Page 47 - DLIS001_FOUNDATION_OF_LIBRARY_AND_INFORMATION_SCIENCE

Foundation of Library and Information Science

Notes The information and knowledge aspects that permeate the entire fabric of contemporary life can
be broadly grouped under three categories as given below:

Inputs to everyone of the activities, programmes, projects, etc., have to be made from all the
above three broad categories, and have to be properly blended, amalgamated and integrated to
meet specific requirements of use. Information technology indeed is applied to all processes,
individually and collectively, to the three groups, to create a specific information database for
storage and retrieval.
It is in this perspective that the entire field of information has to be viewed and understood. In
each of the above categories of information, we are able to discern an information flow pattern,
commencing from generation of information to processing, dissemination, storage, retrieval
and utility of information. New institutional mechanisms are being set up with the introduction
of structural innovation, application of information technologies, development of new
methodologies and techniques for creating model innovative systems and services. All these
aspects of the design and development of information systems and programmes are based on
demand, need, use and utility.

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Caution Users demand for information forms the fulcrum of the present day information
system.
3.1.2 Expanding Role of the Library

All these factors have radically changed the conventional functions of the library. The new
demands of users have to be met by several activities based upon documentation, information
analysis, consolidation and repackaging, computer based information systems, etc. that have
sprung up in the last 30 years. Many of these developments have also provided new opportunities
for commercialisation of information products and services, thus paving the way for an
information industry which is growing and flourishing steadily. These rapidly changing roles
of the library have made an eminent 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 its planets” (Robert S. Taylor).

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