Page 70 - DLIS006_INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES

Unit 4: Information Services and Products

3. ……………………….. includes the ideas, theories, hypothesis about the relationship which Notes
exists among the variables in the area of the problem.
4. An …………………………… is any combination of information technology and people‘s
activities using that technology to support operations, management, and decision-making.

4.2 Importance and Need of Information

Information is an important resource. The progress of modem society depends a great deal upon
the provision of right kind of information in the right form at the appropriate time. The planners,
decision makers, policy makers at national or regional or local level need information to be
able to plan properly. A specialist or researcher might need information to keep himself
up-to-date and well informed in his field of specialization. All this highlights the value of
information.
Dissemination of information is an essential aspect of information service and the efficient
information service is one of the key indicators of judging successful functioning of the libraries.
In special libraries/information centres/documentation centres, the greatest emphasis is laid
on this service. It is also in this area of librarianship that special libraries are ahead of other
libraries. No good library can afford to ignore the provision of effective information services in
their library system.

Many modern libraries particularly special libraries in the area of Science and technology have
reo-oriented their services and are now providing:

Personalised Information Services: Specialised Services which are provided on case by
case basis, wherein service provider needs to be academically sound and efficient, so that
he/she can address to the query, cull out data from various sources, prepare the information
for handing over to the user in the form user needs.

Value-Added Services: These services are also specialized services being provided by
special libraries to the users.
Keeping above in view, the need of information service has become all the more important and
occupies a more prestigious place as the information scientists now prepare information from
raw data (rather than handing over the data) which is what is required now by the users.

4.3 Information Service versus Reference Service

Reference service is one of the most important and sought after services of any library/
information centre. The reference queries differ from library to library. The reference queries
may be of intensive kind as the users could be looking for specialized services/information
which includes professors, researchers, planners, managers, policy makers and the senior level
personnel or it could be simple information enquiring about availability of a document. Reference
service could be of a fact-finding nature or a long-range research type. Whatever may be the
type of query, it requires consultation of different categories of reference/information sources.
Hence, the main aim of this unit is to familiarize the students with different types of reference
sources and the information content of these sources.
The purpose of reference work is to allow information to flow efficiently from information
sources to information seekers. The underlying rationale for reference service has been based
on four aspects, such as:
To develop the role of the library as an educational institution
To assist academic community

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