LIBRARY-CONNECT MALAYSIA
11 July 2012, Kuala Lumpur
Redefining the Roles of
Librarians
Nor Edzan Che Nasir
Library
University of Malaya, KL
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OUTLINE
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Lately
Librarians
Redefining roles
Why?
How?
New roles?
Conclusion
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LATELY
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8th AUNILO Meeting in Singapore - June
4th ICOL in Kota Bharu - June
Facebook – Sembang Pustakawan - July
Berita Harian – 9th July 2011 - July
– Questions the role of librarians
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LIBRARIANS
• Librarianship – involved with selecting,
acquiring, organising, disseminating and
provide access to information related to a
specific user need
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REDEFINING ROLES
• Redefining roles – literature available from
late1990s
• Leyden (1997) – “As a society, we are
building the electronic digital library of the
future. Librarians need to play a much
more prominent role now in the
development, because things are
happening quickly, and they will happen
without them”.
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WHY?
• ICT & Internet
– changed information landscape
– basis of information service provision today
– mode of delivery for e-learning
• Users
– have more information access options
– perceived libraries as something they use at
the end or in the middle of their information
search
– user centred
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– user-related activities
• Library
– primary focus of the library is now the users
NOT the collection
– portal to information highway – easy to
navigate information architecture =
homepages & federated searching
– change in scholarly communication – libraries
from ownership to anywhere, anytime access
to information
– consortia participation
– no longer primary information provider to a
community – search engines
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University’s direction and needs
Education system – teaching to learning
Change in mode of scholarly publishing
Others?
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HOW?
• E-resources and the new models of
education - greater need for reference and
instruction
• Students lack technical & research skills need expertise of librarian to apply search
techniques – need help to navigate layers
of the e-resources, evaluate & select
• Librarians – trained and skilled to deliver
services
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• Information commons – space for
interactive and intellectual work – one stop
shopping for library services to support
learning
• Shill and Tonner (2004) – “… an
integrated library facility designed to
provide research and study space, teach
students information skills, expose
students to recorded knowledge in both
print and electronic formats, and make
information experts readily accessible in
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one place”
NEW ROLES?
• Bennet (2003) – “… academic libraries should not be
seen as a traditional storage facility for books, or simply
as a technology centre, but instead the library should
focus on the process of learning that takes place within
its space, bringing resources, learners, and experts into
easy proximity to facilitate collaborative learning”.
• Freeman (2005) – “… libraries as learning laboratories
that accommodate learning in a variety of formats”.
• Require skills related to
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Teaching / Facilitating / Guiding
Problem solving
Communication
Language
Technical
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A timeline of information history ~
Michael K. Bergman
• ca 320 BC – bibliography
• ca 280 BC – Royal Library of
Alexandria - 0.5 to 1 million
scrolls
• ca 270 BC – classification
format = catalogue
• ca 800 – library catalogue
• 1595 – printed library
catalogue
• 1598 – public lending library
• 1789 – card catalogue
• 1876 – Dewey
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1876 – Dewey
1897 – LC
1904 – UDC
1969 – Internet
1990 – search engine
1991 – WWW
2001 - Wikipedia
we existed for a long time
have been through numerous
inventions, innovations, ideas
and others
• will continue existing but must
be willing to change
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CONCLUSION
• Role of libraries and librarians have
changed, is changing and will continue to
change.
• We have evolved through time and will
keep evolving.
• We have responded well to change.
• We should be able to respond to changes
brought about by developments in ICT
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• "But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that
Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to
the passing moment: "Stay, thou art so fair." And
our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for
the passing moment, if we rest on our
achievements, if we resist the pace of progress.
For time and the world do not stand still. Change
is the law of life. And those who look only to the
past or the present are certain to miss the future
~ John F. Kennedy, Assembly Hall, Paulskirche,
Frankfurt, 25 June 1963
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http://www.educationfutures.com/2012/03/26/the-future-of-academiclibraries-an-interview-with-steven-j-bell/
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REFERENCES
Bennet, S. (2003). Libraries Designed for Learning. . Washington D.C.:
Council on Library & Information Resources. Available at:
http://clir.org/pubs/reports/pub122/pub122web.pdf
Freeman, G.T. (2005). The library as a place: changes in learning
patterns, colections, technology, and use. IN: The Library as Place:
rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space. Ed. G.T. Freeman. Washington
D.C.: Council on Library & Information Resources. Available at:
http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub129/freeman.html
Francis-Swanson, S. (2010). Information for a new age: redefining the
roles of libraries and librarians. The Voice, 17 April 2010. Available at:
http://www.thevoiceslu.com/features/2010/april/17_04_10/Information_
for_a_new_age.htm
Leyden, P. (1997). The long boom. Simmons Review, 79(2): 15-17.
Rodrigues, H.F. (1998). User Satisfaction in the Internet. Available at:
http://web.simmons.edu/~chen/nit/NIT'98/98-241-Rodriguez.html
Shill, H.B. and Tonner, S. (2004). Does the building still matter: usage
patterns in new, expanded,
and renovated
libraries. College &
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Research Libraries, 65(2): 123-149.
Thank You
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