When Practitioners Get It "Wrong": The Largely Underanalyzed Failures of Professional Tacit Knowledge

This essay describes how valuable tacit knowledge (personal knowledge) becomes explicit knowledge (recorded knowledge) and vice versa. It ascribes considerable responsibility for practitioner ignorance of community and organizational realities to American Library Association programs that lack required courses in marketing and advocacy, Finally, it describes how tacit knowledge becomes a basis for determining stakeholder needs and establishing the relationships necessary to develop relevant service programs and funding.