Security Challenges in University Libraries of India

Modern Library Services

Library is a service organisation and the main emphasis is to meet the specific information requirements of the users. To meet this information need the librarian procured and processed different kinds of documents. Now-a-days libraries are now considered as information centre where varieties of services are provided to satisfy the users. Following are the traditional services provided in most of the university libraries in India:

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  Issue-return of books.

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  Reading room services.

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  Reference and information services.

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  Access to current issues and back volumes of journals.

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  Access to rare books.

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  Inter-Library loan.

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  Photocopying services.

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  Display of new arrivals.

These are the traditional services provided in most of the university libraries in India from beginning. Now the scenario of university library services has been changed drastically. It is because of the changed nature of the information demand of the users which is much more specific and pin pointed and they want the information in portable form which can use very easily. With this change of the demand and the rapid use of the ICT elements forced the librarians to take initiative to provide modern user oriented ICT based services (Constantinou, 1995). These new services have changed the dimension of the library and it will run side by side with other traditional services. The following are the modern services provided in most of the university library and information centres:

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  Providing Current Awareness Service of books and current journals.

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  Internet access via the library’s workstations or network.

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  Wireless computing and Internet access via laptop within the organization.

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  Access to the online and digital documents.

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  Maintaining digital repositories within and outside the campus.

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  Access to Databases, Abstracting and Indexing Journals.

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  Information Services through CD-ROM and online databases.

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  Printouts from CD-ROM databases and online databases.

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  Services through Social Networking tools.

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  Use of different Web 2.0 elements like wikis, blogs, RSS, etc.

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  Different e-mail-based services.