The Convergence
of INFORMATION
S UE M YBURGH
TECHNOLOGYINFORMATION
MANAGEMENT
AT T H E C O R E
THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES
• New information management
professions emerging from the
convergence of information
technologies (IT)
• How the convergence of IT
and information management
professions creates greater
insight by each group into
the work of the other
• Why an understanding of
RIM and IT terminology is
crucial to managing records
in electronic form
A
rrival of the year 2000
is only one of many
inducements for the infor-
mation professions to
look both backward and forward.
Another is information technology
(IT), which has been changing the
nature of information creation,
publication, and communication for
almost five decades. In so doing,
IT is creating changes for both
4 THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT JOURNAL / April 2000
&
information professionals and the
society in which they find them-
selves. The ubiquitous nature of IT
and its fast development cycles have
created confusion about the bound-
aries of specific professions and even
their very nature. It has also created
a need for reflection and analysis of
the professions themselves.
Developments in today’s IT
spectrum (e.g., intranets, push tech-
nologies, and information filtering)
have profound social implications,
suggesting that IT has moved
beyond data management within
organizations and now influences
the ways in which organizational
communication takes place. This in
turn affects the nature and fabric
of societies and organizations, predi-
cated as they increasingly are upon
their information flows. IT no longer
handles raw data, or indeed, just
information. IT systems are now
being developed which address the
most intangible and unquantifiable –
yet probably the most valuable –
resource of all: knowledge.
Information and its dimensions
are perceived and dealt with differ-
ently by IT specialists, librarians,
archivists, records managers, and
corporate information systems staff.
While superficially a clear distinction
is understood about the nature and
work of each of these professions,
members of each have long experi-
enced conflicts with one another
and with management: clashes of
interest, overlapping duties, lack of
mutual acknowledgment, lack of
consultation, and other turf wars.
There are, of course, differences in
education and training, differences that
serve to exaggerate the contrasts rather
than clarify the similarities between
the various groups of information
workers. Relationships between inter-
ested parties have ranged from indiffer-
ence to intolerance to outright hostility
on occasion. However, much of the
confusion about how these bodies deal
with information seems to stem from
semantic confusion surrounding the
terms data, information, knowledge,
record, and document.
IT As an Agent of Change
Ironically, convergence is probably
the term that most describes the
changes in IT. Various aspects of IT
seem to be converging and becoming
integrated or concatenated. Multi-
functional services such as the
Internet with its array of functions
(e.g., World Wide Web, e-mail,
e-commerce, telephony, and news-
groups) causes changes as well in the
human functions or activities it affects.
We find confluence of disciplines,
a conjunction of activities and tasks,
and convergence in media as every-
thing becomes digital, blurring
distinctions among visual, print,
We are now witnessing a profound change
in the way in which organizations perceive,
understand, and manage their information.
audio, and multimedia documents.
This conjunction of events, activities,
and roles is even evident in our daily
lives. We act in a range of various
roles – parent, teacher, friend, cook,
chauffeur, and student – perhaps
all in one day and sometimes
simultaneously.
Will IT, as an agent of change,
lead to a similar convergence among
the various disciplines that can be
described as the information professions?
Or will even greater clarity and dis-
tinctions be identified among these
various roles? Some information
professionals may not view this as a
problem; in fact, they may find their
positions enhanced and strengthened
by IT.
As a contributor to the electronic
listserve RECMGMT stated, “RM is
dying. RM is thriving. Or another
way to describe it is the traditional
records management profession is
rapidly metamorphosing into RIM
(records and information manage-
ment). RIM is the convergence of
traditional records management dis-
ciplines and the IT profession.”
This is not a solitary view. Cox
(1997) agrees that convergence in IT
6 THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT JOURNAL / April 2000
results in the convergence of the
information management profes-
sions, as well as emergence of new
IM disciplines:
Convergence in the information
professions is fairly easy to
characterize. It is the unifying of
the professions and professional
objectives or functions – as
opposed to the continuing
schismatic nature of specializa-
tion, or divergence. It is also,
through such unification, the
harnessing of technology in
particular settings to improve
or to create new activities. Such
discussion about the information
professions is quite important
because these professions have
become distinguishing character-
istics of our information age.
Interestingly, none of the debates
on this topic consider that technology
itself can supplant any of these
groups of information professions.
The emphasis in the dialogue focuses
on how information professions can
deal with such changes and how
IT can be usefully integrated into
their work. This view is supported
by the underlying belief that
technology itself neither produces,
evaluates, understands, nor adds
meaning to information.
In this scenario, the merging of
professional objectives is a result of
IT. This in turn creates a commonness
of purpose, which means a less
clear distinction between professions
in their activities and functions.
Daum (1997) explains the working
categorization of functions within
organizations, although not allowing
for internal politics and overlaps:
There are three significant classes of
information within an organization:
data, documents and published
information. What you will find
in most organizations is that
technologists are responsible for
data management, librarians are
responsible for published infor-
mation management, and docu-
ment management (paper and
electronic) slips though the cracks
with no assigned management
accountability. Documents are
records and yes, they are being
managed, but often with
little overall planning and without
standard records management
tools.
However, there has been, until
very recently, a general ignorance
of the value and importance of
information within the organization.
According to Darnton (1992):
A glaring omission from the orga-
nizational charts of most enter-
prises is responsibility for the
enterprise’s overall information
needs. Yet it is critical to look at
the information flows of the
enterprise, together with its busi-
ness processes...Because knowl-
edge and information are key
assets in any enterprise, each
business unit is responsible for
their correct use, just as it is for
other enterprise assets such as
cash, people and facilities.
This illustrates that, until very
recently, organizations were generally
unaware of the cost of the informa-
tion they were producing. They were
also ignorant of the fact that deci-
sions were often based on insufficient
information. Organizations were also
oblivious to the fact that poorly
arranged and documented informa-
tion was costing a substantial
amount in storage and staff costs.
One reason for this lack of under-
standing is that, typically, the people
who handled information were
better acquainted with data process-
ing, accountancy, mathematics, or
engineering than with information
management. They lacked a holistic
view of corporate information
resources, the information life cycle,
or how to manage information (as
opposed to managing data). There
was a lack of direct communication
between those responsible for
information handling and those
who determined corporate objectives
and policy. These were seen as two
entirely separate activities. Managing
information was frequently interpret-
ed as merely having the appropriate
information technology.
Shifting Paradigms
We are now witnessing a pro-
found change in the way in which
organizations perceive, understand,
and manage their information. There
is now clear recognition of the value
of information, the creation of new
information, the retrieval of existing
information, the storage of important
information, and the disposal of
redundant information. There is also
greater awareness of the cost of not
getting the right information to the
right person at the right time.
To fully reap the benefits of this
change, a coordinated approach to the
work done by various information
workers in the organization is essen-
tial. This group or team includes
information technology support staff,
systems analysts and programmers,
corporate librarians, knowledge
managers, and records managers.
Records managers have been
around since the earliest days of
the Mesopotamian civilization, but
are they becoming more central to
business effectiveness? Jobs and
levels of responsibility are changing
as a result of the introduction of IT
(in the work domain in particular) to
organizations with groupware such
as Lotus Notes and PC Docs and
with various electronic document
management packages.
In a paper-based world, records
management seemed clearer. Now
records managers face problems
such as the distinctions between
records and documents, privacy and
corporate ownership, and whether
an electronic document system can in
fact manage records suitably and
legitimately. They also must decide
how much they should know about IT.
The records and information
profession has drawn theory from a
variety of related fields. Kennedy
and Schauder (1998) wrote:
In addition to their own distinct
body of knowledge, the records
management and archives disci-
plines draw on the knowledge and
skills of related fields, such as
management, information science,
librarianship, legal studies, systems
analysis and information technol-
ogy, and history. Records man-
agement may also be viewed in
the context of the broader field
of information.
Placing records management
within the broader area of informa-
tion management is an important
point and one to which we
will return.
Beyond a wrestling with the
identification of concepts unique to
records management, there is
growing concern among records
managers about their competency
and the skills required to handle
records in electronic form. This is
similar to the challenges faced by
librarians when online searching
of bibliographic databases became
widespread in the 1980s and various
media other than books began
appearing on library shelves.
The Need for Definition
A need for clarity of terminology
seems to be required, as is illustrated
by an exchange that took place on
the records management electronic
listserve. One individual wrote: “I’m
becoming more confused by the
hour…I still can not obtain a defini-
tion of ‘knowledge management’
that is consistent. Does it deal with
corporate knowledge, assets, exper-
tise, resources or maybe all of these?”
to which someone replied “I hate to
disappoint you but there is no
agreed definition to knowledge
management…Knowledge manage-
ment, from what I have been reading,
comes from the management school
THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT JOURNAL / April 2000
as opposed to information manage-
ment, which comes from the infor-
mation science school…If you look
underneath the definitions of infor-
mation and knowledge, you will see
that both have dealings with cogni-
tive processes…In other words…
they are telling us that there is a dif-
ference, but there is no difference…
Recently an academic described the
word knowledge as a new exciting
word to replace the word information.”
So, what do all of these words
mean?
Data
A commonly encountered defini-
tion of data describes it as a building
block of information which, subse-
quently, in enough quantity forms
knowledge. Data can be independent
of context, and only in their accumu-
lated and relative form can they
become information. Harris (1996)
provides an intriguing, if enigmatic,
way of distinguishing among data,
information, and knowledge:
The lowest level of known facts is
data. Data has [sic] no intrinsic
meaning. It must be sorted,
grouped, analyzed and interpret-
ed. When data is processed in this
manner, it becomes information.
Information has a substance and a
purpose. However, information
does not have meaning [sic].
When information is combined
with context and experience, it
becomes knowledge. Knowledge
is the combination of information,
context and experience.
It is generally agreed that a datum
is a single, discrete element, which is
generally factual and quantifiable.
Data can easily be assessed with
regard to their accuracy, for example,
the sales figures for a certain month
or the height of a certain building.
Typically, data are used in context
with one another or with other
details in order to convey full meaning
and to be useful.
It is rare that a fact on its own
(e.g., the number 42) will have
much meaning except where it
7
contextually appears as an answer to
a question (e.g., “Bill is 42 years
old”). Data can be entered into a
system, retrieved in its identical pris-
tine state, and contain the same
meaning. This has great implications
for the design and use of a data
retrieval system, which is, in general,
simple. As Ashford and Willett (1988)
point out:
The achievement of both high
recall and high precision is a pop-
ular target for information science
research but may in fact be not
only pragmatically but also theo-
retically unachievable. This is a
familiar topic for the information
scientists but is often found dis-
turbing by data processing staff
with a conventional computer
science background, since com-
plete recall and precision are
easily obtained in data retrieval
systems.
It is preferable to have an educated, informed
population than an illiterate and ignorant one,
whether in countries or in organizations.
Another way of distinguishing
between the concepts of data, infor-
mation, and knowledge is to examine
the different methodologies for their
evaluation. For example, data is
accounted for in terms of integrity
and security, as well as protection of
privacy. Methods for evaluating
information become progressively
more complex and abstract.
Information
Information itself is more than
merely a conglomeration or combi-
nation of data. Information, in fact,
implies understanding, a context, or
an understandable relationship
among data. Here we can better
understand the argument that
everything is data, but data is not
everything. While data can often
be expressed simply as numbers,
8 THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT JOURNAL / April 2000
information is more frequently
expressed in language. Because
information uses language, the
problems of the communication
process, linguistics, and vocabulary
all play a role in increasing the
complexity of a system that seeks
to retrieve and use information.
While many organizations (e.g.,
banks and airlines) rely heavily on
data, data processing, and the
interpretation of data such as
numbers, there is a common but
rather nebulous assumption that
such manipulated or processed data
constitutes information. This rather
narrow interpretation of information
has arisen directly out of the
emphasis on internally generated
data handled by internal IT systems
and staff who called data, informa-
tion. Much data, however, does not
necessarily information make.
Liebenau and Backhouse (1990)
describe the confusion between
information and data as a fundamen-
tal misconception:
It is crucial to understand infor-
mation when analyzing, designing,
establishing and managing infor-
mation systems…Unfortunately,
where people have concentrated
on computer based systems or
allowed the requirements of data
processing to become central to
organizational structure, they
have usually lost sight of what
information actually does to and
for an organization.
Whatever else an organization
may do, it must generate, acquire,
process, and use information. The
following consist of or depend on
satisfactory information:
• monitoring of the organiza-
tion’s performance and possibly
its breakdown
• creation and communication of
instructions, advice, and policies
• exchange of experience and
knowledge
• scanning of the business
environment
• major and minor decisions
Organizations that are most
efficient in gathering, processing,
and distributing information and then
using it to make better business deci-
sions will enjoy a competitive edge
in achieving success in their field.
It is important to agree that
information professions consider
information to be a unique type of
resource; this has a fundamental
value, even though it is difficult to
determine in dollar terms because it
fluctuates according to a variety of fac-
tors. Information is more complex in
nature than mere data; likewise, con-
text and interpretation are important
aspects of information. It is therefore
important to reach some understand-
ing of the significance of information
for the enterprise. While technology
may have made it easier to gather and
store large amounts of data, the key to
success for a business lies in its ability
to transform the data into intelligence
and knowledge and then use it more
effectively than the competition.
One way of evaluating information
is to distinguish between the results
of informed actions versus results of
uninformed actions or no action. It
has been said that the value of infor-
mation lies in the value of the actions
a person takes as a result of having
information. It is preferable to have
an educated, informed population than
an illiterate and ignorant one, whether
in countries or in organizations.
Some of the ways in which infor-
mation might be valued include:
• assessing the quality of infor-
mation itself – its degree of
accuracy, comprehensiveness,
credibility, relevance, simplicity,
and validity
 • examining the utility of
information already held by the
organization as to its degree of
intellectual and physical accessi-
bility, ease of use, flexibility,
and presentation
• evaluating the impact of this
information on the productivity
of the organization
• assessing the impact on effec-
tiveness of organization, in terms
of contribution to new markets,
improved customer satisfaction,
meeting targets and objectives,
and promoting more harmonious
relationships
• noting the impact on the
organization’s financial position,
such as its contribution to cost
reduction or avoidance, its sub-
stitution for more expensive
resource inputs, its role in
increased profits, and its outcome
as a measurable impact on a
return on investment
Information Management
Bent (1999) provides a broad
and useful definition: “Information
Management (IM) is the enterprise-
wide planning, budgeting, organiz-
ing, staffing, directing, training and
controlling of information. IM
includes the management of various
information resources: carriers of
information such as documents or
electronic media; departments that
provide information services; and
both computer-based or traditional
information systems.”
Information management can be
easily and usefully viewed as an
umbrella term, one which incorpo-
rates many foci, such as computer
science (developing the tools which
aid the function), records manage-
ment, archives, librarianship, and
information resources management.
Information management can also
include telecommunications, data
resource management, office automa-
tion, systems analysis, computer
science, database management, infor-
mation science, and informatics.
Information management is
sometimes used in a narrow sense,
10 THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT JOURNAL / April 2000
meaning the management of inter-
nally generated data. Alternatively,
it may be used to describe document
metadata systems such as biblio-
graphic databases. It is troubling
that IM is often viewed as synony-
mous with IT, as Day (1997)
mentions: “IT and related develop-
ments provide the usual slightly
ambiguous backdrop to information
management. The installation and
refinement of corporate networks
continues apace and offers us some
extraordinary tools for the control
and distribution of data, but most
senior managers still regard the
technology as the end of the process
rather than as its means.”
It is useful in this context to
exclude those peripheral fields where
central activities are the develop-
ment, engineering, and construction
of technologies, tools that can be
used to facilitate and assist the
professions described here.
Information Resources Management
Information resources manage-
ment (IRM) is a term arguably more
simple to deal with, since it is fre-
quently used unambiguously to refer
to the management of information
and information resources (e.g.,
embodiments in documents or peo-
ple or technological media). While
librarians and records managers
would argue that they are IRMs, the
term has also now come to include
mainly those who deal with comput-
erized systems. This view is argued
by Beaumont and Sutherland (1992),
who state:
[Information resources manage-
ment] is not a development from
the traditional and specialist data
processing functions. Indeed, it was
the failure of DP/IS departments
to focus on the business benefits
of large-scale investments that led
to increasing acceptance of the
information resources manage-
ment perspective, at least by
general managers, if not DP/IS
managers.
Orna (1990) describes information
resources as
…the services, packages, support
technologies, and systems used
to generate, store, organise, move
and display information. We
manage information resources to
raise probability that the informa-
tion content will be useful to
persons in a particular environ-
ment with specific problems. The
information in the organisation
includes material on paper, or in
machine-readable form, or in the
minds of its staff, that is capable
of being turned into knowledge
by people and applied in their
work to help meet the enterprise’s
objectives.
IRM refers therefore to the
planning, organizing, directing, and
controlling of information resources
within organizations. Activities relat-
ed to IRM include identification,
assessment, and use of information
resources, the range of which is indi-
cated above. This seems to include
records and document management
and information and knowledge
management. But in action it covers a
precise territory.
IRM needs to collect, organize,
store, retrieve, and disseminate
information; various technologies
assist with each of these activities.
The intimate relationship between
the information itself and the
supporting technology, however, is
clear. In addition, those who manage
information resources must under-
stand how users learn, retain, and
recall information, for information
produces results only when it springs
into the consciousness of the user at
the appropriate time.
Documents
Why is defining a document
important in this context? One reason
is because of the development of
electronic management systems
(EDMS), which resemble records
management systems in many
respects and even some information
retrieval systems. Another is because
the term document is sometimes used
as an alternative, if not an exact
synonym, for the term information
or knowledge, in order to distinguish
these concepts from data. This
distinction becomes more complex
in the world of the records
manager or archivist, where it can
be understood that all records are
documents, but not all documents
are records. Adding to this semantic
Babel, the phrase information resources
is sometimes substituted for the
word document.
While records have always been considered
important within organizations,
the discipline has developed dramatically
as IT has become widespread.
Document is interpreted here as
a container of information, or even
data, and, as such, requires a differ-
ent type of management. The
characteristics of a particular docu-
ment, such as date, title, subject,
and number, are a type of data
now known as metadata. Such data
are normally held in bibliographic
and records management systems,
even though such databases
are commonly called information
retrieval systems. What is normally
retrieved from bibliographic databases
and earlier records management
systems is data showing where to
get the information rather than the
information itself. This combination
of metadata (data describing the
information) is known as a document
surrogate, a substitute for the docu-
ment itself (and thus the information
it contains).
Document Management
Document management is dis-
tinct from records management in
that the former manages documents,
which may or may not be official
organizational records. The term is
increasingly used in relation to
electronic documents, which may
consist of digitized presentations, a
list-serve thread, or a document
containing several different formats
12 THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT JOURNAL / April 2000
(e.g., text, spreadsheet, graphics).
If we consider documents as con-
tainers of information, as previously
described, then librarians have been
managing documents for centuries.
So, for that matter, have records
managers and archivists.
But they have been doing it for
different reasons and under different
circumstances: the management of
documents generated in the normal
course of business by an organiza-
tion, from creation to disposition.
Document management systems are
often confused (usually by vendors)
as imaging products, perhaps
because what is envisioned is a system
that will image analog documents
and manage them in this new digital
mode (although these digital docu-
ments could be anything, including
HTML-coded Web pages).
Document management systems
will include records management
systems but cannot substitute for
them because of the special require-
ments of records for maintaining an
audit trail for evidentiality. Electronic
document management systems are
also sometimes used in conjunction
with, or even instead of, workflow
systems. Workflow systems allow
rapid access, even simultaneously
by several users, to documents (or
records) within an organization.
They maintain an audit trail, manag-
ing the flow of work as the name
implies, but they do not necessarily
actually manage documents.
Electronic documents need to be
managed not only in the sense of
being physically accessible and well
maintained and protected, but in the
broader sense as well. It is important
that their contents are intellectually
accessible to those who need them
and that they are protected from
view and from alteration by those not
authorized to peruse them. Indeed,
when talking about records, a record
needs to be kept of who viewed or
had access to certain documents and
when since this type of information
may be required in a court of law.
Records
While records have always been
considered important within organi-
zations, the discipline has developed
dramatically as IT has become
widespread. Records were identified
earlier as a subset of documents.
According to Kennedy and Schauder
(1998), “The definition of ‘record’ in
the Australian Standard AS4390-1996
reads:…‘recorded information, in
any form, including data in comput-
er systems, created or received and
maintained by an organisation or
person in the transaction of business
or the conduct of affairs and kept as
evidence of such activity.’”
This is quite distinct from
documents, which the Australian
Standard AS4390-1996 defines as
“structured units of recorded infor-
mation, published or unpublished in
hard copy or electronic form, and
managed as discrete units in infor-
mation systems.” This is consistent
with the description given earlier.
In the Australian Commonwealth
Evidence Act of 1995, document
means any record of information
and includes
• anything on which there
is writing
• anything on which there are
marks, figures, symbols, or perfo-
rations having a meaning for
persons qualified to interpret
them
• anything from which sounds,
images, or writings can be repro-
duced with or without the aid
of anything else
• maps, plans, drawings, or
photographs
 At first glance, this seems very
confusing. What it means is that
anything that contains meaningful
information – be it a magnetic tape, a
database, a Braille letter, a poem, a
spreadsheet, or a piece of recorded
sound – can be considered a docu-
ment. A document is a container of
information and, as a physical entity,
can be analog (such as a book, parch-
ment, score, or microfilm) or digital
(such as a word-processed file).
The critical difference between
a document and a record is that
the record provides evidence of a
business transaction. Thus, the
meaning of the information con-
tained by the document will affect
the categorization – and subsequent
handling and organization – of the
document as a record or a document.
In general, documents are handled
quite differently from records, irre-
spective of medium. The manage-
ment of records is, importantly,
typically indicated and controlled by
legislated requirements or potential
legislative requirements. Documents
more generally serve informational
but non-litigious functions.
Thus far, data have been identi-
fied as discrete facts that are handled
relatively easily in analog or digital
mode. Computers, in fact, handle
data extremely well. Information is
more complex, particularly because
there are variations of meaning pos-
sible within information. Information
is more difficult to ascertain and to
communicate. Information is most
frequently contained in documents,
which permit it to cross the bound-
aries of space and time, although
it can also be transferred verbally.
Some of these containers of
information (documents) are known
as records, with administrative and
legal qualities that distinguish them.
Knowledge is something that
humans acquire after learning from
documents and other people,
and experiencing life themselves.
Humans both assimilate and inter-
pret the information that they get
from these various sources (includ-
ing recondite sources such as
intuition and spiritual inspiration)
and attempt to communicate this
information to others using lan-
guage, as well as arts such as
painting, dance, and music.
Our understanding of informa-
tion or document management will
depend on our definitions of these
various terms, as well as the media
that comprise the documents. Our
understanding is further differentiated
by the purposes of the information or
documents, and the tools designed
to control and access the information
or documents.
Documents are assessed in a
manner similar to data (integrity and
security, as well as physical protec-
tion). As they are a hypothetical
construct, this seems consistent.
Records are assessed and managed in
terms that are laid down by the laws
of evidence in each country.
Archives, treated here as part of the
records management continuum, are
assessed in a manner similar to
documents, namely for the informa-
tion they contain. Their physical
well-being is also a consideration.
Records Management
Records and documents share a
similar life cycle, or, more properly,
continuum. The main distinction in
this scenario between the two types
is that all actions that occur to a
record need to be scrupulously
maintained in accordance with the
evidential procedures of the law so
that they can be used in evidence in
court when required. Most other
documents do not need to be as
rigorously maintained. However, as
indicated, their creation, access, and
use must all be tracked and properly
documented in some way.
Provision needs to be made for
legitimate modifications. When the
documents become less used, they
may need to be stored for some time
before the final decision is made to
dispose of them. Alternatively, the
documents may fall among that class
of materials needing to be preserved
for a much longer term because of
rarity value or because of historical
or social contributions.
THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT JOURNAL / April 2000
It is here that viewing records
(and document) management as a
continuum, which includes archival
management, is useful. One can
agree with Upward (1998), who
states, “A continuum based approach
is by definition an integrated one.
A continuum is a series of points that
pass into each other. The points
themselves are so integrated that
they are not readily distinguishable.”
It could be argued that as records
pass into archives, they cease being
records and revert to being docu-
ments, interesting no longer in a legal
sense, but for the information they
contain and perhaps as physical
artifacts. Records contain the vital
information of the organization, and
their chief characteristic is that they
provide evidence of that organiza-
tion’s business transactions.
Knowledge
Knowledge exists at an order of
complexity above information, its
container the document, and the
special document, the record. Most
seem to agree that knowledge
involves some level of human input
and manipulation. It is information
as absorbed and comprehended by
an individual. Knowledge is what
we have accumulated from all our
experiences and learning; informa-
tion is what we can convey about
it. Knowledge management is
therefore involved with recognizing
the value of knowledge, wherever it
may be found (usually in people’s
heads), and harnessing its powers
so that it can be used to the
organization’s advantage.
Knowledge is complex, analyzed,
compound, and structured. It can be
of several types, including knowing
of something, knowing about
something, and knowing how to do
something. While information is an
important component, knowledge
has to do fundamentally with what
people know and what they have
understood and interpreted. For this
reason, it is hard to imagine or
construct a system that is truly a
knowledge system, but based wholly
13
on technology. We might, however,
try to identify sources of knowledge,
such as experts in a particular field.
Knowledge Management
A new phrase has now entered
the information professionals’ vocab-
ulary: knowledge management (KM).
The good thing about the growth of
the concept of KM is the resurgence
of interest in broader information
IT, creating such changes within professions,
seems to have also created a need
for fresh self-examination of professions.
issues. KM is a new field emerging
at the confluence of organization
theory, management strategy, and
management information systems.
The emergence of the knowledge
society and the increasing realization
that knowledge is the most valuable
organizational asset are two of
several factors contributing to the
increased relevance of KM.
This seems to contradict directly
the earlier assertion regarding the
importance of records in the organi-
zation. So what is KM, and how does
it differ from the vitally important
RM, not to mention the broader term
IRM? A working definition of KM is
offered by Malhotra (1998):
A knowledge-based view of the
organization’s business process
for leveraging the information
processing capacity of advanced
information and communication
technologies via translation of
information into action by
means of the creativity and
innovation of humans to affect
organizational competence and
survival in an increasingly
unpredictable (hyper-turbulent)
competitive environment.
In accordance with the earlier
definition of knowledge, it would
14 THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT JOURNAL / April 2000
appear that KM encompasses what
the individuals in the organization
actually know about the business,
its objectives, how it works, its
relationship with competitors and
customers, niche markets, and the
like. Although fleetingly similar to
the view of IRM described earlier,
Malhotra’s definition moves beyond
the mere identification and manage-
ment of information resources.
It considers information in terms
of two important aspects: 1) the
intervention of human beings as
resources, particularly in making
information useable, and 2) the trans-
lation of information and knowledge
into business intelligence that can
be used for wise decision making,
which will, in turn, ensure the
survival of the business. While
information is evaluated in terms
of authority, currency, and complete-
ness, knowledge is often assessed
in terms of philosophical arguments
related to sophisticated methods of
research and testing.
Common Ground
The professional groups that
practice the various activities men-
tioned earlier – namely data, infor-
mation, knowledge, records, and
document management – share simi-
lar objectives. In particular, they seek
to manage information in a manner
that will ensure its integrity and use
according to a variety of objectives.
What blurs the distinction a little is
that the technologies and software
used by these groups to achieve their
various objectives seem similar.
However, neither use of objectives or
IT as unifying factors is definitive in
merging or distinguishing between
these disciplines.
It is clear that the field of informa-
tion management is presently in a state
of flux, largely driven by develop-
ments in technology and their
concomitant organizational changes. It
is hard to avoid the technological
determinist view here, as technology
has had a profound influence on these
related professions. IT itself has for
some time now illustrated characteris-
tics of convergence, particularly
between computers and communica-
tions (informatics). These develop-
ments have been conceptual as well as
technical in that they have changed the
expectation of various professions as
well as the ways in which individual
activities and functions are executed.
IT, creating such changes within
professions, seems to have also cre-
ated a need for fresh self-examina-
tion of the professions. Changes are
occurring more within those profes-
sions that deal with information
and knowledge and have the least
to do with the design and manage-
ment of actual hardware or soft-
ware. While the objectives of
managing information and using
technology appropriately and intel-
ligently are common to all IM pro-
fessions, this in itself has not led to
convergence between them.
Because of the strong emphasis
on electronic information, librarians,
records managers, and archivists
now have to work with the tradition-
ally technical information resources
personnel. This has not necessarily
meant a convergence of their roles;
however, it has created an increased
insight by each group into the work
of the other. Bookbinder (1997)
emphasizes the need for cooperation
and teamwork between these differ-
ent groups:
One would think that with the
convergence of many of the
information management tech-
nologies and applications like
imaging, document management,
work flow, COLD and records
management amongst the most
relevant to this Listserv, that
successful projects require a great
deal of teamwork. This means
 that for document and records
processing requirements to be
fully understood, end-users,
records managers, information
technology specialists/analysts,
customers/clients and any other
individual that requires access
to corporate memory, must con-
tribute their requirements. The
synergies of records management
principles of file classification,
retention schedules, disposition
and destruction integrated with
electronic document manage-
ment, which could include imag-
ing, workflow COLD, microfilm,
Internet, etc. means that TEAM-
WORK is a prerequisite for suc-
cess. Without it, 50% of system
implementations become failures.
Especially now, that convergence
is a reality.
Barry’s comments (1997) add an
interesting perspective:
The chances of gaining serious
management understanding of
record keeping needs and risks
can be very favorably advanced
by the integration of IS and ARM
functions – not like homogenized
cream and milk but like a good
salad where the individual contri-
butions remain distinct but the
overall product tastes better than
the component parts…It is also
refreshing to see increasingly that
information management and
information technology managers
and professionals are becoming
more aware of the need to inte-
grate document management and
records management functions in
the systems. Apart from the fact
that nowadays most organiza-
tions cannot afford parallel enter-
prise document, information or
knowledge-based management
systems and record keeping
systems, it doesn’t make
much sense in most business
environments from information
architecture point of view, not to
mention a technology architec-
ture perspective.
16 THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT JOURNAL / April 2000
Will the development of technolo- created a renewed attempt to define
gies that form knowledge manage- both the knowledge and expertise
ment systems create a convergence domain of each.
between groups of information The ways in which data, informa-
professionals such as IT specialists, tion, and knowledge (as represented
librarians, records managers, and in documents) are dealt with by the
corporate information systems staff, or various professions is perhaps more
will it make some groups redundant? different and more distinct than
While IT has created greater conver- before because of these fresh insights.
gence between these professions than Even while similar terminology may
has ever existed before and changed be used, the requirements of each
the very nature of each of these profession ensure their unique niche.
professions, it has simultaneously ■J
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sue Myburgh is a senior lecturer in the School of Communication
and Information Studies at the University of South Australia. She teaches corporate informa-
tion resources management and electronic document management and has particular research
interest in information retrieval and human information seeking behavior. Myburgh has had
extensive and international experience in the discipline of information management spanning
two decades. She was an academic at the University of Cape Town, and, while on a Fulbright
Fellowship, studied at Simmons College in Boston. Myburgh is currently working toward a
Ph.D. at University of South Australia. She may be contacted at sue.myburgh@unisa.edu.au.
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