Karnataka - Shimoga   

Keep updated on latest technology, librarians told

A start: Vice-Chancellor of Mysore University B.G. Talawar inaugurating a seminar on ‘Challenges to Academic Librarians in the Emerging Technological Environment’ at Kamala Nehru National College of Women in Shimoga on Saturday.

Shimoga: Librarian of the Kuvempu University K.C. Ramakrishne Gowda said here on Saturday that the academic librarians with the application of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) can take the libraries to greater heights.

He was delivering the keynote address at the UGC sponsored State-level seminar on “Challenges to Academic Librarians in the Emerging Technological Environment” which was arranged at the Kamala Nehru National College for Women.

Mr. Gowda urged the academic librarians to understand the needs of the users and work according. He said that the librarian has to upgrade his knowledge of latest technology to make access of information to the user easy and also live up to the expectations of the users.

Stating that as long as man’s quest for new technical know-how continued, the significance of libraries as “temples of knowledge would continue”. Mr. Gowda said the basic philosophy of a librarian was to identify, collect, organise and disseminate information according to the needs of the library users.

“They have passed through closed access system to open access system and then to IT driven automated knowledge delivery systems and now they are looking forward to adapt Web 2.0 technologies,” he noted.

“Librarians regardless to which generation they belonged to must transform into technologically driven new generation librarianship,” he said. Mr. Gowda said the librarians had to closely examine the overall operations and functions of a library as a whole and identify the critical components that could be improved. Librarians have to come out of the “hypnotised comfort zone of routine works and age-old practices.

Vice-Chancellor of Mysore University V.G. Talawar who inaugurated the seminar said that large number of students were going abroad to pursue higher education and there was a need to provide more opportunities for them to pursue higher education in India itself.

He said that the setting up of the National Knowledge Commission had brought a sea change in the field of higher education in the country.

He said that libraries played a vital role in helping students, researchers and teachers to increase their knowledge and professional skills. Even these libraries had also helped people seeking distant education to a greater extent, he said.

Principal of the Kamala Nehru College H.N. Deshpande presided over the inaugural session.

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