Librarianship: Philosophy, Laws and Ethics

In the days of information technology, librarianship is being pushed to the secondary place. Computer boys feel that they can replace librarians. It has become a fashion to talk about paperless society and virtual library without understanding their meanings and without undertaking the ground realities of the developing countries, like India, into account. Written records represent the social memory which has kept our culture and civilization alive and continuous. Librarianship has preserved these records for the posterity for use, and has made all efforts to disseminate information contained in them. Keeping the demands of time and needs of the users in view, library collections were developed and systemised so that information available in their sources could be retrieved and used conveniently and quickly. Such services as circulation, reference and documentation were introduced to communicate information and promote its use. Management and communication of information for use has always remained the goal of librarianship. IT has only provided tools to achieve this goal more conveniently and efficiently, particularly in the changed environments of knowledge explosion on one hand, and increased demand for precise and complete information on the other. Library work and services, hitherto done manually, have come under computer application. To meet the challenges of modern times the adoption of new technology is a must. To put the things in right perspective, librarianship, its philosophy and laws as also the ethical considerations which have guided the profession through ages are to be brought to the notice of our present generation librarians and IT professionals. The significance and purpose of librarianship need be understood clearly by all. This is really an important task which this work intends to do. Here lies the importance of this book for every library.