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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.
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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