Page 20 - DLIS101_LIBRARY_AND_INFORMATION_SOCIETY

Unit 2: Socio-Economic Development and Role of Libraries

2.3 Library in Recreation and Leisure Notes

Healthy use of leisure is a matter of great importance in community life so that the leisure time is
not devoted to negative and destructive activities. The library caters to the recreational needs of its
users by stocking books suited for this purpose. Novels and other forms of literature, works of art,
books of travel, biographies, popular magazines etc., are primarily books or recreation and they
should have a place in every library.
Besides the conventional role of the library in education research, culture, religion, spiritual pursuits
etc., role the library has to play in the modern technocratic society has been greatly extended to the
changes that are occurring in the different facets of human life, which may be briefly stated as
follows:
(1) Social stress: Population pressure, increasing urbanisation, emphasis on rural develop-
ment, mobility of population, group dynamics and pressures, etc.;
(2) Economic: Occupational patterns, income, prices, value, inflation, growth dynamics, eco-
nomic developments at macro and micro-levels, etc.;
(3) Political: Political structures and systems, activities of political parties, legislatures and
members in parliament as well as state assemblies, power structure etc.;
(4) Educational: Learning and teaching at all levels formal and non-formal, learning and teach-
ing materials, educational technology, etc.;
(5) Research and development: Scientific, technological, social sciences, leading to knowledge
creation, innovation, diffusion, dissemination, distribution and use, transfer of technol-
ogy, etc.;
(6) Industry and business: Production and distribution, technology acquisition, assessment
and application, marketing and sales etc.;
(7) Trade and commerce: Import and export, international trade and commerce, etc.;
(8) Government and administration: Planning, policy making, execution and management etc.;
(9) Cultural: Fine arts and music, show business and entertainment; cinema, broadcasting,
and so on.

2.4 Expanding Role of Library

All these factors mentioned above have radically changed the conventional functions of the library.
The new information demands of users have to be met by several activities based upon
documentation and information analysis, consolidation and repackaging, computer, based
information systems, etc. Interestingly alongside the Library, the new types of institutions like
documentation centres, information analysis centres, data banks, resources centres, multi-media
centres, etc. have sprung up in the last three decades. Many of these developments have also provided
new opportunities for commercialization of information products and services, thus paving the
way for an information industry which is presently flourishing steadily.

These rapidly changing rolles of the library have made Robert S. Taylor, an information
scientist, to remark that in a metaphorical sense, we are moving from a Ptolemaic world with
the library at the centre to a Copernican one with information at the centre and the library as
one of the its planets.

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