-Dr.Anand A.Samuel, Vice Chancellor, Vellore Institute of Technology
The Central Library of Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology and Academic Library Association inaugurated the International Conference on Transforming Academic Libraries: Vision 2030 on 15.11.2019.
The objective behind the conference is to bring together visionaries and stakeholders of libraries across the globe to discuss and debate issues related to transforming academic libraries on a global scale and to make libraries become the knowledge providers for generations to come in 2030.
Several national and international delegates participated in this conference. Dr.S.A.Fazlur Rhiman, Librarian, SKCET & Convener of the conference conveyed that 275 papers out of the 500 technical papers received from different countries were accepted for presentation during the conference. The proceedings of the conference were released in both hard&soft copy formats with ISBN Numbers for both.
Dr.J.Janet, Principal, SKCET delivered the Presidential Address. She said libraries have a huge role to play in grooming students as knowledgeable personalities, and this international conference will provide the participants an idea about the best practices luminaries in different parts of globe are following and also provide connections for networking.
The Chief Guest of the conference Dr.Anand A.Samuel, Vice Chancellor, Vellore Institute of Technology delivered the inaugural address. He appreciated the college for getting ISBN numbers for the proceedings and releasing it earlier at the conference.
Talking about ‘Vision: 2030’, he raised the question whether all the libraries are ready for 2020 first? He said planning for 2030 which is 11 years ahead is actually good in terms of intent and ambition but greater emphasis should fall on making libraries in 2020 ready to provide the best options for gaining knowledge for the students.
He asked whether libraries and librarians are ready to cope up with the needs of Generation Z students (people born in the late 1990s and early 2000s). He said students from Gen Z have different characteristics. The way one generation gains knowledge differs to the other; and one specific generation of students has its own set of traits which librarians must research about and connect with the student community. Librarians are very important in widening students’ knowledge base and they must find out what are the ‘knowledge needs’ of a generation. If they don’t do that, then they will struggle to find out what would be the needs of Generation Alpha and Beta are.
He said Generation Y and their successors prefer e-content to traditional medium in libraries. Hardcopies have been less utilized by the millennial generation as they choose e-contents as it as become their era’s standard form. What a librarian or personnel found satisfactory in his time should not be imposed on the current youth, who have become specific about how they want information and knowledge.
He shared the findings of research made on a present generation of students. The research states that they are not interested in lectures but love to learn by themselves and wish to experiment. He said it is the duty of librarians and libraries of the college to enable their students to widen their knowledge base, help them learn by themselves and learn by experimenting. He wanted the librarians and libraries to produce such a conducive environment.