The literature in the field of information and knowledge management is all but rare nowadays, and one could ask whether room still exists for original contributions in this area of practice. This new book from Springer’s “Management for Professionals” series serves a useful purpose by providing a compact, clear, and structured compendium on knowledge management (KM) methods and approaches, to deliver business benefits and competitive advantage.

The structure is organized in 11 chapters, starting from the basic definitions of what it means to manage knowledge in small and large organizations, and then explaining how communities of practice can be key enablers to the execution of effective KM strategies. The narration continues by describing how KM strategies can be designed, how knowledge can be captured and codified, and what elements are required to succeed, in terms of process, architecture, change, and risk management. Specific sections are dedicated to strategy implementation in profit and nonprofit organizations, and to performance measures, both in terms of audit and of assessment of maturity of KM practices.

Subsequent chapters deal with the use of social networking in KM, illustrating benefits in geographically dispersed collaboration and in the creation of a common culture. Cloud computing is also mentioned, together with approaches toward the use of automation to create, share, personalize, visualize, and reuse the knowledge capital of an organization.

One area that in my opinion would have benefited from additional care is the preparation of the accompanying graphics: at times the readability of the images is difficult because of uneven resolution and variability in font size.

Overall, the book favors breadth over depth, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. KM, as a discipline, is all about strategy, people, process, and technology: for this reason, a holistic approach is essential to arrive at the delivery of tangible accomplishments. That said, readers should not expect a magic cookbook that can be followed in a mechanical way. The utility of a book such as this is primarily in providing food for thought, incentive to experiment, and a toolbox to navigate the important yet hard-to-govern discipline of KM.