PREPARING LIS PROFESSIONALS FOR GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE PROCESS OUTSOURCING

Introduction. Globalization due to the growth of the Internet and global communication infrastructure has made it possible for many services to be provided from remote locations, independent of the location of service providers. A large number of organizations have started outsourcing high-end knowledge-intensive services to external agencies and professionals, in a practice called knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). There is a shortage of talent able to provide the breadth of KPO services, particularly professionals trained to find and process information efficiently. This paper explores the issues and challenges involved for LIS professionals to break into the KPO market, and the strategies that LIS associations and LIS schools can take to facilitate this. Method. Two faculty members of an I-school, a special librarian at a private business school and a knowledge management specialist at a law firm in Singapore collaborated to deliberate on the extent and potential of the KPO market, the kind of services and skills that will be in demand for KPO, and the issues and barriers to address. Conclusion. LIS professionals are expected to do well in KPO in areas involving searching for information, packaging information, combining information from multiple sources, carrying out data collection and analysis, preparing research reports, providing information-related services, carrying out information and knowledge audits, constructing taxonomies and metadata, designing digital libraries and institutional repositories, and providing training. Challenges expected to be faced include mindset of librarians, personal work issues, and librarian’s lack of certain soft skills, domain/industry knowledge, experience of the corporate environment, and an understanding of ethical and information security issues. A collaborative effort between LIS schools across the region, LIS associations and industry partners seems to be a good strategy to address the issues and realize the potential of KPO.