Assessment of intellectual capital of library and information professionals

Information professionals have traditionally connected people and information resources; however, that role is changing as we move into the knowledge economy. Visioning exercises and thought papers on the future of the profession continue to focus on the resources we manage – moving from paper to digital resources and from physical to digital distribution channels. These visions, though, are short sighted and do not take into account the shift from an industrial and a financial economy to a knowledge economy. In a knowledge economy, individuals with information science skills will play expanded roles beyond the library walls. While intellectual capital and knowledge assets are well understood in the economics and knowledge sciences fields, they are not widely recognized in other domains. This visual presentation reports on the results of Phase 1 of a broader research project to gauge information professionals' awareness of and investment in their own intellectual capital assets. Phase 1 focused on one area of practice – information professionals in academic research libraries – and leveraged a national survey. The survey focused on eight recognized areas of intellectual capital and existing sources of learning and investment. Phase 2 shifts the research focus to narrative descriptions of the use of intellectual capital in the working environment. In Phase 2 individual librarians focus on one of the eight types of intellectual capital and record their experiences using those assets in an electronic journal. Phase 3 will focus on the view of intellectual capital assets from the organizational perspective, i.e., an organization's stock of intellectual capital and the way in which it spends and invests in that capital.