Reskilling staff for digital libraries

In academic libraries, the digital library world has had a profound impact on staffing. Academic libraries are facing huge pressure on their staffing levels at a time when digital libraries are being introduced. Digital libraries cannot be divorced from ordinary libraries. What skills do traditional librarians need? There is little in the literature on training for staffing for digital libraries. Consequently, evidence from a recent PhD gleaned from research interviews of these digital libraries case studies is included in this paper. This research uncovered a variety of different management and organizational issues and revealed the large cost of personnel in the implementation and maintenance of digital libraries

Reskilling Librarians: A Panacea for Bringing Students Back to the Academic Library

ABSTRACT The academic library that failed to reskill members of its workforce might face consequences of automatic loss of patrons. Based on this, the study examined reskilling librarians as a panacea for bringing students back to the library. 191 academic and research librarians (ARL) on the telegram group platform as of February 14, 2023, formed the population. An Online questionnaire was prepared and sent to the ARLs’ on their group chat. 122 ARLs filled the questionnaire out of the 191 thus having a response rate of 63.9%. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. The study revealed the need for librarians to go for reskilling. The findings showed that bringing students back to the library entails retraining librarians on 21st-century skills. The findings also revealed that the desertion of students from the library is caused by the attitudes of librarians, disorganization of the library, unawareness of the services and resources of the library, etc. This study recommends that academic library management and even the parent institution should not downplay on reskilling/retraining of librarians on different aspects of the library work

Digital library economics : aspects and prospects

A review of the issues surrounding the economics of and economic justification for, digital libraries

Skills and Competencies for Scholarly Communication: An Indian Perspective

Rapid development of technology, coupled with changes in research practices have profoundly impacted scholarly communication. The system of scholarly communication is disrupted largely by the digital technologies which have also thrown up a plethora of novel options for communicating and establishing the scholarship. Along with the myriad opportunities that technology offers, researchers are also challenged to cope up with the overwhelming pace of these changes. Libraries play a pivotal role in the research process and respond to new trends in the field. For academic and research libraries, it is imperative to prioritize strategies responding to the emerging trends. User needs and expectations are driving them to develop new resources and service areas. Library professionals need to develop new skills and competencies to extend new services or to realign the old services to meet the needs of the researchers. While there have been studies in many countries investigating the knowledge and skills requirements for the scholarly communication, scanty literature is found with reference to Indian libraries. This paper presents results of comprehensive study drilling down the response of librarians to the nuances of scholarly communication in the Indian context. It attempts to ascertain the services extended by the libraries in the current context of scholarly communication and tries to identify and scale the corresponding skills and competencies possessed and required by the librarians

Robotic Process Automation: Implementation in Private/Public Sectors and Opportunities for Cultural Heritage Organizations

In the current race to master digital transformation and harness its potential in the workplace, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is gaining popularity among cognitive technologies as a robust and easy way to streamline certain repetitive processes. As automation strategy goes, RPA offers a solution to simplify business complexity by automating rule based and repetitive tasks without requiring major changes to existing hardware and systems’ architecture. A unique feature of RPA programing is that it does not require knowledge of coding. The RPA software uses graphical user interface (GUI) to capture keystrokes and mouse clicks to automate an entire workflow or just certain tasks within a bigger process. This paper presents how RPA is being implemented in different industries to broaden the general track to digital transformation and further the path of freeing employees from redundant and repetitive tasks in order to spend more time on high-value work that requires creativity and decision-making skills. While many businesses where the need for speedy solutions to deliver data and complete repetitive tasks have begun adopting RPA and using artificial intelligence integrated solutions, libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) are still lagging in RPA implementation. To raise awareness and curiosity among LAMs about RPA technology, this research has relied predominantly on literature review from resources outside the LAM field to highlight how RPA is being implemented to augment the workforce in other fields to boost efficiency and develop employees to handle more complex decision-making tasks. Thus, improving productivity and, where external stakeholders are involved, client satisfaction

Improving customer satisfaction: changes as a result of Customer Value Discovery

Objective: To identify Gold Standard Services for customers in an academic library and determine whether interventions following the identification of customer value increased student satisfaction. Methods: “Customer Discovery Workshops” were undertaken with academic staff and undergraduate on‐campus students to provide managers and library staff with information on the services and resources that customers valued, and what irritated them about existing services and resources. The impact of interventions was assessed two years after the research using a university student satisfaction survey and an independent national student satisfaction survey. Results: The findings resulted in significant changes to the way forward‐facing customer services were delivered. A number of value adding services were introduced for the customer. Overall customer satisfaction was improved. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2008, 3:1 34 Conclusions: The Customer Value Discovery research has created a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. An operational plan was introduced to track activity and performance against the objectives identified in the customer value research. However, there is a constant need to innovate

Supporting emerging researchers in data management and curation

While scholarly publishing remains the key means for determining researchers’ impact, international funding body requirements and government recommendations relating to research data management (RDM), sharing and preservation mean that the underlying research data are becoming increasingly valuable in their own right. This is true not only for researchers in the sciences but also in the humanities and creative arts as well. The ability to exploit their own - and others’ - data is emerging as a crucial skill for researchers across all disciplines. However, despite Generation Y researchers being ‘highly competent and ubiquitous users of information technologies generally’ they appears to be a widespread lack of understanding and uncertainty about open access and self-archived resources (Jisc study, 2012). This chapter will consider the potential support that academic librarians might provide to support Generation Y researchers in this shifting research data landscape and examine the role of the library as part of institutional infrastructure. The changing landscape will impact research libraries most keenly over the next few years as they work to develop infrastructure and support systems to identify and maintain access to a diverse array of research data outputs. However, the data that are being produced through research are no different to those being produced by artists, politicians and the general public. In this respect, all libraries - whether they be academic, national, or local - will need to be gearing up to ensure they are able to accept and provide access to an ever increasing range of complex digital objects

INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) AND THE FUTURE OF LIBRARY: A REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Libraries are created as an authenticated and authoritative parlance where knowledge of all human endeavor can be acquired, processed, preserved and made easily accessible by all irrespective of sex, status, religion, race or color. Its primary role is to meet the information need of its users and the society at large. These were achieved previously through conventional means of library services which includes the traditional means of acquiring, storing, retrieving, cataloguing and classification, circulation etc. of information. With the introduction of Information and communication technology library and information services have experienced unprecedented changes and transformation. This paper looked into conceptual background of ICT and library, the impact of ICT in libraries, their setbacks which pose as threats to the future of libraries in this ICT era, and also made possible suggestions on creating an ICT base libraries