LIS Links
First and Largest Academic Social Network of LIS Professionals in India
LIS Links Becoming More Social
Birthdays
Latest Activity
Applications are invited for the post of Library Professional Trainees @ Shreenivas Deshpande Library, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.
The Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amaravati Campus, Andhra Pradesh is inviting applications from qualified candidates for the post of a Assistant Librarian.
Applications are invited for the Junior Librarian (UR-01) Group "B" post @ Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy (CCRH), New Delhi.
International Conference on New Generation of Libraries for Literacy and Lifelong Learning (NGLLLL 2026) at Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu
January 29, 2026 to January 30, 2026
One Day National Workshop on One Nation One Subscription for Research Excellence at Government Degree College, Mulugu,
November 7, 2025 all day
International Conference on Libraries and Emerging Technologies for Smart Knowledge Ecosystems (ICLET 2025) at Jaipur,Rajasthan
November 14, 2025 at 9am to November 15, 2025 at 6pm
International Conference on Readers are Leaders at Siddaganga Institute of Technology (SIT), Tumkur
February 26, 2026 at 3pm to February 28, 2026 at 6pm
28th National Convention on Knowledge, Library and Information Networking (NACLIN 2025) at Hotel Lemon Tree Premier, City Center, Pune
December 3, 2025 at 9pm to December 5, 2025 at 6pm
National Level Workshop on “Smart Publishing in the Digital Age: Strategies for Journal Publishing and Academic Profile Management” (Hybrid Mode) at Hybrid Mode
November 15, 2025 from 8am to 5pm
In Digital Era, libraries turn tech-savvy
In digital era, libraries turn tech-savvy
When all information is available in an inch-thick mobile phone and news can be accessed with the click of a button, it looked like the humongous libraries could soon get converted into museums. On the contrary, the library has re-invented itself to keep pace with the times.
“Today’s library is not just a storehouse of information. In fact, it has no wall,” D Ramesh Gaur, librarian in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), said.
Like in the past, people still spend hours poring over books to extract nuggets of information in libraries. The number of transactions in Jamia Library of
Jamia Millia Islamia has recorded a 58 per cent increase since 2003, while the membership of Delhi Public Library has gone up from approximately 35,000
in 2007 to 75,000 in 2012.
Explaining how libraries have managed to stay on course on the fast-moving information highway, several library officials said technology has helped these age-old institutions extend their reach through online journals, digitised archives and e-books.
These range from JSTOR, a popular online service supplying journals to students and institutions worldwide, to Manopatra Online, a database for law students.
Delhi University Library spends around Rs 3 crore annually on electronic databases of journals, a sum “impossible for students to pay”, one of its officials said.
Jamia Library has rapidly increased the subscription of online journals from roughly 2,000 to 6,200 over the past six years.
The process is more vigorous in digitisation of books, theses and primary material (manuscripts).
JNU Library, for instance, is on the verge of digitising around 8,000 theses and 3,000 rare books, while Delhi Public Library plans to digitise its precious gramophone records.
The past decade has seen an explosion of electronic cataloguing for the city’s biggest libraries. JNU Library has done away with the time-consuming method of manually searching for books. It has electronically indexed more that 6,00,000 books and periodicals — which can now be located in seconds. Delhi University Library, too, is almost through with the process.
“It is far more convenient than the manual catalog,” said Uday, a 20-year-old Political Science student in Hindu College. “More importantly, it saves time,” he said.
REDUNDANT JOB?
Has technology made the librarian and his science redundant? Prof Makhdoomi, librarian in Jamia Millia Islamia, begged to differ. The advent of online cataloguing has made libraries more efficient, “but library science is not comparable to medicine or law”, said Makhdoomi, who has a PhD in the subject from the University of London. “As a specialised field, it has some scope,” he said.
Hindu College librarian Sanjiv Duttsharma said: “The essence of library science is the skill of organising information and books for readers. Technology will change, the basic principles will not. Instead of manual cataloguing, today we feed inputs to the database.”
There were libraries that have yet to fully embrace technological changes. A Hansraj College library assistant said it “still orders physical journals and has no online subscriptions”.
Technology has its limitations, too. Tarang, a student of History in Hindu College, said: “People still need the librarian’s knowledge and skills to locate a book or reference material from a particular report. Online catalogues are not enough.”
JURY IS OUT
Opinion is divided over the old ‘storehouse’ and online information. For some like Harpreet Sudan, a student of International Law, he rarely needs to go to a library because “most of the stuff I need is available online”.
“Our teachers give us all the necessary material bundled up in a large book. We don’t really need to use the library,” said Uday, a student at Hindu College. Others like Gopinath, professor of History in Jamia Millia Islamia, said the library would prevail because it “remains the reservoir for in-depth knowledge”.
“The Internet is good for background checks, but the conscientious student still uses the library,” he said.
Chime, a 23-year old International Studies student in JNU, agreed.
“Scholarly stuff is available only in a library,” he said.
“Google and Wikipedia provide a general overview. For anything more than that, one needs a library,” Renukeer, a JNU student, said.
JNU International Studies student Sanghamitra considered the library a worthy place to visit because of the “availability of online journals and primary sources”.
Another plus-point for libraries is the environment they provide. Faraaz, a 20-year-old student of History in Zakir Husain College, uses Delhi Public Library to “avoid Facebook and Gmail, and concentrate on his books (which he calls hard copies)”.
Anjali prefers the quiet inside Delhi Public Library to the “loneliness” of her room at home to prepare for her SSC exams. “You get the urge to study when you see others studying,” she said.
Source | Indian Express | 7 August 2012
Views: 108
© 2025 Created by Dr. Badan Barman.
Powered by
