The Working Environment and Changing Role of Corporate Librarians in Taiwan

Influenced by the concept of a “Knowledge Economy,” knowledge management (KM) has been receiving a lot of attention in the field of business administration recently. In the field of Library and Information Science, corporate librarians working in the information centers are mostly affected by KM either in their working environment or in their daily operations’ role. Headed by the Special Library Association (SLA), a series of studies about the working environment and the changing role of corporate librarians in the last 10 years had been done in the United States. Due to differences in politics, economics, and cultures between Taiwan and Western countries, the organizational structure and corporate culture of business is not the same. Therefore, local studies on similar topics are needed. Our purpose in this study is to explore the influence of knowledge management on the working environment and the changing roles of corporate librarians in Taiwan.