M.S. Valiathan, national research professor, said on Thursday that the digitisation of libraries had both positive and negative effects.
He was speaking after inaugurating the three-day 16th Management Libraries Network (ManLibNet) conference organised by the T.A. Pai Management Institute here.
The theme of the conference is ‘Managing library and information systems in the digital world: Challenges and opportunities.’
Prof. Valiathan said that the positive effect was that books and other material reached many people and the negative aspect was that most people were accessing these materials online and not visiting the library physically.
He went on to add that knowledge should be free and should be accessible to all. He recalled his graduation days of using the library.
“A library is a place of worship,” he said.
Parvez Akhtar, chief librarian, IIM, Indore, spoke about how ManLibNet as a network was born and the activities that the network undertook. The delegates to the conference included librarians of leading institutes.
The conference spanning three days will have 10 sessions including keynote speeches, invited talks, product presentation by knowledge resource providers and paper presentations.
More than 75 papers would be presented covering the 10 themes across the sessions. The themes had been modeled on the service-marketing framework covering aspects such as managing infrastructure, technology and people.
Sivakumar A., chairman of conference organizing committee, welcomed the gathering. H. Shantharam, trustee of TAPMI Trust, released a compendium of papers to be presented at the conference. Manjunath, chief librarian of TAPMI and organising Secretary, proposed a vote of thanks.
