Changing Role of Library Professionals In Current Ict Environment

Libraries and librarians have always played key role in education and always surrounding our society. In the traditional environment, librarian known as a person locating in library building and his job is only to provide books that available in the particular library, but in the modern environment this picture is rapidly changed due to the current ICT environment and now library professionals play many roles to satisfy their users need time to time. Digital environment change the way to store the information, its retrieval and its use because in the age of information and communication technology everything is available on internet and users can access their required information on their desktop without having a visit to the library. So traditional libraries moved towards digital libraries and physical resources moved towards electronic resources. According to the changing environment, librarians should also change their role and they have to be ready for playing various other roles to fulfill the needs of users and provide them better service in present digital environment.

ICT stands for "Information and Communication Technologies." ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is similar to Information Technology (IT), but focuses primarily on communication technologies. This includes the Internet, wireless networks, cell phones, and other communication mediums. In the past few decades, information and communication technologies have provided society with a vast array of new communication capabilities. For example, people can communicate in real-timewith others in different countries using technologies such as instant messaging, voice over IP (VoIP), and video-conferencing. Social networking websites like Facebook allow users from all over the world to remain in contact and communicate on a regular basis. Modern information and communication technologies have created a "global village," in which people can communicate with others across the world as if they were living next door. For this reason, ICT is often studied in the context of how modern communication technologies affect society.

There are continuously changes in the nature of libraries. The growth of library is to show in four steps. Traditional library ↓ Electronic library ↓ Digital library ↓ Virtual library

limited users can use it. Librarians disseminate only the information which is available in library but couldn’t satisfy the all demands of users.

With the advent of computers, the concept of electronic library was come. Electronic library is a library where all or a big part of its everyday operations is carried out with the use of computer and the manual work of librarian is very much decreased. Such operation usually acquisition, cataloguing, circulation and collection management etc. it is a way of management of all documents and operations of library.

The concept of digital library is come when e-resources came in light and to see the diver’s demand of the users. Digital library is a library where all information is available in electronic form and user can retrieved that information from anywhere in the world only with the internet connection. The material that include in digital library is computer access and electronic images collection, electronic journals, e-books and other multimedia products.

Virtual library is defined a complex of computer systems, software and networks containing and managing digitized information of different format and capabilities. Virtual libraries are provides the electronic information, but it contains only metadata that provides links to reach the relevant information. It provides the users an integrated way to access and search their required information.

The knowledge and experience of library professionals can be helpful in directing users to get an easy and fast access to relevant information on digital library network. Following are some roles that played by library professionals:

Now a day all information is available in digital format and libraries are surrounding by information communication technologies. Cybrarian is a person that deals with these digitized contents, proper management of these contents and disseminates it to the right users. Because vast information is available on internet and all users are not able to reach their required information, in that particular situation

For the creation of knowledge center in an organization librarian comes in highlight as a knowledge manager and effectively participate in knowledge creation. Librarians to become Knowledge Managers or Professionals should possess variety of talents and perform the work with high level of skill and expertise. They should be able to ex-tract, filter, and disseminate vital external knowledge.

Digital librarian is a bridge between the digital resources and the users. A digital librarian, a type of specialist information professional who manages and organizes the digital library, combines the functionality for information, elicitation, planning, data mining, knowledge mining, digital reference services, electronic information services, representation of information, extraction, and distribution of information, co-ordination, searching notably CD-ROMs, online, Internet-based WWW, multimedia access and retrieval.

Navigator is a job, in which librarians have instructed their users that how to search a particular search system or taught them about a structure of a particular database. Because there is no doubt the vast amount of information is available on internet and that information is upload on internet in different ways, so users can ask many questions to get it. In this case navigator cum librarian plays a lead role to clarifying and interpreting their particular internet feature and helps them to access such information.

To provide reference service librarian refers the users to the particular or specific source of information. Recent time’s users get their required information from digital library with the internet connectivity, so librarian provides their reference service on web with many ways. Internet provides many facilities to interact with other peoples i.e. e-mail, social networking. Users can ask their queries to send the e-mail and when librarian is online he will be answers the same. Other service is ask-a-librarian in which librarian fix a timing to interact their users and solve their information related problems.

A librarian who would “work closely with a Web steering committee…supervise a full-time Web programmer…coordinate digitization projects…set standards for the creation of content and metadata and represent the library to other groups” (quote from

website-specific tasks including design, updates, archiving, and information architecture; multimedia design for non web publications such as annual reports, event announcements, and marketing materials; systems-focused duties including server configuration and management.

Librarian’s job is not only to collect and disseminate the information, but their real job to analysis the available information, whether it can be right for their users or not. They will be analyzing, comparing, and evaluating information sources, preparing information products and delivering those products to the required user in the desired time and format, and maintaining these products to ensure the currency and authenticity of the information.

The appearance of the electronic journals in the internet created a new kind of cooperation between libraries. It is called library consortium. Libraries consortium consists a special type of collaboration between libraries that directly involve not only libraries but also publishers. So librarian cum network manager expands the library resources through consortium and disseminates more and more information to the right users of the information.

Superhighway is two way wired and wireless capabilities of telephone and networked computers with a cable capacity to transmit hundreds of programs. In recent ICT environment librarians work as a guardian of this information superhighway and transfer the information to their right users.

Library and information professionals have always been tried to provide accessibility to information to those who need it. The activities realizing this goal have evolved and transformed over the years. Information activities have been guided by the developments in the field of storages, presentation and archiving of knowledge, collection development and organization of knowledge, information explosion and computers in information retrieval. Librarian and information professional involved in information gathering, storage, retrieval and dissemination on one hand and on the other hand the computer specialists who supports the library and information professionals in this endeavor.  Technological facilities and resources like: online catalogue, websites etc.  Skills for manpower training  Library professional has capacity to be an information management strategist.  Posses excellent communication skills, constantly update personal knowledge base by keeping in touch with the latest development  Create awareness among the users, make them accept the changes.  They need to have technical knowledge about library software’s, digital library, operating system, internet, and bibliographic database management system.  Be adoptive and flexible  Knowledge of user interaction with knowledge resources.

The new ICT environment has brought a tremendous change in the way information is stored and accessed. This has brought about a change in the concept of librarian, their collection and services. Many new terms viz. Digital Librarian, Libraries without walls, virtual libraries, are emerging to describe the libraries of digital age. To extend the use of internet and information resources on web, library professionals play above role very well. The new paradigm places an additional responsibility on library professionals. They face many challenges in the current ICT environment. But they show their ability and expertness to perform different job at different levels. Many e-journals, e-books, multimedia products, databases subject portals and other electronic information are available on web.

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