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sharing and suggested the improvement of the knowledge sharing infrastructures mentioning
technology and lack of motivation as the obstacles. This section combines findings from this
research and other studies as presented in chapter two to propose why Tanzania public
university libraries need to share knowledge.
Knowledge sharing is one of the best strategies for libraries to effectively use the knowledge
residing in the heads of their employees. Davenport and Prusak pointed out that the only
sustainable advance a firm has, comes from what it collectively knows, how efficiently it uses
what it knows and how quickly it acquires and uses new knowledge, see more in section 2.3. The
investigation of library staff competences through library websites, revealed the diversity of
skills in public university libraries. The most common competences found in libraries
includes IT personnel, librarians and a good number of library staff with an educational
background. Once libraries lay an infrastructure through which sharing is encouraged across
these disciplines, more and more value is likely to be added to library practices. It is well
known that libraries are non profit organisations and face funding problems. To make it
worse technology is changing so fast and the ability to acquire more sophisticated systems is
indeed limited. Librarians do study ideally systems for the libraries and IT personnel can
work together with librarians to customise the current infrastructure to accommodate specific
needs of a particular library. On the other side staff with a teaching background may assist in
designing more user oriented services due to the fact they have strong background in
psychology which facilitates undertaking user studies.
Innovation is fostered by knowledge sharing through the free flow of ideas. With Tanzania
public university libraries, innovation is of prime importance. Data collected reveals that
100% of responses strongly agree that sharing knowledge downwards topwards is
encouraged and 81% strongly agreed that sharing topwards downwards is encouraged. This
allows us to conclude that if better infrastructure for sharing is implemented innovation
through sharing is the likely outcome. Chances are high that through innovation many
problems are likely to be solved. Among others, designing a reward system can best be done
with staff who understand the system best. Most of the models designed favour a well
established technological infrastructure which may not be appropriate for library
environments in Tanzania. If a forum is established to discuss how knowledge sharing should
be rewarded and all libraries participate in discussion, most likely the reward system problem
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