Bill Ives does a bang up job of tying together historical (back to Alexendria and Sumeria) development of knowledge to the issues faced by today's organization that are still struggling with the issue of helping knowledge workers do their jobs. This quote is from the conclusion of Part 6, but it's worthwhile to start at the beginning. Did I mention that it is well-written?
It is important to remember that managing knowledge is not a new concept - just newly framed and enabled by new technologies, media, devices, and techniques. It will take time for these new capabilities to fully evolve and for their opportunities and effects to be fully understood.