with what they do, but different. They have to become knowledge professionals, not information professionals. It's a difficult thing, but it can be done. I know of firms that do this sort of thing--they turn their information centers into knowledge centers, and they implement changes that really make a difference.

Q: How does an information center become a knowledge center?

One approach is to become focused on finding people who know things rather than on finding documents. You answer the question, "Who knows about this subject?" instead of, "Do you have a document about this?" Most documents are not that important in business. It's a big secret, but it's nonetheless true. By documents I mean books, reports, anything that contains information. Sure, you need information to run a firm, but it's far less important than knowing someone who knows something.

Years ago, I was working on a project for a major consulting firm in the Boston area, and we put in place a pretty good knowledge system. I remember a year later bumping into the man who had hired me, and I asked him, "How's the knowledge system going?" He said, "Fine, fine. It's very useful. It teaches me who's written certain reports, and I call them up and talk to them."

He didn't look at the reports--almost no one does. What we didn't realize at the time is that he wanted the system to learn who knows what, not to read the reports. That's a much more useful approach for an organization. Most top people use these systems to find other people, and then they negotiate how to get the information.

A second approach is to introduce people to other people, to bring knowledge into the firm. Learn what people's interests are, what they're studying, what projects they're working on, and then bring them things--not documents, but people to speak to them. People learn from one another, from stories and from face-to-face interaction. Librarians need to encourage that.

The third approach is to stay local. Don't have a library; don't stay in your own little office. If you can, work with a group and be a part of the group. Don't be something apart from the group; be in the group. Tell them you're the knowledge coordinator of their practice area and really work with them. Find out what they need and how they need it--in what form.

Be proactive. Don't just wait to be asked. If you wait to be asked, you might as well go back to your library. Frankly, I think only a small percentage of people in the information field have the personality to do this, but those who do can really forge ahead.

Q: This third approach is called embedded librarianship, and some consider it the future of the information profession.

I think they're right; I just wouldn't call it librarianship. That term doesn't work in business.

Q: So, let's assume information professionals become knowledge professionals and information centers become knowledge centers. What's the impact on vendors of information?

If you're selling stuff online, individuals and firms will still buy it. There's always going to be a market for information. But 1 don't think you're going to need librarians to manage it. Let the purchasing people do that.

Q: It sounds like you're saying that information professionals need to move away from procuring and maintaining content.

I coined a phrase years ago that I think is useful here: If you have a dollar to spend on either information or knowledge, spend it on connection rather than capture. That's really an important slogan. You're much better off connecting people, helping them find one another, than on capturing material. I'm not talking here about university libraries or public libraries--if you run the library at Harvard, you want to capture everything in different forms. I'm talking about organizations.

Q: So, 10 years from now, will we still be talking about information workers and information societies?

It already sounds old hat. Yes, there was a time when information was a hot topic, and it was very exciting, but the costs kept dropping. No one foresaw everybody having personal computers; no one foresaw Google. Information transactions have become ubiquitous, transparent, and almost cost-free. No one predicted this.

And, to be honest, a lot of the information hype was generated by vendors with a commercial aim. I remember when everyone was saying that if you get the right information to the right person at the right time, it will give an organization a tremendous advantage. That's just not true. I had an economist model that for me, and it would give them some advantage, but there's just not enough information out there to make a big difference. The real advantage lies in using knowledge better and in innovating. That's where information professionals should focus their efforts.

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Larry Prusak is a researcher and consultant on knowledge and learning within organizations and was the founder and director of the Institute for Knowledge Management, a global consortium of organizations engaged in advancing the practice of knowledge management. He has coauthored several books (including Working Knowledge, with Tom Davenport) and taught and lectured at colleges and universities around the world. His next book, Knowledge and Judgment, will be available in 2010.