The development of information technology in the past few decades has changed the way people interact with information and created a very different information environment for libraries and librarians. While academic libraries continue to support research and learning, it’s critical to examine the changing information needs to define roles of academic libraries in such information era.
Academic libraries should help students to reach their full potential. Students may need assistance with their research, prepare for job market, or simply complete a course assignment. In addition to offer information resources, more importantly, librarians should provide instruction sessions to improve students’ information literacy. For example, students today are very familiar with information technology. They may use Internet and web tools, such as Google on daily basis and believe “I can find what I need”. However, that is not always the case. Librarians could teach students how to conduct search more efficiently and how to retrieve and evaluate information resources, including scholarly information and Internet resources. Librarians should also help students to better utilize technology to empower them to increase work performance and competencies.
Libraries are sometimes overlooked by faculty members because they see little value in library services. Academic libraries need to prove its value by facilitating faculty’s teaching and research needs. Librarians should collaborate with faculty members to understand expected learning outcomes for students and develop collections and other resources, instruction sessions for individual courses or course assignments. Libraries also need to support faculty’s research needs by providing resources and help them with their promotion process. Librarians can assist them with scholarly publication process, increase visibility of their scholarly output, provide citation statistics and monitor trends in subject fields.
Academic libraries today also serve as an active participant in collecting, preserving and disseminating scholarly, historically and culturally records of the parent institution. Digital repositories increase the visibility of the institution, facilitate scholarly communication and also provide valuable information for the local community.
Neil Gaiman, the famous science fiction writer once said “Google can bring you 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one”. The true value of libraries and librarians lies in the ability to bridge the gap between people and information. Information technology hasn’t really changed the role of academic libraries, but offers new tools and approaches to facilitate patrons’ changing information needs in a very different information environment. Academic libraries should understand both opportunities and challenges to better serve the community and facilitate knowledge creation.
Academic libraries should help students to reach their full potential. Students may need assistance with their research, prepare for job market, or simply complete a course assignment. In addition to offer information resources, more importantly, librarians should provide instruction sessions to improve students’ information literacy. For example, students today are very familiar with information technology. They may use Internet and web tools, such as Google on daily basis and believe “I can find what I need”. However, that is not always the case. Librarians could teach students how to conduct search more efficiently and how to retrieve and evaluate information resources, including scholarly information and Internet resources. Librarians should also help students to better utilize technology to empower them to increase work performance and competencies.
Libraries are sometimes overlooked by faculty members because they see little value in library services. Academic libraries need to prove its value by facilitating faculty’s teaching and research needs. Librarians should collaborate with faculty members to understand expected learning outcomes for students and develop collections and other resources, instruction sessions for individual courses or course assignments. Libraries also need to support faculty’s research needs by providing resources and help them with their promotion process. Librarians can assist them with scholarly publication process, increase visibility of their scholarly output, provide citation statistics and monitor trends in subject fields.
Academic libraries today also serve as an active participant in collecting, preserving and disseminating scholarly, historically and culturally records of the parent institution. Digital repositories increase the visibility of the institution, facilitate scholarly communication and also provide valuable information for the local community.
Neil Gaiman, the famous science fiction writer once said “Google can bring you 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one”. The true value of libraries and librarians lies in the ability to bridge the gap between people and information. Information technology hasn’t really changed the role of academic libraries, but offers new tools and approaches to facilitate patrons’ changing information needs in a very different information environment. Academic libraries should understand both opportunities and challenges to better serve the community and facilitate knowledge creation.
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