WHERE ARE WE GOING

FROM HERE

Role of libraries in the Era of Digital

Information

By
Prof. N.R. Satyanarayana
I see God in Libraries

- Dr. S.R. Ranganathan

I have always imagined that
Paradise will be a kind of Library

-Borges
Where Were We
 Early Libraries
(Stone carvings, Clay tablets, Parchment,
bark etc.)
Libraries Before Paper (Palm leaves,
Papyrus, etc.)
Libraries After Invention of Paper
(Incunabula)
Impact of Gutenberg (1450)
(Production of documents became easy)
 Libraries in the Middle Ages

Monastic Limited Access

Royal Collections Scholars were librarians
Chained Libraries They were the moving catalogue
 Libraries and Industrial
Revolution
Increase in Literacy (Classification and
Cataloguing as
Retrieval tools)
Demands for Books

Libraries for the benefits

of citizens
 Libraries after Industrial
Revolution
Grammar Schools
Subscription Libraries
Government Support to Public Libraries (PLATS)
Philanthropic support for Libraries
Mobile Libraries
(Camel Library, Kenya)
(Element Library Thailand)
(Boat Library, A.P.
Libraries on Wheel
Libraries with 20th Century
Different categories of Libraries (Academic,
Public, Research, Special Libraries,
Libraries for special groups)
Creation of Documentation and Information
Centers.
Library Networks
Concept of Resource Sharing and
Consortia
 We are Here Now
Digital libraries
On-line access to remote data-bases (LAN,
WAN, MAN)
Social Networks
Virtual library services
Blogs, Wikis, Web Services
Cloud computing (Mobile computing, Gesture
base computing)
Virtual Data Analysis
Where Are We Heading?
We are Heading for Information
Revolution
What is Information Revolution?

For somemthing to be a revolution, It

needs to affect all aspects of peoples
lives all over the world and It is not
just a phrase

Gertude Himmelfard
 The Digital Revolution
The library of 1993 is profoundly different
from the library of 2017
Users are different
Users expectations are different
Collections are different
Modes of research are different
Scholarly communication is different
 Revolutionary Changes
Personal computing revolution
Electronic revolution
Network revolution
Cellular revolution
MTV/Video Games revolution
Authorship revolution
ATM revolution
Information as a commodity
 Library Revolution

New Majority Student Revolution

Digital Reservation Revolution

User Expectation Revolution

Mutability Revolution
 Open Revolution
Open Research
Open Reference
Open Aggregation
Open Storage
Open Course
Open Content
Open Source
Open Standards
Contd..
Open Archives
Open Text
Open linking
Open design
Open access
 Mega Trends
Mass and custom digitization
E-publishing and born digiital materials
Network support of teaching, learning and
research
New models of scholarship systems
Data as a reusable resource
New forms of discovery
Digital preservation
Reduction of digital divide
 Changing Library Roles
Libraries as Consumers
Libraries as intermediaries
Libraries as publishers
Libraries as educators
Libraries as R & D organization
Libraries as entrepreneurs
Libraries as policy advoates
 Our Users
Get their information and content online
Get their content and information free.
Manage large amount of content themselves.
Create, aggregate & customize content
themselves.
Act as distributors and marketers.
Are always connected.
Want to find it fast.
Are always on
 User Driven Culture
24/7/365
Mobility & Convergence
Amazoogle Effect: Recommender
Systems
Social Software (Blogs, Tagging etc.)
Customization & Contextualization
New Tools
 Mobility

Any time, anywhere, on any flat form, via

multiple conduits
 Convergence
[It describes a process rather than an endpoint.
It represents a tectonic shift that has altered the
relationship between technologies, industries,
markets, genres and audiences. Convergence
culture calls for a re-negotiations of the
expectations of media content procedures and
advertisers of media producers and audiences].
The iPhone offers user interface, ease of use,
pulling together of voice, data, Web.
 The Google Effect
For many users Google:

Is the first and the last resort of research

Available at the point of need

Comprehensive
 Amazoogle Effect

Google is not it!

There is always new comers THINK

Social Networks
 Web 2.0
My Space:

My Space is a social networking service

with a strong music emphasis.

Facebook:

Facebook is an online social networking

service.
Cont
Twitter:
Twitter is an online social networking and
micro blogging service that enables users
to send and read tweets, which are text
messages. Users access Twitter through
the website interface, SMS, or mobile
device apps.
Blogs:
Blogs are regularly updated websites or web
pages, typically run by one individual or
small group of individuals. A Blog is written
in an informal or conversational style.
The posts in blog are displayed in reverse
chronological order, so that most recent
post appears first.
Wikipedia:
Wiki is everything.

Other open-content wiki projects are:

Wiki quotes.
Wikiversity free learning tolls
Wiktionary dictionary and thesaurus
Wikisource the free documentation library
Cont..
Wikimedia coordination of all wikimedia
commonly shared media repository

Wiki species: Directory of species.

Wikinews: Free content news

Information Ecosystem
The information ecosystem is ferociously
Darwinian place that produces endless
mutations and quickly weed out those no
longer able to adapt and compete. The
real challenge is not the technology, but
rather imaging and creating digitally
mediated environments of the kind of lives
we will want to lead and the sort of
communities we will want to have
 Information Explosion
It is estimated that 40 exabytes (4x1019) of
unique new info. will be generated
worldwide this year.
1 Exabyte=1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes-1006 or 1018

This is More Than the Previous 5,000

Years!
The amount of new technical information is
doubling every 2 years
2X
 Our Reality
We no longer have monopoly over the
provision of trustworthy, authoritative
knowledge;
Development is happening outside the
academy and libraries;
Libraries are in a transition period, many
are dealing with it incrementally and along;
Our organizations are caught between
traditional and iconic values of libraries
and the pace of development.
 Technology is Impacting
Libraries:
Through e-science & new questions and paths
of inquiries;
Through e-scholarship & new methods of
conducting research;
Data-science/mining.
Cyber infrastructure;
New shape of scientific articles;
New sophisticated tools for cooperation;
Transformation of teaching & learning.
 How should we deal with
these changes?
Libraries need a shift from:
Emphasizing the value of collection and
expertise;
Supporting information description and access
to taking responsibility for greater information;
Serving as a support agency to serving as a
collaborator;
A facility-based enterprise to a campus-wide
enterprise.
 What we need is:
New Agenda
New Infrastructure
Technological expertise
Bold leadership
Library education
Greater collaboration
Work with scientists and engineers
Digital environment more pervasive.
 What does this imply?
New models of knowledge organization
New collaboration across academic
boundaries
New international cooperation for data
preservation and access
New research methods and strategies
New curriculum for library education.
 How do we deal with?
Libraries must adopt a cyber infrastructure
model with deep functional collaborations
Shared collections: discarding duplicates
Shared staff: working toward the collective
goal
IT infrastructure shared across several
institutions
Cont
University presses form coalition on single
software platform
Digital object is the official scholarly and
representation: no warehouse, no press,
no out of print and no inventory
Digital library activities and projects must
widely federate
Scholarly environment must emerge from
digital libraries.
Cont.
Centers for instruction and collaborative
research in sync with the shared mission
Centers that explore the changes that are
effecting them and what they are becoming: a
collective autopoiesis (maintaining itself).
Create an audit authority to assure perpetual
persistence and access to the myriad data and
information layers (articles, research statistics,
course information, archival drafts and
prepublications)
 Necessity of Cyber-
infrastructure
The library must have cyber-infrastructure
characteristics:
Wide interest of community and collaboration
Multidisciplinary high level of shared expertise
Tremendous amount of data
Integral research and its strategies involved with
data analysis, visualization, mining and semantic
search
 New Roles of Librarians:
Cultural role
Reaching role
Providing access to information
Space provision
Act as information advocates
Advising role
Information organization and retrieval
Knowledge and digital management
Information mining
The 21st Century Librarian will..
Stay in advance of need
Believe in themselves and what they can offer
Not take their existence for granted
Develop themselves
Learn from each other
Seize the opportunities
Lift up their heads
Get out more and engage
Be confident and claim the future
What do we need to work on
to remain relevant?
Build digital library and archive digital content as
a matter of course
Enhance the users experience
Offer researcher publishing facilities,
repositories for their work and self sufficiency
Support the needs of big science (Massive data,
unstructured data, extraction visualization and
simulation)
Establish library 2.0
Information technology is a
catalyst of change
Librarians should understand that what
they do is create space, cognitive space in
the environment. It can look like a public
library, a website or whatever. Librarians
need to make sure that they provide a rich
space where human beings can gather,
interact and become more than
themselves. If librarians can do that and
do it well, they will be a part of the future.
 Develop the Library
Workforce
Recruitment strategies
Role of professional education
Employment strategies
Development strategies
Retention strategies
Leadership development
 In short We Need to Do
Evolve and engage users through user
generated content
Trend spot ideas and innovations from industries
(and countries) and apply them to your own;
Watch out for counter-trends and their
opportunities and challenges;
Not to confuse short lived fads with trends; and
Keep it simple
We need to remain of value to:
Be open, nimble, participative, responsive
and user centric;
Learn to learn & adapt to change;
Cooperate and share ideas, experiences,
and innovations;
Disaggregate library systems and bring
them together; and
Dare to change the old and obsolete
practices.
 The Future Library
The primary definition of the LIBRARY will
change, but it will remain the intellectual
hub of its community.

The next generation will define the

LIBRARY as content and service available
on the Internet or its incarnation.
 ENVOI
When we commit to a vision to do
something that has never been done
before, there is no way to get there.

We simply have to build the bridge as we

walk on.

Robert Quinn
 Anonymous

If we do as we have always done we will

always be there where we always been
 SO

INNOVATE INNOVATE INNOVATE