Reports
Theme of the Convention:
Libraries as a global information hub: Perspective and challenges
Director: Prof AS Chandel, DLISc, NEHU, Shillong
Rapporteur General: Sri MN Bora, Former Librarian, Tezpur University
Theme paper was presented by Dr Ravindra Kumar Chadha, New Delhi.
Dr. Chadha emphasizes on the changing role of Librarians in view of the changes in Science & Technology. Librarians should concentrate more on the interest of the users. The concept of library services should be patron centered. He referred to the services to be adopted by the present day librarian by exploring different sources of information with the help of search engines. Dr. Chadha warns the librarians, if they do not change in their style of functioning, they will be out of picture. He mentioned about the digital divide, which means that it separates the people of those who access the digital information from the non-users of these facilities. He mentioned about how to launch a web based library services. He suggests the librarians to create their simple library home pages including basic information about the library, policies, virtual library tours, etc to attract the users. These in-house data is more essential to their institutional users. Dr. Chadha further advises to go step by step to develop their information services like adding library calendar, interactive user education, FAQs, feedbacks, library web sites linkage to information sources, host lists and book marks, subject gateways and library portals. Dr. Chadha suggests creating more Indian databases like other countries to prove richness of our culture. He advised the librarians to be familiar with the changes in legal rights of information.