TUN ABDUL RAZAK LIBRARY,

MARA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Ida Yasin
National Expert, Malaysia

PROFILE OF THE ORGANIZATION

The MARA University of Technology (UiTM) is an institution of higher learning in

Malaysia that has experienced rapid growth since its founding in 1956. It has expanded nation-
wide, with three satellite campuses, 12 branch campuses, eight city campuses, 19 affiliated
colleges, and a smart campus for the future. It has as its vision outstanding scholarship and aca-
demic excellence capable of providing leadership in all internationally recognized fields of pro-
fessional study. Its library is the Tun Abdul Razak Library.
UiTM generates, disseminates, and advances knowledge within an ever-changing multi-
cultural and technological global context. There is a broad range of disciplines, from hotel and
tourism management to accounting to communications and media studies to medical and health
technology, encompassing 25 faculties and over 200 academic programs spread over Science
and Technology, Social Science and Humanities, and Business Management.
UiTM has forged linkages with a number of professional bodies, such as the Association of
Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), UK; the Chartered Institute of Transport (CIT), UK;
the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA), UK; the Institute of Marketing,
UK: the Institute of Administrative Management, UK; the Chartered Institute of Building
(CIOB), UK, and many others around the world. Some of these ties go back a long way, such as
that with the Ealing Technical College in the 1960s and Ohio University in the 1980s. These
linkages have become a benchmark for UiTM’s academic programs and research. Over the years,
UiTM has entered into collaborations with other universities located abroad. To date, UiTM has
more than 100 partner universities.
The Knowledge Management Portal in UiTM is managed by the Tun Abdul Razak Library
(PTAR). There are 13 branches of UiTM in all states of Malaysia, with a library in all UiTM
branches. The headquarters of PTAR are in Shah Alam, Selangor, where the UiTM main campus
is located. Currently, there are 1.3 million collections in the library plus 46 online database sub-
scriptions and 1.7 million images consisting of dissertations, theses, journal content pages,
UiTM publications, and the Tun Mahathir collections. PTAR has three million users all over the
country, mainly academics, researchers, and students.
The mission of PTAR is to improve library services through physical resources, KM, and
current technology in support of learning and research through the delivery of quality services
and a conducive learning environment for UiTM communities. PTAR’s objectives are:
• To be an excellent information center with emphasis on customer services.
• To provide up-to-date and comprehensive information resources and ICT facilities as
well as to emphasize continuous improvement in its work processes.
• To develop, through continuous training and learning, highly skilled and innovative
staff, ethical, and proactive, with a strong spirit of teamwork.
• To develop staff with integrity and accountability who are resilient, practice good
values, and strive to be knowledgeable, creative, and open minded.
• To ensure cost-effectiveness in library expenditures.
• To maximize the use of resources (manpower, facilities, system collection, and space).

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KEY DRIVERS FOR THE ADOPTION OF KM

Key drivers for the adoption of KM in PTAR stemmed from the Chief Librarian, who saw
increasing customer demand to improve the quality and range of library services. Since there are
13 PTAR branches, with users scattered all over the country and more than 100 partnerships
with universities overseas, there was a need to implement KM so that acquisition and sharing of
knowledge could be done more efficiently. PTAR clients have increased from 1.13 million in
2004 to 1.47 million in 2006 (Figure 1). The trend is expected to increase each year due to the
expansion of the university’s capacity as well as the increase in student population.

Figure 1. PTAR’s Clients 2004–06

The knowledge of an organization can take many forms, but it resides primarily in the
explicit and tacit categories. Explicit knowledge refers to recorded or encoded knowledge that
can be transformed easily, stored in documents: examination papers, theses, minutes of meetings,
student profiles, etc. (Figure 2). Tacit knowledge resides in the minds of people: professors,
lecturers, administration staff, and students.

Figure 2. The Organization Content in Disparate Repositories

Explicit knowledge is more easily shared among an organization’s members because it can
be transformed into digital form and stored in a server. The Knowledge Portal facilitates the

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 Tun Abdul Razak Library, Mara University of Technology

acquisition, classification, and sharing of knowledge in many forms: examination papers, journal
articles, seminar papers, theses, minutes of meetings, student profiles, etc.
Implicit knowledge can be disseminated through dialogues, public lectures, meetings,
cross-functional projects, and informal discussions among students and lecturers.

IMPLEMENTATION OF KM SYSTEMS
The Enterprise Knowledge Management System (EKMS) in UiTM was developed in 2005
at the Tun Abdul Razak Library (PTAR). Prior to EKMS, the library has gone through many
stages of information and technology development. Looking at the history of the library since
1991, the computerization of library processes initially undertaken by the use of the SISPUKOM
system, a huge transformation of the library system where the administrator and the users had to
change the way they worked and used library facilities, from the manual method of searching
books using cards to total computerization.
In 1993, the library implemented an integrated library management utility (ILMU) system,
an improvement on the previous one in terms of technology. The system was available only at
the main campus at Shah Alam. Two years later, ILMU was implemented at the UiTM branches
as well. In 1998, ILMU became web-based to allow users outside UiTM to access the system,
even from home. In 2000, the library recognized the importance of digitalization of the library
repositories, such as examination papers, UiTM journals, journal content pages, theses, seminar
papers, etc.
In 2003, a Bibliographic Data Management System (BDMS) came into operation which
allows data tracking in terms of the location of publications from all PTAR branches in Malaysia.
In 2004, a Multi-media Object Management (MOM) system was introduced, followed by an
upgraded version of ILMU. In 2005, the enterprise knowledge management system was imple-
mented. It has been providing the tools for KM in PTAR to this today. The PTAR route towards
KM can be summarized in Figure 3.

EKMS TOOLS

ILMU UNIVERSION

MOM

BDMS

ILMU’s e-components

Digitization

ILMU WEB BASED

Implementation of ILMU at the UiTM branches

Implementation of ILMU at the Main campus

SISPUKOM

Figure 3. PTAR ICT Route towards KM

The KM program in PTAR was divided into four phases (Figure 4). The first phase, begun
in 2005, analyzed the existing infrastructure and aligned KM with the organizational strategy. In
the second phase, the KM infrastructure was designed, a KM team was formed consisting of
PTAR librarians, an audit was conducted on the knowledge assets and systems, a KM blueprint
was created, and a KM system was developed. The third phase is where the KM system was

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installed and PTAR had to manage change, culture, and reward structures. Lastly, in phase four
the performance of the system is evaluated and the KM system is incrementally refined. As of
this writing, PTAR has arrived at stage four.

1. Analyze the existing

infrastructure
2. Align KM and
Organization’s Strategy
3. Design the KM Infrastructure
4. Organize the KM team
5. Audit existing Knowledge Assets and Systems
6. Create the KM Blueprint
7. Develop the KM System.
8. Deploy KM System
9. Manage change, culture and reward structures

10. Evaluate performance and

incrementally refine the KM system

Figure 4. Knowledge Management Roadmap

KNOWLEDGE CONTENT AND PROCESSES

Knowledge management in PTAR includes several key processes: capturing, storing, man-
aging, preserving, and delivering knowledge (Figure 5). The first stage is capturing knowledge,
which can be in the form of human-created or application-created information. Human-created
information refers to information from office documents, forms, media, and microfilm. Appli-
cation-created information refers to enterprise resource planning, electronic forms, and finance.
The use of technology expedites document imaging, forms processing, and aggregation of
processes. All these inputs are classified by input design, index, and category as determined by
the librarians.
The second stage of the knowledge process is to manage, store, and preserve knowledge.
Managing knowledge refers to the management of the document, content, workflow and records.
Storing knowledge refers to knowledge kept in the database and data warehouse in the form of
DVD, magnetic storage, optical discs, or server. Preservation of knowledge refers to the archives
for future reference and back-up.
The third stage is the process of delivering the knowledge, which includes the transforma-
tion process, security measures, and distribution of output. The final output of this KM process
to users can take various forms: paper, Internet, intranet, portal, email, fax, mobile devices, elec-
tronic statements. The content and knowledge process is shown in the graphic presentation
below.

IMPACT ON PRODUCTIVITY
Implementation of the enterprise knowledge management system has had a positive impact
on the organization to the advantage of both the user, who can access information and
knowledge efficiently, and the administrator, for whom the working process has become more
productive. Based on the statistics collected by PTAR, each cataloguing staff was able to
increase productivity seven-fold on average. Previously, the cataloguing rate was fifteen titles

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 Tun Abdul Razak Library, Mara University of Technology

per day for each staff. With the use of the KM enabler, cataloguing can be done at the rate of
105 titles per day per staff (Figure 6).

CONTENT & PROCESSES

STORE
SAN DVD Magnet storage
NAS CD-ROM RAID
Magneto optical Tape Optical disc

Technologies
CAPTURE File systems CM systems Database Data warehouse DELIVER
Human Created Information
Repositories
Search Data warehouse Check in/out Retrieval Audit trail
Office documents Forms Rich media Microfilm

Library services
Layout Publications

Transformation technologies

Technologies COLD/ERM Personalization XML PDF Compression Syndication

OCR/HCR/ICR/OMR/IDR Classification Security technologies

Document Imaging Indexing

INPUT Forms Processing

e-forms, Webforms
Input designs MANAGE PKI Digital rights management Digital signatures
Categorization
Aggregation Collaboration
COLD/ERM Paper
Internet
Extranet
Intranet

Archives
Distribution Portal
e-Mail
OUTPUT
Fax
Paper Film Optical NAS/SAN CAS
ERP e-Forms Finance Mobile devices
XML
e-Statements

Application Created Information PRESERVE

Figure 5. Content and Processes

Figure 6. Using KM Enabler

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The organization was thus able to save about MYR80,000 per year based on the premise
that PTAR handles 20,000 titles per year, with an 80% hit rate by the users and MYR5.00 per
title. In other words, PTAR has become more productive in terms of labor productivity, using
the same human resources but producing more output.
Users have provided feedback in terms of the benefits of the knowledge acquisition
process:
• Improved response time.
• Improved output quality.
• Accelerated learning.
• Better sharing of good practices.
• Increased availability of expertise through the experts’ profiles.

CHALLENGES IN KM IMPLEMENTATION
In implementing KM at PTAR, there were a few challenges addressed by top management.
Firstly, it was about managing change in the organization. When EKMS was started, it required
total commitment from all levels of staff to understanding the importance of KM within the
organization. Awareness talks and discussions were organized to promote the advantages of
EKMS and to get buy-in from employees from the beginning. This was important because it
entailed extra work to be done on the part of employees to ensure that the system performed
effectively and smooth-running of the system ran smoothly. Only when the system was in place
could employees appreciate its advantages in terms of helping them serve customers. The library
users will definitely welcome such improvements as well as the KM facilities because they make
their life easier, especially in terms of acquiring and sharing knowledge.
Secondly, PTAR recognized the challenges in the university when new students and
lecturers come to the campus. To educate these new members, PTAR designed the User Educa-
tion Program, consisting of information searching skills training and the library orientation pro-
gram. In 2004, 1,120 people attended the information searching skills training program and
3,570 the library orientation program. These numbers increased in 2006: 3,272 for the infor-
mation searching skills training program and 5,983 for the library orientation program (Figure 7).

Information Searching
Skills Training
Library Orientation
Program

Figure 7. User Education Program

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TUN ABDUL RAZAK LIBRARY ACHIEVEMENTS

The library has received accolades over the past few years for its innovative and creative
circles, achievement of quality standards, and quality awards:
• ISO9000: 2000 Certificate” Lloyds registrar quality assurance (April 2006) for head-
quarters.
• ISO9000: 2000 Certificate : Twelve UiTM state libraries (December 2006).
• UiTM Vice Chancellor Quality Award 2006 in six categories:
• Best department.
• Leadership.
• Management, analysis and knowledge management.
• Strategic planning.
• Organizational performance results.
• Student, stakeholder and market focus.
• UiTM Vice Chancellor Quality Award 2004 and 2005:
• Top four finalist Vice Chancellor Quality Award in 2005.
• Information and analysis award 2005.
• Quality output award 2004.
• UiTM Innovative and Creative Circle (ICC) Convention 2006:
• Best innovation award.
• Best logo award.
• Best male presenter.
• Best documentation award.

CONCLUSION
PTAR is an organization that regards quality initiatives as its most important activity,
believing that they are able to make increase their productivity. With that premise in mind,
PTAR has shown a strong commitment to put in place the KM system needed to meet future
challenges. Since knowledge has become the competitive edge, PTAR strives towards knowl-
edge acquisition and knowledge-sharing among the members of the university as well as other
parties with the same interests. The UiTM website is www.library.uitm.edu.my/.

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