18 - Breaking through the walls: current developments in library service delivery: observations from a Sri Lankan perspective

Summary

Introduction

Libraries, which have been repositories of knowledge for hundreds of years, now need to make major changes in their operations and the means by which they make information and knowledge available. The world is moving rapidly towards the model of the digital library, which provides wide opportunities not only for efficient retrieval and access to knowledge, but also creates avenues for taking libraries far beyond the buildings and structures in which they are housed. Digitization makes it possible to read material that may physically be housed thousand of miles away.

The internet has added a new dimension to information technology and knowledge-sharing platforms, giving rise to rich concepts such as e-learning, knowledge management and archiving of indigenous culture and heritage. Digital libraries can help the move towards realizing the enormously powerful vision of ‘anytime’ access to the best and the latest of human thought and culture, overcoming all geographical barriers, so that potentially no classroom or individual needs to be isolated from knowledge resources.

Information provision is not the only important role for the library in the transmission of information through the value chain from author to end-user. The individual library also needs to consider tasks in relation to e-publishing and elearning as being as important as the more traditional role of information provision. The task of information provision remains central but should probably be organized in a new way, changing the role of the individual library.

Technological progress has changed how libraries do their work, not why. But the most profound technological development, the connection of computer to computer in an unbroken chain around the world, may alter the fundamental concept of the library in the 21st century. Librarians may discover that ‘Libraries without Walls’ are actually only libraries with new walls, technologically bounded, legally and administratively restricted.

With the advancement of ICT, most of the libraries in Sri Lanka, such as the National Archives and those of government organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), have focused their attention on digitization. Digitization provides a convenient mode of storage, quick retrieval of information and preservation.