Preparation of an Academic Virtual Library and the Librarians Role in It - Coursework Example

Challenges Faced by Academic Libraries and Librarians Starting with the discussion on the challenges that face the academic libraries of present times, we need to pinpoint the basis of academic honesty and personal roles of students, researchers and different academics which are so very closely knitted with the whole equation. Thus personal action plans are deemed as being quite fundamental to the basis of academic libraries. Personal action plans are devised in a manner that makes best use of the library searches so as to get the most productive and up to date information which is needed and these plans look at the maximization of resources as much as possible. What this means is the fact that conducting one such successful library research is the basis of extracting the needed information in the wake of knowledge acquisition and the eventual development of details related with the student’s resource. Also there must be a lot of emphasis on finding the websites which provide authentic information and not mere hearsay. This can be made use of by employing the search engines and the genuine e-libraries which are present on the World Wide Web. First there is a need to define what a virtual library is. A virtual library is also called as an online library which operates on the basis of e-texts and sources that are obtained courtesy the Internet (or the World Wide Web, WWW for short). The virtual libraries are present on hundreds of servers all around the world and act as a great reservoir for finding pertinent information and data as and when required. Indexing pages within the virtual library helps since it is easy to find data through the process of indexing. There are a number of different virtual library search engines and the same are located on different servers all around the world. Virtual libraries facilitate in easy accession of books, magazines and journals as well as it coordinates the manner under which archives and images are found out in a quick way. There are no physical boundaries of the virtual libraries and they are available at any hour of the day, seven days a week. Also these virtual libraries have multiple access mechanisms at a single time and they provide retrieval of information in different capacities as well. There is a lot of space within the servers to store and disseminate data courtesy the virtual libraries and the preservation and conservation is assured through the storage spaces located within the servers themselves. Moving on, librarianship has become a profession in the last quarter of the previous century whereby a sort of urgency emerged and thus it was a mission on the librarians’ part to teach and inculcate the students on how to go about using this place of education and knowledge. It is very similar to making people understand how computers are turned on and off and how different peripherals attached with the computer are operated. Their role was such! But after a lapse of about half a century, the role of librarians started to change from what they had been doing in the past. They introduced the “bibliographic instruction” to inform the users of the library and make them understand what the library has within it by their own selves. Thus, it can be easily said that somewhat the role of librarians changed to an extent but not to its fullest. The librarians also used a number of methods in order to drill the users of the library, which included information technologists who educated the library users on how to employ the use of certain kinds of software packages and tools as well as other electronic media. Next we delve into the challenges that academic libraries might face from time to time and having said so, these changes need to be studied over a considerable period of time in order to reach a point of consensus. What this means is the fact that a common ground has to be reached where the problems make their own way for the solutions to come about and hence the whole quagmire of having these challenges is resolved nonetheless. The major challenges to have come in the way of academic libraries include recruitment, education and retention of librarians, the ever changing role of academic libraries in an academic enterprise, the changes brought forward by Information Technology on the overall set up of the academic libraries, the creation, control and the eventual preservation of digital resources that are termed as significant for the academic libraries, the chaotic situation prevalent within the scholarly communication regimes, the support aspects related with the new users of academic libraries and last but not the least the significance of having higher education funding within the related scheme of things as far as the existence of academic libraries is concerned. Thus the challenges are manifolds and these need to be studied in the proper perspective in order to reach some conclusion, which will be studied in detail within the domains of this paper. To start with, the recruitment, selection and the retention of qualified librarians is pretty essential to the basis of having a sound and adequate academic library in place. This means that only those individuals need to be picked up who have that flair of providing value to the whole regime of an academic library. These people need to be groomed in a proper manner so as to have the best possible results extracted out of them in the shortest time possible. What this will do is to make them hard core professionals as well as provide value to the overall basis of an academic library. Quality leadership attributes must be found within these individuals so that they could present something new and fresh to the working methodology of an academic library and their ideas need to project the very same all said and done. As far as future is concerned, leadership traits must be the core ingredient of the academic libraries and the same must be discerned now in order to reap rich dividends in the coming times. A lot of these academic librarians do not seem to make the profession their own and they have some other job which serves as their primary backup which must not be the case. These people need to comprehend the fact that being an academic librarian is a full time job and profession and hence they must give in their best in terms of energies and enthusiasm. One of the major challenges faced with academic libraries is the fact that not a lot of librarians are making it into this field and very few academic librarians are stepping into it. This is irony as far as the whole subject of academic libraries is concerned and much needs to be done at all possible steps and stages in order to attract new and upcoming talent that is out there. Continuing with the same discussion, very few of these librarians are entering the public libraries domain and even fewer are venturing into the academic domain which speaks for itself related with the problems that the whole related field has plunged into. The challenge for the profession of the academic librarians lies in the fact that there is little guarantee for new librarians entering into it and reeducating the existing ones from time to time. What this latter step will do is to bring out fresh ideas and inculcate new skills and technological basis within the working methodology of the academic librarians who need to learn more and more with the passage of time. The continued relationship and relevance of MLS to the field of academic librarianship is a question that must find answers for its own selves. More than anything else, it is the aspect of low salaries and wages that has hit the whole field of academic libraries and there seems to be no end to the whole related saga. The low wages and salaries will continue to haunt the people who aim to become librarians but cannot become the same due to economic standards which have really hit the doldrums in the past decades. These problems need to be studied in a collective fashion so that a common ground could be reached and thus there should be a basis of finding the best possible fit for the question at hand – a question which looks to understand the very basis of low falling standards as far as academic libraries is concerned and more than that the ever present and up coming challenges that the whole field is tied with. The second challenge faced by these academic libraries lies in the fact that the role of library in an academic enterprise has come down with the passage of time and thus there is no reason as to why steps should not be taken to up the present day standards. What this means is that there is a lot of room for improvement within the related ranks and much needs to be done as far as the future regimes are concerned. Similarly, the role of academic librarians has come down as a result and there is a lot of improvement that demands its basis for its own good, which has to be incorporated all said and done. It is a common notion that librarians are symbols of maintaining peace and tranquility within the domains of a library – public or academic. But if the same peace is not present within their own environments, there is little that they could do at the end of the day. A number of academic librarians believe that the role of these libraries is becoming marginalized and hence for that matter they believe it is one of the major challenges to have hit the whole related industry. The challenge is to have a feel for having the incorporation of information literacy instruction and the attached significance which is there as far as teaching role of librarians is attached. The need is to promote the values, expertise and leadership aspects within this profession so that the end result is one which brings out the very best from all concerned, not only the academic librarians but also the stakeholders who have invested within the lengths and breadths of this business. There is a need to make the students and the individuals at the campuses understand the role and importance of academic libraries and the manner in which these academic librarians are fulfilling their duties on a consistent basis. The duties that these academic librarians fulfill need to be appreciated by all and sundry and people must be appraised of the same every now and then. With the changing times, information and data has become pretty much centralized but academic librarians know that if they are not present at the helm, the information is of no use whatsoever and there could be problems for just about everyone at the campus. These academic librarians need to demonstrate to the campus and the different people present within it the role that they play and without which there would be a lot of problems left, right and center. The third challenge that the academic libraries of present times face is courtesy the ever increasing role of the Information Technology basis. There is a need to balance the traditional library services and the modern day usage of library regimes which comes in handy with the quick working regimes that are seen within most of the academic libraries. The student and staff cards are punched in and hence there is little basis for having manual entry of all the fields that go down within a paper register. Times have changed and they have changed for the better but then again there is a lot of room for improvement still and the traditional library services stand as the very best to date. The traditional library materials are still being used to date and they will continue to rule the roost as long as they are in business. The incorporation of Information Technology within the related ranks is indeed a positive sign that is happening within the ranks of the academic libraries but a complete role of the same is not the order of the day and it must not be such in the coming times as well. There must be a definitive basis of having campus information commons where a mix of traditional and online services is presented to the students and staff members. This could be easily accessible to just about everybody who has the right to make use of the very same and there would be little dependence on switching to the other service if one is being made use of. Another challenge is to understand that the creation, control and preservation of digital resources are not a problem for the academic libraries and the librarians who work within them as such. There needs to be the basis for finding the exact methods which go in line with digitizing certain resources and what needs to be left behind also requires logic and sound reasoning. This is left to the mercy of the traditional librarianship since some resources are better off when there is no online linkage with them. The relevant resources to find the exact methods and ways are pertinent here since the task is to make online availability a reality as much as possible. More than anything else, the bibliographic control mechanisms need to be installed in a quick manner so that the references are had immediately and there are as such no problems at the end of the users within an academic library. There are instances when the server is down and this leaves a bad impression on the users since they cannot complete the tasks at hand. The same needs to be solved as soon as possible and the ways and means for doing the same is significant all said and done. The challenges that are faced by these academic libraries with the passage of time are manifolds and much needs to be done to set things right in the proper direction. The support aspect of new users of these academic libraries is also a quintessential aspect and one which needs to be resolved as soon as possible. The distance education facet comes under this challenge that has to be resolved by the academic librarians and thus pave the way for smooth sailing as far as online availability of content is concerned. Aspects like plagiarism and copyright infringements raise interesting debates every now and then and these need to be properly touched upon so that the end result is one that creates a strong point of linkage between the people using the academic libraries and the academic librarians who are making these resources available in the first place. Lastly, another challenge is posed in the wake of having higher education funding for these academic libraries which is so very pertinent as far as their basis is concerned. With this funding, the proper resources would be utilized and the spending would eventually reap rich results at the very end. The salaries of the academic librarians need to be increased and they must be given incentives every now and then so that they could give in their best shot at all times possible. Creative thought and action needs to be mixed together with the results that have been envisaged and the same must be looked upon in detail by the people at the helm of affairs as far as these academic libraries are concerned so that their basis provides a point of advantage to one and all. What is needed in the future as far as these academic libraries are concerned is a sense of doing something big and different. There must be support incentives and packages for the academic librarians so that they could do their job to the best levels possible. Also dedication and devotion needs to be the sole criteria for selecting the academic librarians and anyone who has the zest to achieve the same must be given the relevant jobs as soon as possible. The challenges might not finish here but then again one has to be proactive and look to touch the positives out of every grim situation. The changes and challenges within these academic libraries will bring in a better tomorrow for one and all and there would be better resource utilization within the campuses, by both the students as well as the staff members and thus the broader picture of having a sound and cohesive relationship between the two would be attained. In the end, the challenges that are being faced by the academic libraries of present times need to be settled once and for all so that the coming eras can expect positives coming their way. This indeed is a prayer that goes out for everyone related with the educational fields. Bibliography Alfassi, Miriam. Promoting the Will and Skill of Students at Academic Risk: An Evaluation of an Instructional Design Geared to Foster Achievement, Self-Efficacy and Motivation. Journal of Instructional Psychology, Vol. 30, 2003 Barnes, Susan J. Becoming a Digital Library. Marcel Dekker, 2004 Cantor, Jeffrey. A Guide to Academic Writing. Praeger, 1993 Coffin, Caroline. 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