Knowledge Sharing Culture and Methods among Public Libraries’ Staff in Ahvaz City

1.Introduction Knowledge is the axis of value creation in today's organizations. Knowledge management as a strategic capital of an organization is considered the most important organizational advantage. On the other hand, the importance of sharing the experiences of librarians to each other in order to perform their professional duties, shows the role of knowledge transfer and sharing methods among librarians. These days, improving the performance of the organization is a response from an organization to face the challenges that arise from the rapid global transformations. From the organization's point of view, this challenge includes responding to the needs of customers and providing goods or services with a high degree of efficiency and in an efficient and effective manner. From the perspective of organizational members, this challenge includes improving the quality of work life. So that the organization is a pleasant and satisfying place for work and effort.This paper examines the state of knowledge sharing among managers and librarians of public libraries in the city of Ahvaz. Every organization has its own culture, which is influenced by the culture of the organization's people. In this research, it has tried to measure the effect of culture on knowledge sharing in the form of components such as competition, motivation, support, cooperation, trust, etc.Research questions are:What is the culture of knowledge sharing among the employees (librarians and managers) of Ahvaz public libraries?What are the different methods of sharing knowledge among the employees (librarians and managers) of public libraries in Ahvaz?What is the status of information and communication technologies for sharing knowledge among public libraries in Ahvaz? Literature Review Literature review shows that there is a positive and significant relationship between organizational culture and knowledge sharing in many studies. For example, a study by Burnette (2017) aims to explore the nature of tacit knowledge (TK) sharing among library colleagues, with a focus on the characteristics of TK and contextual factors such as organizational culture or the mentor/mentee relationship. Three thematic areas emerged. First are the influence of organizational culture and the importance of trust in knowledge sharing behavior. Second, the value of teamwork and the significance of mentor/mentee roles surface as significant drivers of TK exchange. Last but not least is a better understanding of the nature of TK, as it relates to types of knowledge and characterizations of experience and expertise. Methodology This is an applied research and has been done by survey. The statistical population was all employees (managers and librarians) of public libraries in Ahvaz City and the implementation time was 2022. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data, and the content validity of the questionnaire was obtained by experts' opinion and its reliability using Cronbach's alpha (0.90) and dividing it into two halves (0.85). In analyzing the questionnaire data, descriptive statistics techniques were used for demographics, and techniques such as one-sample t-test and Friedman's rank average test were used for the questionnaire's inferential questions. ResultsIn terms of the components of sharing culture, the competition between employees for sharing knowledge with the highest average (3.16) has the best status, and the managers' motivation to share knowledge with other libraries is the lowest with an average of 2.70. Also, the state of knowledge sharing in terms of different methods of knowledge sharing shows that the most favorable state is related to courses and workshops with an average of 3.55, followed by the enterprise resource planning (ERP) with 3.51, as well as the quality of personal communication and informal among librarians with an average of 3.26. The findings show the status of knowledge sharing and communication technology from the point of view of the managers and librarians of public libraries in the city. For instance, while training courses and workshops and personal and informal communication between librarians, as well as administrative automation are good, other things such as employee performance and the culture of knowledge sharing are less favorable. Cases were found where there was a lack of awareness of the importance of knowledge sharing and a lack of organizational support. Conclusion The results of the current research show that information and communication technology and then knowledge-sharing methods are in a more suitable situation than the categories of employee behavior and knowledge-sharing culture. According to the findings regarding the knowledge-sharing methods, where Friedman's test was used, the highest average rating was given to the method of sharing and exchanging knowledge from courses and workshops with an average rating of 9.63 with a deviation of 0.78. The next ranks were administrative automation system with an average rank of 9.43 and personal and informal communication between librarians with an average rank of 8.46. Finally, the knowledge management system with an average rating of 5.36, publications and bulletins with an average rating of 5.30, and public libraries with an average rating of 4.67, have the lowest average, which should be used by examining the problem of the degree of its solution. Overall, this study shows there is a need to improve information technology and the culture of knowledge sharing.