Measuring of the Maturity of Knowledge Management in Libraries and Information centers (Case Study: Public Libraries of Kermanshah)

Measuring the maturity of knowledge management enables the organizations to know how their knowledge management is carried out. The maturity model of knowledge management delivers objective evaluation regarding the level of KM activities and provides valuable information about the library's performance to reach the next level of maturity in terms of KM development. In other words, the maturity of the knowledge management creates an infrastructure for organization's knowledge management plan. Accordingly, this research is intended to assess the level of knowledge management maturity in public libraries in Kermanshah. This is an applied descriptive research. Data collection tool entails a standard questionnaire of Asian Productivity Organization. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated on the basis of mean value of Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0.9). The research population contained 87 managers and employees of the public libraries of Kermanshah. Based on Krejci and Morgan's table, the sample size of the research was 70. Of these, 59 people (80% of the sample size) filled in the questionnaire. SPSS23 was employed to analyze the data and one-sample T-test was used for measuring the mean of the seven-group criteria. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to normalize the distribution of data. Non-parametric Friedman test was used for rating groups of criteria and the standard tables of the Asian Productivity Organization were applied to determine the maturity level. Findings indicated that the maturity level and readiness of the public libraries of Kermanshah to deploy KM was at an early stage (understanding the need for KM). The t-statistic value was negative for all criteria. Accordingly, the mean of leadership, process, employees, technology, knowledge processes, learning and innovation, and knowledge management scores were lower than the average knowledge maturity model of the Asian Productivity Organization. The results of ranking of knowledge management maturity criteria also showed that information technology score was the highest and leadership, learning and innovation criteria of knowledge management were at the lowest level. Ranking of other knowledge management maturity criteria are: the process, achievements, employees, and knowledge management processes respectively.

Methodology: The present study is based on the applied purpose and is a descriptive study based on the data collection method. The data gathering tool was a standard questionnaire of Asian productivity organization. Reliability of the questionnaire was calculated according to the mean value of Cronbach's alpha coefficient 0.9. The research community was composed of 87 managers and staff of the public libraries of Kermanshah. The sample size of the research was 70 (based on Krejcie and Morgan's tables). 59 people (80% of the sample size) answered to the questionnaire. We used SPSS23 to analyze the data. One sample T-test was used in order to measure the mean of the seven groups of criteria. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to normalize the distribution of data. The nonparametric Friedman test was used for rating groups of criteria and the standard tables of the Asian productivity organization were applied to determine the puberty level and to calculate the total score of the seven criteria.
Findings: The results of this study showed that information technology and process of knowledge management in public libraries of Kermanshah were higher and the leadership, staff, knowledge processes, learning and innovation, and knowledge management results were lower than the mean of knowledge management maturity model of APO. The level of puberty and the level of readiness of public libraries for implementing knowledge management at the initializing level (understanding the need for knowledge management) were evaluated. The results of the ranking of knowledge management maturity also showed that information technology was at the highest level and leadership and learning and innovation were at the lowest. Other knowledge management maturity criteria in order of importance were: process, achievements, staff, and knowledge management processes.
Conclusion: Considering that public libraries of Kermanshah in terms of maturity of knowledge management are in the second phase (understanding the need for knowledge management) and information technology has a better status than other knowledge management criteria, it seems that these centers should identify the areas that require knowledge management initiatives and develop other knowledge management criteria in the form of a program based on the suggested solutions in this research, in order to achieving higher levels of knowledge management like: development, refinement and eventually encompassing it.