Hobson Library at the Defence Academy Supports the Year of KIM, by Charlotte Porter

 

Knowledge - the capturing, organising and exploitation of it is a hot potato in Government, and has been for some years. The GKIM (Government Knowledge & Information Management Profession) is an organisation dedicated to these activities across all Government sectors. Libraries also come under the GKIM framework and 2023 is the “Year of KIM”.

The Year of KIM is a year-long programme of events throughout 2023 celebrating and exploring the entirety of the Knowledge and Information Management profession both in the context of defence and in the wider landscape. There is a series of events aimed at everyone across defence which combines professional development activities, alongside opportunities for everyone to learn more about the profession.

 

The objectives for the Year of KIM are:

 

• To provide a dedicated pan-Defence continuing professional development programme for KIM professionals
• To support wider understanding of knowledge and information management amongst all staff
• To raise the profile of all disciplines included in the Knowledge and Information Profession across Defence
• Celebrate an evolving, interesting and impactful profession! 

 

In support, the Hobson Library offered to hold two events based on a knowledge share of our activities.

The what! The first event was a webinar on the development and embedding of an Information Literacy Skills (ILS) framework into the curriculum at the JSCSC, and the second was a visit to the library from colleagues in defence. The ILS webinar was a specialist topic, but the visit was more general in scope and gave us the opportunity to give an overall context for the service, including why it is structured the way it is and how we deliver our services.

The so what! Knowledge shares such as these are invaluable as they help us to understand the different ways a service can be delivered in similar organisations, support each other in overcoming common obstacles to delivery, and a chance to celebrate success with likeminded people.

The now what! We all really enjoyed these events; they are great for energising and motivating a team, and we have also been invited to deliver further webinars on ILS as a lifelong career skill and on copyright to support colleagues in defence to stay within the law.