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Library
and information professionals (LIPs) are passing through turbulent times.
Library budgets are declining and end-user expectations are increasing. Inflation
and the growing information deluge have further complicated the situation.
LIPs have no option but to develop new policies and strategies to do more
with less. No single library or information centre is in a position to empower
the end-user with pertinent information in a timely manner. This is because
of change which is the only constant today. If we look around carefully,
we find that there is a shift from stand alone libraries to library and information
networks; from printed publications to formless data; from ownership to access;
from intermediation to disintermediation; from teaching to learning; from
learning to creating; from intra-action to interaction; and from real to
virtual. The Internet and the Web have given a death blow to the traditional
constraints of space and time. The world has become very small with the emergence
and convergence of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Tele-working
and e-learning is taking place with the help of cutting-edge technologies.
But these facilities are available to the elite only. The non-elite or the
info-poor are still miles away from the actual and potential benefits of
the Web. Even then, we should not look back in anger; rather we should look
forward with a smile and develop policies and strategies which enable us
to narrow down the growing gap between the info-rich and the info-poor. ICTs
have the potential to do this.
We are living in an era
where uncertainty is the only certainty, instability is the only stability,
and change is the only constant. But even
then, neither
the traditional library has become a relic of past, nor the multimedia virtual
library a harbinger of future. In fact, library as a metaphor of our documentary
heritage is going to stay with us sine die. Only its role is expanding and
status changing. A library today is required to serve as a local gateway to
world's wisdom, and a library and information professional to act as a facilitator
for the end-users. With emergence of the Web, a lot of junk is also being made
available as there is no competition for space now-a-days. The end-user sometimes
is totally bewildered and looks desperately towards a library and the information
professional for timely help. LIPs are required to save the end-user from this
junk and information overload by acting as facilitators and providing them
with massive real-time access to quality information. They should not be satisfied
only with information management; rather they should make efforts for knowledge
and wisdom management also. They are required to forget many irrelevant things
to remember numerous relevant things, and also to unlearn many useless skills
to learn and relearn Web-based competencies. The future library should be a "hybrid
library"; and it should be "user-centred"; and "expert-assisted".
An effort will be made by me, in this online conference, to inform the virtual
colleagues of what is happening in India and other south Asian countries in
this regard. How libraries and LIPs are responding to the challenges of change.
Just for a cue, in India we have a J-Gate, an INDEST, and the UGC-Info net
developed by a private vendor, Ministry of Human Resource Development, and
the University Grants Commission respectively. I mean to say, there is a clear
trend from multimedia databases to polyglot portals to empower the end-users.
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