Managing Knowledge and Information by Students

The concept of Personal Knowledge and Information Management (PKIM) is based, among others, on two theories: Personal Information Management (PTM) and Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), which hitherto were both subjects of separate studies. Moreover, the concept of PKIM is related to IL, which is a concept of information skills and competences of individuals - a person who manages knowledge has to be information literate. Some of the empirical studies results in the field of PKIM, started in Poland and recently continued in Germany, are presented. As the research method an unstructured questionnaire with open questions was used. Given the results of the survey as well as taking into account the subject literature, the concepts of PIM, PKM, and Information Literacy (IL) seem to be compatible and connected with each other. Our respondents perceive Knowledge and Information as well as knowledge management (KM) and information management (IM) in the context of learning and studying as integrated areas of interests. Although they do see differences between them, interconnections and relations seem more important. Furthermore, KM and IM are recognized as tools of coping with information overload. All aspects that have repercussions on KM and IM are related to three categories: personal characteristics, environment (macro and micro environment), and knowledge and information sources.