The Ohio State University library system has been developing a Knowledge Bank since 2002. Without knowing much about the program, I found the article Knowledge Management in Academic Libraries: Building the Knowledge Bank at the Ohio State University, by Joseph J Branin, Director of Libraries, 2003.
The article talks more about how Branin understands knowledge management and how this is different from collection development or collection management, traditional activities in libraries. He closes with this list of KM roles for librarians:
I think all of [us] as academic librarians, whether we work in administration,
collection management, reference, or technical services, must take on new
roles as knowledge managers. In this new role we will be
- Knowledge management developers, working more closely with
faculty and students to design, organize, and maintain a broader range
of digital assets;- Knowledge management integrators, having a more active role in the
educational and research mission of university, integrating
information resources and services in course and research projects;- Knowledge management educators; teaching and training students
and faculty information literacy and how to organize, preserve, and
share their own information resources;- Knowledge management researchers, applying library and
information science and new digital technology to create new
organizational (metadata), retrieval, and storage (preservation)
options.
Librarians as knowledge managers. Knowledge managers as one-among-many in the development of the collective knowledge. I think this works.
For what it's worth, my eyes tell me that the Knowledge Bank is a mechanism for expanding their hardbound collection into the digital world. Since I am not part of the community that is working on this project (and left OSU 15+ years ago), it is hard to see that part of this project that has librarians working with their patrons to develop the collection. It's still growing. I'd love to see, for example, archival photos of the OSU campus or of all of Ohio (like the in progress Illinois collection of aerial photos at UIUC).