Role of Knowledge Centers in Academic Libraries - Talk by Dr.H.K. Kaul

Reported by Dr. Harish Chandra, Librarian, IIT Madras and the President, The Special Libraries Association (SLA) Asian Chapter for the year 2012. This event is jointly by the Central Library, IIT Madras and Special Library Association Asian Chapter.

At the outset, Dr. Harish Chandra, Librarian and President, Special Libraries Association (SLA) Asian Chapter for the year 2012 welcomed Dr. Kaul and introduced him to the gathering. He further informed that the Central Library has been organizing a series of Professional Development Lectures for the last two years regularly. As a part of this, Dr. H.K. Kaul, has delivered a talk on “Role of Knowledge Centers in Academic Libraries” in the Central Library, IIT Madras on 09.01.2012. The Talk was jointly organized by the Central Library, IIT Madras and SLA Asian Chapter.

Dr. Kaul opened his talk by quoting Rabindranath Tagore on the importance of Libraries and highlighted the problem of scattering the contents as well as users globally. He also referred the survey conducted and indicated the trend for shifting the expectation of users. There is a mismatch problem in the use of new technology and the knowledge of Librarians. He stressed the need for the establishment of Knowledge Centre in each institution specializing on one subject to avoid duplication efforts globally. He also advised the librarians to re-orient their efforts and keep them ready to attract the users for their respective libraries. He also emphasized the importance of conducting surveys while he indicated that 52% of people are engaged in social networking. He concluded his talk by advocating that there is need to form a Think Tank so that various existing as well as potential barriers are removed. He is of the view that SLA Asian Chapter can make an effort for removing these barriers.

The Talk was chaired by Dr. Harish Chandra, Librarian and President, SLA Asian Chapter and was attended by SLA members and library professionals. Mr. Mahendra N Jadhav, Deputy Librarian, IIT Madras proposed a vote of thanks.

On the same shelf:

Mark Stover, (2004) "Making tacit knowledge explicit: the Ready Reference Database as codified knowledge", Reference Services Review, Vol. 32 Iss: 2, pp.164 - 173

Ron Jantz, (2001) "Knowledge management in academic libraries: special tools and processes to support information professionals", Reference Services Review, Vol. 29 Iss: 1, pp.33 - 39

An Integrated Customer Knowledge Management Framework for Academic Libraries 1 by: Farhad Daneshgar, Mehri Parirokh, The Library Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 1. (January 2012), pp. 7-28

Knowledge Management and Academic Libraries , Townley, Charles T. College & Research Libraries, v62 n1 p44-55 Jan 2001