L J HaravuTrustee, Kesavan Inst. Of Information and Knowledge

Management

What is the big picture of the society that we live in?

How does a library fit into the big picture? Where do you as students fit into the big

picture? How can you as students of benefit from

Libraries? What choices you have?

1. Age is not a bar for learning, 2. Quest for learning is an age old hunger

that human beings have had since thousands of years,

3. Without that hunger for learning, man would have remained in his primitive state, not much better than chimpanzees, and

4. If one can keep on learning then life becomes interesting and meaningful.

Our capacity to communicate with each other and access information, irrespective of where it is located has dramatically changed.

The Internet and resources/services available has made this possible.

We live in a global village where distance is measured not by miles but by the speed with which you can communicate with your peers and the access needed information.

Increased competition, Increased inter dependence Greater opportunities for collaboration and

knowledge sharing Globalization is synonymous with

networking

“In the 21st Century, an illiterate person is not one who cannot read or write, but one who will not learn, unlearn and relearn.” Alvin Toffler

Information and knowledge drives most of our activities

Countries have become knowledge economies

Countries and organizations to remain competitive must innovate, must create new knowledge through R & D.

To do this they must be alert to new developments and take advantage of these, encourage innovation.

To sustain and grow in a knowledge economy, individuals and organizations must also be engaged in lifelong learning. (growth economists: ‘a country’s capacity to take advantage of the Knowledge Economy depends on how quickly it can become a ‘learning economy’)

Learning requires the use of new technologies to access global information and knowledge

There is so much information and it is growing so fast that discovering useful knowledge and information is a challenge.

Formal education has become less about passing on information and more on teaching people how to learn.

Libraries have the potential to become key players in helping people, governments and organizations to become lifelong learners.

Where do libraries fit in the big picture? Libraries too have changed

◦ until the mid 1900’s, libraries were highly collection-oriented. Ownership of materials was the emphasis.

◦ By the 1960’s, library budgets fell. Emphasis shifted from ownership to access. Result was cooperation and inter-lending of materials between libraries. Public library system, academic library system

Newer forms of informational materials appeared in 1980s◦ Now libraries provide access to such materials

By 1990s, the variety and volume of informational materials grew to gigantic proportions.

The rate of growth of such materials became astronomical. New items of information keep on making their appearance.◦ (e.g., 100 million videos are added every day in

YouTube alone) We have an ocean of information that like the

universe seems to expand continuously. It has become necessary to distinguish between

information and knowledge. All information is not knowledge

It is not enough only to have access to the ocean of information, you also need people who will guide you to be selective.

Many librarians have specialized in this. From information managers they have become Knowledge facilitators.

Libraries have grown from: ◦ Building Collections Providing access to

information Facilitating access to knowledge.

You must be prepared to face the challenges of the global village.

Sooner or later, you should be prepared to compete, collaborate, leverage your skills, i.e., participate effectively in a networked knowledge economy.◦ To do this, you should resolve to be a lifelong

learner. All means for learning should be explored and used.

◦ The library can be an important partner in this.

Many students have a very inadequate understanding of the value of a library.

They think that it is a place where textbooks are stacked and all that the librarian does is to ask you not to make noise.

Students do not know that a lot of effort has gone into acquiring useful material. ◦ These are well organized. ◦ There is a catalogue (sometimes online) of the library

which you can search. ◦ The librarian is capable of advising you on how to search

for information within the library and also in online sources.

Don’t think of the library only as a storehouse of textbooks that you need to pass examinations.

Think of the library as a portal to learning. Don’t stop at just reading your textbooks.

◦ Ideas discussed by your teachers and in textbooks have been around for many years. Read the works of other author’s who have written about the same ideas.

◦ Don’t stop at reading course-related books. Look also at related areas and contemporary writings. This will expand your horizons.

Learning involves reading, thinking, discussion, questioning, application, analysis and synthesis.◦ Only when all of these are used that learning is

transformed into knowledge. ◦You will see the big picture context in which

your textbook concepts exist ◦This will expand your horizons and prepare you

for the challenges of the future. ◦ In all this libraries can be your partners.

Our educational objectives are very textbook/ examination oriented. Students do not explore things on their own.

If you make it a habit to read widely and discuss with other students and teachers, your ability to be critical and analytical improves. ◦ Here also the library can be an important partner

Such training will help you immensely when you move to graduate and postgraduate levels.

The difference between an average student and a bright student is simply that the latter does more than listening to lectures;

He or she takes pain to think about what he heard, he reads more about it, asks questions if necessary. This makes what he learned truly his knowledge.

The library can make a difference to all students. Please think about this?

Study conducted in 2005 in the US found that those students who regularly visited libraries ended up with higher scores. Such students also used electronic information.

Conclusion: The library is still relevant today in spite of wide availability of electronic/web sources.

Conclusion: The library complements web/electronic sources. These do not make the library redundant.

Wrong impression that the Internet and Google is the answer to all their education and passing exams.

When a teacher gives an assignment, students rush to the computer, type a few words into Google; come up with thousands of links.

Look at the first few links; cut a few lines and paste this into their assignment.

This is the best way to fool yourself and your teacher. You will be no better than a copying machine which

can never become learned in spite of copying hundreds of scholarly pages.

Everything is available on the Internet. This is one of the unfortunate misconceptions.

The fact is that the Internet contains many opinionated and unauthentic information.

Don’t sacrifice quality of information for convenience.

All kinds of people put information on the Internet. On the other hand a library’s collection will be carefully evaluated for its value as an authentic contribution to the subject.◦ Discuss what you find on the Internet with librarians and

teachers. They will be able to point out to useful sources.

As students you must actively make suggestions to the library to get newer materials and for the provision of access to information services.

You can make the library as useful as you want it to be. Demanding quality materials and services.

Ask the librarian to help you to help yourselves by teaching you how to get the best out of the library and electronic and web resources.

Don’t be a passive user of the library. Involve yourself in its development and growth.

You can choose to ignore the library and other sources of learning

OR You can think of these as opportunities for

acquiring not only knowledge for the limited purpose of passing your exams but also to become competent people who can hold their head high in a competitive world.

The CHOICE IS YOURS

The cream in a vessel of milk always rises to the top. Aim to be the cream by becoming an important element in your organization, government or country.

This can happen only grow in knowledge and in your capacity to keep on learning.