This paper explores and discusses the library and information science (LIS) job market in South

Core competencies are major drivers behind the success of many Small and Medium sized organizations (SMEs). While Information Technology (IT) can be leveraged to enhance these competencies, changes in IT and poor planning may result in core rigidities. Many SMEs experience difficulties in planning and aligning IT applications with business objectives and core competencies and limited scientific studies have been conducted to assist SMEs in this regard. The present study examined the alignment of IT applications with non-technological competencies in South Africa and Uganda. It sought to identify those configurations of IT applications and non-technological competencies that result in IT-based competencies needed to ensure competitiveness in e-commerce in the SME sector. The perspective of alignment as a gestalt was adopted. 112 SMEs were surveyed and three alignment configurations consisting of SMEs with innovative IT competencies; Operational IT competencies and adaptive IT competencies were revealed. SMEs with innovative IT competencies developed the most IT-based competencies. They achieved this by leveraging various operational and strategic IT applications to enhance a number of non-technological competencies.

IT (information technology) and its association with communication technology (information and communication technologies (ICTs)) have changed the way libraries operate. Today, ICTs play a very important role in the library environment. Traditional library tasks such as cataloguing, circulation, and collection development, which were performed manually a few decades ago, have now been automated to a lesser or greater extent. This has led to changes in some library and information science (LIS) job titles and job descriptions over the years. As a result, LIS professionals have been compelled to acquire IT skills. This study was conducted to investigate whether IT has an influence on LIS job titles and requirements in the South African LIS job market. It sought to answer these questions: (1) Has IT influenced job titles in the LIS job market in South Africa? (2) What IT knowledge and skills are required in the LIS job market in South Africa? A newspaper scan for LISrelated job advertisements over a period of four years, 2009-2012, was conducted on a weekly newspaper, The Sunday Times which has an extensive section of careers/job advertisements. Five hundred and eighty one LIS job advertisements were analyzed, and of these 75 had IT titles and/or requirements. The results revealed that IT has a significant influence on the LIS job market in South Africa. This has led to LIS jobs requiring basic computer literacy, and advanced IT knowledge and skills (e.g. computer networking, database administration, web development, etc.). An emergence of new LIS job titles is also observed. The study recommends that South African LIS schools and the work sector should intensify formal and informal (e.g. continuous education) IT education and training in order to meet the demands of the current job market.

Background: Knowledge-creation is a field of study that has gained popularity in recent times.Knowledge-creation is the creation of new ideas or new innovations. In computing, software development is regarded as knowledge-creation. This is because software-development involves the creation of a new innovation (software). Knowledge-creation studies in this field tend to focus mainly on knowledge-creation activities in business organisations. They use experienced, professional software-development teams as subjects, largely ignoring novice student development teams. This has denied the field of computing valuable knowledge about how novice teams create knowledge.Objectives: The study addressed this gap in the literature by investigating knowledge-creation in student software teams.Method: An ethnographic study was conducted on six student teams developing software in a management-information systems (MIS) course. They were conducting a systems development project at a university during a term of study. Data were collected over a period of four months through participant observation and interviews.Results: The results reveal knowledge-creation activities such as problem definition,brainstorming, programming and system documentation. Students use the Internet, books,class notes, class presentations, senior students and professional software developers as sources of information. Mobile phones and BlackBerry devices facilitate knowledge-creation.Challenges to knowledge-creation are the lack of material and financial resources,a lack of technical skills, a lack of time, students staying off-campus and ambivalent team members.Conclusion: The conclusion drawn from this study is that student teams are capable of creating knowledge (a working system) just like professional teams, but the knowledge-creation process is slightly different.

Background: Software organisations have been experiencing software development failures since the beginning of software development. Globally, latest Standish Group CHAOS reports indicate that only 29% of projects are successful. In South Africa (SA), the ITWeb report (2013) indicates that only 11% of all projects are successful. Intervention strategies such as software process improvement (SPI) frameworks and new software development methodologies such as agile methods have been introduced to address this issue. These intervention strategies do not seem to be effective because software development projects continue to fail. To address this issue, software organisations are turning to knowledge management (KM). This is because software development is a knowledge-intensive task.Objectives: The study aimed to investigate KM practices in small, medium and micro (SMMEs) software development organisations in SA and to determine if KM has benefited the organisations.Method: Fifteen software development project managers from 15 software development SMMEs were interviewed. Content analysis was used to analyse the data.Results: The study found six KM practices in the organisations: knowledge acquisition, creation, storage, sharing, organisation and application. The study found that KM has benefited organisations by making them effective, efficient and productive.Conclusions: The study concluded that software development organisation have adopted KM, although informally, and that KM practices have improved organisational routines and processes.