Ms. Bharti
Research Scholar,
Dept. of Library and Information Science, University of Delhi, Delhi
E-mail: bhartilis123@gmail.com
Abstract
This paper mainly focuses on the concept of librarian who is working in digital library.
The various characteristics, need and role of a digital librarian have also been discussed.
The digital information systems have changed the way the librarian acquires, processes, stores and delivers information to users.
Keywords : Librarian, Librarianship, Digital librarian, Digital information professional,
Digital information system
1 Introduction
Today mostly information is increasingly being produced in digital formats. Almost everyone involved in the knowledge production process, and give the preference of electronic form. These actors could be creators of knowledge, the publishers of knowledge and the people that are finally responsible for permanently storing the resulting knowledge. It is very attractive to the author, publisher, vendor and libraries for this simple reason that give the revolutionized the way of knowledge which is produced and disseminated to end user, usually in a fast, timely and efficient way. Nowadays, role of a librarian have completely changed in digital environment.
2 Five Rules of Librarianship
Librarians have been adapting to the digital environment to make meaning of
Ranganathan’s five rules of librarianship. These five rules are as relevant today which he wrote them many years ago. These are
Books are for use
Every reader has his/her book
Every book of its reader
Save the time of the reader
Library is a growing organism
Noruzi (2004) revised these laws in the context of what they would mean for information provision in today’s digital environment (Kanyengo 2006).
Web resources are for use
Every user his/her web resource
Every web resource its user
Save the time of the user
Web resource is a growing organism
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3 Changing Role of Librarians
In an era of digital information, electronic technology, www’s growing popularity and the tremendous growth of CD-ROM products, digital libraries offer a huge range of multimedia information, everything from movies, speeches, images and photos to sounds, text and beyond. The amounts of online, CD-ROMs and other digital sources of information are exploding and infrastructure for accessing material improves almost daily
(Sreenivasulu 2000: 18)
In this situation librarian, became a predominantly online worker, supporting the citizen/worker by selling services. Finding relevant information faster than the competitors, faster than a non-information-worker can find it, and surviving on the basis of superior knowledge of the networks and digital information resources available through them. In an age of great change in information formats, delivery models and technologies, and important new role emerge for the librarian. So, presently a librarian is called as a digital librarian, digital information professional, cybrarian and information broker etc.
4 Digital Librarian Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (Librarian 2005)
4.1 Knowledge
The incumbent must have proficient knowledge in the following areas:
1.
Library policies, procedures, methods, ethics and professional standards
2.
Library programming standards
3.
Research and information gathering systems and methods
4.
A variety of information database systems
5.
Conducting internet searches
6.
Organization and structure of the library
7.
Other information and library resources
8.
Computerized information database systems
9.
Library systems for cataloguing, acquisitions and searching, online bibliographic utilities
10.
Capabilities and information resources of the internet and other electronic databases
4.2 Skills
1.
Ability to manage a library and its collection
2.
Team building skills
3.
Research skills
4.
Organizational skills
5.
Analytical and problem solving skills
6.
Decision making skills
7.
Effective verbal, presentation and listening communication skills
8.
Effective written communication skills
9.
Computer skills including the ability to operate computerized library, spreadsheet, word-processing, spreadsheets, email, database and graphics and website development programs at a highly proficient level
10.
Computer skills including the ability to operate email and conduct internet research
11.
Stress management skills
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12.
Time management skills
4.3 Personal Attributes
The incumbent must maintain strict confidentiality in performing the duties of the librarian. The incumbent must also demonstrate the following personal attributes:
1.
Be honest and trustworthy
2.
Be respectful
3.
Possess cultural awareness and sensitivity
4.
Be flexible
5.
Demonstrate sound work ethics
5 Digital Librarian Roles
A digital librarian, a type of specialist information professional who manage and organizes the digital library and manage the digital information resources, 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 (Sreenivasulu 2000: 12-
13). The ultimate goal of a DL is to facilitate electronic publishing. Sreenivasulu (2000) reported the results of research work on the role of a digital librarian on digital information systems in India. He concluded that librarians and information managers had active roles in organizing and developing DLs and believed also that they managed digital information systems very well. He added that the multimedia nature of DLs requires librarians with the ability of combining the services of both traditional and digital libraries (Faranak 2011).
The digital librarian plays a typical and dynamic role to easily accessing of compute which held digital information including abstracts, indexes, full-text databases, sound and video recording in the digital formats. For provide the right information at the right time to a right user, it is important task of a librarian. In this present time, for research, education and training, learning and developmental work are requirement of DL, which give a distinctive role of a librarian in DL.
6 Need for a Digital Librarian in the Management of DIS
Librarians and information professionals are trained to be experts in information searching, selecting, acquiring, organizing, preserving, repackaging, disseminating and serving. But this emerging global digital libraries or world-wide digital information centers generate the need for creating a new job-title “digital librarian” to manage their digital knowledge resources. These digital libraries are emerging as knowledge warehouse. And digital librarians are required to:
1.
Supervise the digital libraries
2.
Organize digital knowledge and information
3.
Disseminate the digital information
4.
Provide digital reference service to users
5.
Provide knowledge mining form the emerging knowledge warehouses
6.
Handle the tasks of massive digitization
7.
Handle the digital storage process and digital preservation
8.
Provide to universally access and retrieval of digital knowledge
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9.
Catalogue and classify digital resources
7 Role of a Digital Librarian in the Management of DIS
The role of a digital librarian in the management of digital information refers to the overall competencies (knowledge, know-how, skills and attitudes) necessary to create, store, analyze, organize, retrieve and disseminate digital information (text, images, sounds) in the libraries or any type of information center. For describe the role of digital librarian, the following concepts are important:
7.1 Defender of Information Superhighway (ISH)
The information superhighway is a vision or a metaphor. It envisions a fusion of the twoway wired and wireless capabilities of telephones and networked computers with a cable
TV’s capacity to transmit hundreds of programs. Services would be delivered by telecommunications networks, cable TV networks, and the internet and mobile communications. Infrastructure that provides band width-on-demand and information-ondemand services are called information superhighway. There will be two types of information services such pubic (free) services and commercial services. The use of existing telephone, fax and analogue TV broadcast services will be supported in the initial information superhighway. In addition, new services such as videophone multimedia electronic messaging, digital TV/HD TV broadcast and movie and vide-ondemand service, will be provided.
7.2 Defender of the Global Digital Library/ the Universal Digital Library
The digital library is really a transitory phase towards the universal digital library, a vast distributed information and active repository accessible from anywhere with increasing improved indexing, extraction and summarization techniques. It will be a library without walls or national boundaries.
7.3 Digital Librarian Acts as Symbolic Human-Machine Guru
The digital librarian acts as an intermediary in the task of massive digitization of information, its storage, dissemination, managing the archive, and making available digitized networked information to the end users. Digital librarians and computers depend on each other for processing and dissemination of digital information and both are interrelated.
7.4 Navigation, Browsing and Filtering
The navigation of the future would tend to integrate with the human-assisted information retrieval from the networked universe and would support rapid information navigation and precision retrieval. The digital librarian is an expert in navigation, browsing and filtering, digital reference services and electronic information services from the digital information sources
7.5 Multimedia Search and Indexing
A multimedia digital library requires not just standard indexing and retrieval, but also sub-document indexing and summarization techniques
7.6 Knowledge and Data Mining
The digital librarian will require a limited knowledge of data mining and discovery of knowledge from digital libraries to extract unmet information needs of users. For this purpose, unsupervised learning techniques such as clustering and composite term discovery techniques etc, are useful.
7.7 Search and Retrieval Co-ordination
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It requires comprehensive knowledge of the retrieval engines and indexing structure so that the digital librarian can achieve the goal of creating information queries with respect to the search system
7.8 Digital Librarian’s Interface Functions and Roles in the Management of DIS
A fundamental role of a DL in digital libraries is to act as an intermediary who brings together users and information. Digital library access tools are the right set of tools used in novel ways to tackle a plethora of challenges and opportunities for information access technology and faster access.
8 Conclusion
Digital librarian plays a very vital role to manage and organize the digital library and mange the digital information resources. In the age of digital information, librarians and information professionals should be trained to be experts to information searching, selecting, acquiring, organizing, preserving, repackaging, disseminating and serving and a librarian should be theoretical and practical experiences in designing and implementing information system and become proficient and competent in several fields such as be able to guide and educate users, project management, metadata etc.
9 Bibliography
1.
Kanyengo, Christine W. 2006 “Managing digital information resources in
Africa: preserving the integrity of scholarship.”
Presented at T he Bridging the
North-South Divide in Scholarly Communication on Africa. Threats and
Opportunities in the Digital era. Leiden, The Netherlands . (6– 8 September), pp
1-20
2.
Sreenivasulu, V. 2000
“The role of a digital librarian in the management of digital information systems (DIS)
”
The Electronic Library 18(1):18
3.
Librarian 2005
“Job satisfaction”
http://www.maca.gov.nt.ca/school/tools/
JDdocs/Librarian%20JD.pdf (accessed on 3 July 2013)
4.
Sreenivasulu, Opcit, pp 12-13
5.
Faranak Mohsenzadeh, Alireza Isfandyari-Moghaddam 2011 “Perceptions of library staff regarding challenges of developing digital libraries: The case of an Iranian university”
Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems
45(3): 346-355
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