Libraries in the Knowledge Society P R Goswami Director,NASSDOC ICSSR,New Delhi

Religion and knowledge Libraries owe their origin perhaps to Gutenberg who invented printing Gutenberg’s Bible aimed to duplicate the hands of a scribe. Prior to the publication of print version of the Bible, writing or knowledge was largely confined to the monasteries. It was deemed as an act of meditation,a gesture of prayer in visual form.

Evolution of Libraries Historically libraries are known as repositories of knowledge. They are a form of social capital. Libraries are also considered as merit goods in the society Invention of printing played a dominant role in the creation of knowledge repositories like libraries

Theology vs Science The print revolution ended the monopoly of church in knowledge creation. The spirit of Renaissance was to learn and justify actions on the basis of knowledge. The publication of the book by Copernicus marked the emancipation of natural science from theology

Information Society to Knowledge Society Knowledge is information combined with experience, context, interpretation and reflection. Knowledge is created my individual mind drawing on individual experience. Advances in ICT provides us greater opportunity to develop and disseminate information and knowledge

Libraries and Knowledge creation Libraries promote reading which results in scholarly communication, knowledge creation and enlightenment. Libraries provide an economically efficient method of organising information and knowledge that are relevant to our needs. Academic libraries keep journal issues. They serve the purpose of an archive or a historical record of knowledge

Role of Librarians How do the librarians participate in the scholarly communication that take place between a reader and the library? Whether knowledge management practices are followed in our libraries. Is there a library where experiences of long serving librarians are documented for future use?

Librarians and their Research Too much emphasis on survey based research They are generally one time snapshot research and they do not add to the knowledge that the librarians need to have. Bibliometrics have found some ground but Bibliographical Research has been grossly neglected.

Knowledge and the National Development The National Knowledge Commission(NKC) was set up by the Govt of India in 2005 to guide and advise for the proper utilisation of the vast knowledge base of the country. The NKC also decided to examine the present state of library sector in the country. A Working Group on Libraries was set up for the purpose. The Group made ten major recommendations. As a follow up, a high level committee i e National Mission on Libraries has been set up by the Govt in May 2012

The Future Modern day libraries are more concerned with their digital collections Librarians are trying to redefine their discipline in order to describe, house and access all manners of computer stored information. In future libraries will be judged by their overall relevancy to the people they serve. Librarians need to develop domain knowledge to understand their clients