After Information Technology and Biotechnology, is the new mantra going to be Library Technology (LT)? Library Technology seems to be all set to hit our country in a big way and, the libraries and librarians in India will soon have their services and job profiles redefined with technology revolution seeping through this segment as well.
This changed library scenario will demand a considerable amount of reskilling and upgradation initiatives from conventional librarians in order to fit into the new requirement.
The country has over 400 large (employing nearly 10,000 people) and thousands of small and medium libraries. The entire library (content storage and management) segment awaits a total makeover as the way information is handled, stored and retrieved today is going to be completely changed.
According to H S Siddamalliah, president of Karnataka State Libriarians’ Association, the definition of libraries has changed with technology having started to facilitate easy access to "tailor-made or micro-information." This changes the overall profile of librarians, he says.
From mere book keepers and journal managers they are now transforming into publishers, editors, digitalisers, converters, compilers, categorisers, aggregators, collectors, collators, indexers and consolidators of content.
"Online content is growing rapidly along with multimedia learning materials. As classroom-centric teaching practices are becoming library-centric, our librarians need to be tech-savvy. Librarians should be familiar with content management software products and solutions."
While there is a lot of awareness among librarian attached to research agencies, defence departments or private library outfits, says Siddamalliah, but librarians working in the government segment - universities and other educational outfits - remain largely unaware of the technological revolution sweeping their field.
T B Rajasekhar, Associate Chairman, National Centre for Science Information (NCSI) IISc, Bangalore, says that digitalisation of library is all about a system that manages and preserves documents intelligently and makes them easily accessible.
"These open online archives should be able to talk to each other," he says elaborating on the magic of technology.
Waikanto University of New Zealand has developed an open source software - GreenStone - tool that helps in managing, searching and retrieving specific content from digital libraries. IISc will start using the software from April and it is also planning workshops to educate the librarian fraternity, he informs.
"The challenge in front of librarians is that they should be able to use technology to enhance the content management, online publishing and content refreshing," Rajasekhar says.
Says IRN Gouda, head, Information Centre of National Aeronautic Laboratories (NAL), "These are the digital counterparts of traditional libraries. The content will include a whole lot of printed stuff, images, audio, video, music, movies, art objects, etc."
According to him, digital libraries are all about Knowledge Management (KM), which is currently being treated as a discipline by itself. Gauda says traditional librarians have been all along managing the print versions of content, and, quoting a recent study, he says in India the ratio between off and online content will reach 50:50 from the current 75:25 by the year 2005.
"Digitalisation will also boost other areas like telecom, networking, systems integration. In a sea of information in the future, librarians will not be those who provide the water, but those who navigate the ship," Gouda claims.
Even conventional librarians are slowly seeing the advantages of digitalisation. Putta Basavaiah, deputy librarian at IISc says, "Digital libraries offer many advantages. Information is accessible wherever you are unlike the conventional libraries which were constrained by location and space. Digital libraries provide seamless content sharing (multi-user) facility. Librarians need to take up this new challenge by upgrading their knowledge base and reskilling themselves in selecting, collating, editing and managing the matter online."
Courses in digital library sciences
• National Informatics Centre runs a crash course
• Funded by UGC, NSCI offers a one-year training programme for library science graduates on technology and e-content management.
• Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has formed a standard-Indian Script Code for Information Interchange (ISCII) that helps digitalisation.
• Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, under the ministry of IT, has a cell called Technology Department for Indian Languages (TDIL) to develop tools for digitisation of various Indian language materials.
• Asian Digital Libraries, a body that research problems related to digitalising Asian cultural heritage and languages.
No comments:
Post a Comment