21 Academic Library System : University Libraries

Sewa Singh

1. INTRODUCTION

A university is regarded as a ‘community of teachers and students’ engaged in extending the boundaries of knowledge through research, and seeking truth. A university is set up “to build up gradually an abiding passion for the pursuit of truth, goodness, beauty and social justice.” It is, therefore, a dwelling place of ideas and idealism. A modern university is no longer confined only to the traditional functions of teaching and advancement of knowledge, but assuming new functions according to the changing pattern of education.

1.1. Objectives of University

The question of objectives of university education in India was for the first time considered in detail by the Radhakrishnan Commission (1948-49). After critically examining the entire education system of India at length, the Kothari Commission (1964-66) suggested the following objectives of a modern university:

– To seek and cultivate new knowledge, to engage vigorously and fearlessly in the pursuit of truth, and to interpret old knowledge and belie fs in the light of new needs and discoveries;

– To provide the right kind of leadership in all walks of life, to identify gifted youth and help them develop their potential to the full by cultivating right interest, attitudes and moral and intellectual values;

– To provide society with competent men and women trained in agriculture, arts, medicine, science and

technology, and various other professions, who will also be cultivated individuals, imbued with a sense of social purpose;

– To strive to promote quality and social justice and to reduce social and cultural differences through diffusion of education; and

– To foster in the teachers and students, and through them in society generally, the attitudes, and values needed for developing the good life in individuals and society.

Thus it is true, as Robert Gaudino stated that “A university is what a nation wants it to make of it, what it is able to make of it, what it has made of it.”

India has been a cradle of culture, civilization, and centre of teaching, learning and research since the ancient times; the prominent examples being universities of Taxila and Nalanda. But the emergence of modern universities, on the Western model, began in 1857 when three universities were established at Calcutta (now renamed as Kolkata), Bombay (renamed as Mumbai) and Madras (renamed as Chennai). From about 20 universities in India at the time of Independence in 1947, the total number has gone up to 620 universities as recognized by the University Grants Commission.

Table 1: Total Number of Universities in India

1. State Universities 298

2. Deemed Universities 130

3. Central Universities 44

4. Private Universities 148

Total 620

These universities have established their university libraries to cater not only to the information needs of their students, teachers, and other staff member but also to support their objectives and programmes to promote their mission.

1.2. Objectives of University Libraries

The objectives of university libraries are such as to support and fulfill the objectives and goals of their parent institutions. These include the following:

To develop collections of document, both print and electronic so as to support the teaching and research activiti
To develop policies, procedures, and standards for acquisition of documents that would support teaching and research programmes;
To provide services that would meet the information needs of faculty and students; and
To conserve knowledge and ideas for posterity.

2. FUNCTIONS OF UNIVERSITY

The functions of a university have undergone change from time to time in order to meet the needs of the society. In the modern times, the universities have a crucial role to play in the life, welfare and strength of the nation.

More than half a century ago, L.R. Wilson and M.F. Tauber in their classic book on the university library, described the following functions of a university:

Conservation of knowledge and ideas
Teaching
Research
Publication
Extension and service
Interpretation.

Similarly, D.A. Ghanchi has identified the following six functions, considered as comprehensive, which could be assigned to a university:

Conservational Functions: The culture and heritage of a country is its back bone which must be conserved for the posterity. A university, as a part of the system of higher education, is assigned this enormous task which it performs with the utmost care for the present and future generations of people.
Transmissional Functions: Dissemination of knowledge in the society at different levels through diverse modes is another important function assigned to a university.
Promotional Functions: A university should promote the cause of knowledge, its modification, renewal and enrichment. It should also support creation of new knowledge and, thereby, contribute to the existing fund of human knowledge.
Developmental Functions: A university is charged with the duty of developing the human resource of the country to the optimum capacity of its potential.
Proactional Functions: A university has, among others, a future-related obligation towards the community. It must impart its alumni a vision transcending the barriers of the present, equip them to cope with the unpredictable that lies ahead.
Revolutional Functions: A university should be a forum for dissent and non-conformity. It should provide field for trying out uncommon, unconventional and innovative ideas.

From the above, it is clear that a university has been charged with manifold functions to discharge, prominent among being the instructional, research, and extension programmes.

2.1. Functions of University Library

Keeping in view the objectives and functions of university education in India, the university library system has to shoulder onerous responsibilities. In order to achieve the above mentioned objectives and functions of university education, university libraries should redesign their activities in such a way that they may prove to be significant partners, as stated by Mukherjee, in “conservation of knowledge and ideas, teaching, research, publication, extension and service, and interpretation of results of research.” Thus a university library exists to help instructional and research programmes of the university. It also functions, as Gelfand defines it, “as a dynamic instrument of education, to feed the intellect of student, encourage the researchers of the faculty and invite all who enter its house to partake fully of its intellectual and cultural contents.

The Radhakrishnan Commission, in its Report on University Education (1948-49), while realising the importance of libraries in the fulfillment of the objectives, observed that “the library is the heart of all the university’s work; directly so, as regards its research work, and indirectly as regards its educational work…”.

Later, the Kothari Commission in its Report on Education and National Development (1964-66), laid emphasis on the proper development of university library system. It defined the functions of the university libraries as under:

provide resources necessary for research in fields of special interest to university;
aid the university teacher in keeping abreast of developments in his field;
provide library facilities and services secondary for success in all formal programmes of instruction;
open the doors to the wide world of books, that lie beyond the borders of one’s own field of specialization; and
bring books, students and scholars together under conditions which encourage reading for pleasure, self discovery, personal growth and sharpening of intellectual curiosity.

The university library plays a significant role in the academic life of the university. Laying stress on it, Paul Buck stated that the library is the heart of education, a quality education is impossible without a quality library and a quality faculty is not possible without a quality library. He believed that the resources, retrieval of information, coordination, and staff capability, which are the fundamental functions of university library, must be ‘responsive’ to the needs of its users.

While describing the functions of university library, Malcolm S. Adiseshaiah, stated that “if the purpose of all education is learning, then the library is the fountain source of all learning and there is no replacement to it”.

The purpose and function of university library, therefore, is expansion of knowledge for truth, enlightenment and standards of excellence, etc. S.N. Srivastava and S.C. Verma sum up the functions of the library in university as the one that “it serves the adult scholarship”.

3. INFORMATION RESOURCES

As the library is established to fulfill the objectives of the university education, the information resources to be acquired must support and supplement the teaching programmes, ongoing research and generation of new knowledge. For this purpose, a university library should follow the scientific principles of collection development based on periodical evaluation.

Although books form the bulk of any university library collection, yet for the past century or so, the serial literature has been assuming an increasingly important place. The learned and technical journals, reports; monographs; theses; patents; standards and specifications; transactions of societies, museums, observatories, universities and institutes of all sorts, and the serial publications of governments take more and more of library funds, space and attention.

Besides, a university library will need not only bibliographical tools, viz., catalogues of major libraries and collections; subject and national bibliographies; lists of books inn print; union lists of periodicals; abstracts; indexes; atlases; gazetteers; biographical dictionaries; language dictionaries; yearbooks; statistical digests; and so on.

There is also requirement to provide the relevant specialized academic and educational guides; university calendars; lists of research in progress; lists of research organizations; yearbooks of learned societies.

Wilson and Tauber have suggested that besides books and periodicals, the university library must satisfy demands for materials which is neither books in the generally accepted sense nor periodicals. It includes materials such as dissertations, newspapers, rare books and manuscripts, maps, fugitive materials of many kinds, music, archives, films, micro reproductions, and museum objects.

Now a days, a university library also acquires documents in microform, audio-visual or electronic formats. In addition, the collections include programs or data files, software, information resources in CD-ROMs, Databases, or online databases, electronic books, electronic journals, etc. These types of print and e-documents have all type of current and global information required by the university faculty, researchers and students.

The information resources of a university library must strike a balance between traditional formats of print documents, and emerging electronic formats.

The information resources as mentioned above and any other such resource must be acquired by a Library Committee of the university as appointed by the university authority. The Library Committee must formulate an acquisition policy for this purpose. It will help in developing a well-balanced, unified and definite programme of collection development, and make a sufficient and suitable provision for all categories of users in their academic and research activities.

It has been recommended by the UGC Library Committee (1957-59) that the limit for document collection for a university library may be set as 300, 000 volumes. In the present times when the number of subjects and departments, as well as students and faculty in the universities have gone up, the limit of documents may go at least up to 500, 000 volumes. This may in addition to the non-book material and the new age documents in electronic formats.

3.1. Collection Maintenance

The various types of collections as described above need adequate storage space, proper shelving, and preservation. For the preservation of books university libraries generally follow the traditional methods of pest control, etc. Some of them may need binding, others may require lamination, and still others may need to be kept in the fumigation chambers.

But for the non-document and electronic documents special preservation techniques need to be adopted. Similarly, rare books and manuscripts also require special handling with care, and now these two types of documents are being digitized all over the country to preserve them for posterity.

For the preservation of such collections as serial publications, theses and dissertations, manuscripts and rare books, newspapers and reports, and even books, many programmes for digitization are in place. These include, among others, Digital Library of India, National Mission for Manuscripts Digitization, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, Electronic Theses and Dissertations Project of India, and so on.

However, the following activities may form part of collection maintenance:

Stock verification
Stock rectification
Weeding
Preservation
Binding, etc.

The university libraries generally maintain and control their collections by following method of weeding out the worn, mutilated, and documents remaining unused for a long period.

It is estimated that about 80-90% of the total collections of our university libraries are a kind of dead stock, which is neither used nor is useful for study and research. The existing collections therefore must be replenished and any documents not useful may be discarded.

There is another aspect of maintenance in university library system. It concerns the maintenance of various items of furniture and equipments installed in the library. Maintenance of furniture items may be looked after from time to time as needed, but for the maintenance of computer hardware and software a better option is the annual maintenance contract with the company.

4. MANPOWER RESOURCE

One of the most essential components of a university library is manpower resource. The performance of manpower plays a vital role in the success or failure of a university library. For ensuring effective and efficient library and information services, there is need to employ competent personnel with proper training and education. The university library manpower must match the quality of the teaching and research community in terms of academic and professional qualifications, experience, and expertise.

The constant interaction of university library manpower with students, faculty, research scholars, computer experts, management experts of the university should ensure credibility and appreciation from the user community.

4.1. Categories of Manpower

The following categories of manpower are employed in a university library:

Professional staff
Technical or paraprofessional staff
Administrative staff

4.1.1. Professional Staff

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has prescribed the nomenclature, qualifications, and salary structure of library professional staff. Their nomenclature generally includes (though with certain changes from time to time) Librarian, Deputy Librarian, Assistant Librarian. The professional staff is also accorded status and salary at par with university teaching staff; hence they are also required to possess similar qualifications.

The professional manpower of a university library is required to achieve the objectives of the library and information services in the present Information Age by adopting the new technological developments.

They would generally perform the following jobs:

Book Selection and Ordering
Classification
Cataloguing
Indexing
Abstracting
Reference and Information Services
Literature Searches
User Surveys/Studies
Planning and Management, and so on

4.1.2. Paraprofessional Staff

The paraprofessional or technical staff are of supporting nature, and should possess qualifications accordingly. Their job profile requires them to possess at least a Diploma in Library Science of one year duration along with graduation in any stream.

They are required to perform the following jobs:

Accessioning of Books and other Documents
Registration of Periodicals
Typing of Catalogue Cards, Bibliographies, etc
Charging and Discharging of Books
Maintenance of Issue Records
Interlibrary Loan work
Shelving of Documents
Preparation of Books and Periodicals for Binding
Stocktaking and Stock rectification, and so on

4.1.3. Administrative Staff

The administrative staff carries out the routine jobs which are usually done in any office of an institution. Their qualifications, etc are determined by the university authorities.

They are required to perform the following types of jobs:

Secretarial assistance to the librarian and other senior manpower
Maintenance of personnel records (personal files, service books, etc)
Maintenance of accounts (salary of library manpower, accounts for purchase of books and other items, payment of bills, etc)
Typing, etc
Housekeeping, etc

4.2. Qualifications

Qualifications as approved by the University Grants Commission for the appointment of the University Librarian are as under:

Master’s degree in Library Science/ Information Science/ Documentation with at least fifty-five percent marks or its equivalent grade and a consistently good academic record;
One year specialization in an area of Information Technology/ Archives and Manuscript keeping, Master’s degree in an area of thrust in the institution;
At least ten years as a Deputy Librarian in a University Library or fifteen years experience as a college librarian;
Evidence of innovative library service and organization, published work.

Desirable: M.Phil./ Ph.D. degree in Library Science/ Information Science/ Documentation/ Archives and Manuscript keeping.

S. R. Ranganathan, in the Library Committee report, made a landmark recommendation regarding the status of academic librarians. He said: “The high academic and professional qualifications, the combination of academic and administrative responsibilities and the practice in the universities all over the world indicate that the status and the salary scale of the library staff should be the same as that of the teaching and research staff”.

4.3. Staffing Pattern

The UGC appointed a Library Committee under the Chairmanship of S.R. Ranganathan which suggested a Staff Formula for calculating the manpower in college and university libraries. It was, however, based on some assumptions and was linked to quantum of work, ie, with the increase in quantum of work the manpower would also increase proportionately. For example, in Technical Section one person is required for every 2000 volumes added in a year.

The UGC Pay Revision Committee has once again recommended qualifications for library manpower, suitable pay structure, and their parity with the teaching staff of the university.

5. FINANCIAL RESOURCES

Financial resources are the soul of an institution and so of a university library. It is like a heart which circulates blood to all parts of human body. Therefore, finance is all important for the effective functioning, organization, and management of a university library.

A university library is a spending, and not a revenue generating institution. It has to employ qualified and experienced manpower, purchase various types of reading material, furniture and other equipments, and maintain library building, and so on for its users. For all these functions, library needs financial resources. It is incumbent on the university authority to ensure adequate supply of funds to render the library services efficiently and effectively.

5.1. Sources of Finance

University libraries receive funds in various proportions from the following sources:

Grants from the UGC
Grants from Central and State government
Grants allocated from the university budget
Endowments and gifts
Library Fee (such as development fee, security, etc)
Fines and miscellaneous sources like sale of publications or information products, sale of waste paper, charges for reprographic, micrographic, and other such services.

The university libraries, in addition to regular grants, also receive ad hoc grants from time to time from various sources such as UGC, and such other institutions as Asia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, etc.

The UGC Library Committee observed that in view of the renaissance in the country and its needs, the university libraries should provide adequate library services to promote research. For this purpose, an annual grant alone will not be sufficient, and a generous non-recurring grant should be given to each university library.

5.2. Recommended Standards

The UGC Library Committee has recommended that for the time being library grant may be at the rate of Rs 15 per student and Rs 200 per teacher and research fellow. The Kothari Commission recommended in its report that the library grant may at the rate of Rs 25 per student and Rs 300 per teacher. This is per capita method of determination of library finance.

In percentile terms, the Education Commission (1964-66) recommended that a university should spend 6.5% to 10% of its total budget on its library.

But despite this specific recommendation, the situation has not improved much. As a result of lackadaisical approach to the university libraries, there has not only been a situation of financial stagnation but also of decline in their funding. The recession-driven economy since 2008 has been responsible for providing fewer funds for state-funded universities and other institutions of higher education.

Decrease in funding for libraries is global phenomena, and India is no exception. On the contrary, as observed by Drake, universities are rather asking for “increasing accountability; budget justifications; and quantitative measures of value, outcomes, and impact”.

6. PHYSICAL RESOURCES

University libraries are generally developed for the use of the faculty, research workers, and post-graduate students. In order to provide them intensive information services, the building should have many unique features. Therefore, a functional design of library building is the most important requirement of the university library system keeping in view the design of inner lay-out, utilization of inner space, etc. The architectural design of university libraries must take into consideration the implication of the Fifth Law of Library Science, ie, the library is a growing organism. The university libraries grow in terms of information resources, users, manpower, furniture and other equipments.

The description of the university library as a heart of the university should be reflected in its geographical location, while constructing the library building. It will also satisfy the requirements of at least the first four laws of library science as enunciated by S.R. Ranganathan.

Now a days, the emerging information technologies and their application to library house keeping operations is further necessitating the designing and redesigning of library buildings suitable for current requirements. An example of such a change is the replacement of old catalogue cabinets meant for users of university libraries by the new generation Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC).

The UGC, since its inception, has been extending financial support to the development of independent library buildings in universities. However, in view of the new developments in education system over the years, there has been increase in the strength of students because of setting up of new teaching departments, introduction of new academic programmes, etc. Coupled with these, is a switch over, though slowly, from the traditional methods to the new techniques of library operations and information services to the faculty and research scholars. Occasionally, university libraries are providing repackaged information services and products to their specialist users. All these and other developments require a modular library building which could afford optimum space for each activity.

6.1. Standards

The Bureau of Indian Standards, in its earlier avatar, had prepared some standards for the design of library buildings for architectural guidance. These were developed to increase, among other things, the usefulness of libraries. These include the following:

IS : 1553-1960 Code of practice relating to primary elements in the design of library building.

IS: 1172-1957 Code of basic requirements for water supply, drainage and sanitation.

These lay down the standards for basic elements only. For example, the first code mentioned above lays down standards for number of rooms to be provided, depending upon the size of library (ie, collection, users, staff, etc), floor area, circulation space, relative positions of the rooms, etc.

6.2. Furniture and Equipments

The following items of furniture and equipments are required in a university library:

Book racks
Catalogue cabinets
Reading tables and chairs
Circulation counter furniture and other counters
Display racks
Tables and chairs for technical staff
Office tables and chairs
Computer tables and chairs
Racks for display and storage of periodicals
Newspaper stands
Book trolley, and so on

6.2.1. Equipment’s

The following items of equipments are required in a university library:

Computers systems, printers, and communication links
Telephones
Fax machine
Photocopying machines
Telex machine
Microform readers
CD ROM readers
Multimedia equipments
Fumigation chamber
Fire extinguishers

More items of furniture and equipments can be added to this basic list at any time as and when required. Bureau of Indian Standards has come up with standards and specifications for various items of furniture built of wood and steel which need to be followed by the librarian. It was published as

IS : 1829 (Part-I) – 1961

The standards as mentioned above are unquestionably outdated; they need to be updated to keep up with the changing education system and information scenario.

In the present electronic information environment the university library system need to be equipped with more number of computers and communication links. The computer systems are necessary for library staff for house- keeping operations, and for library users for Internet access and information retrieval.

It has been recommended that any proposals for construction of new library buildings, fittings and furniture, or for adaptation of existing building, o r for extension of a building for library purposes, should be examined and approved by the Library Expert Committee constituted by the university.

7. LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES

All the activities of university libraries revolve round the concept of services to users. The university libraries are established to provide various services to students, research scholars, faculty and others. If the university library could be defined as the heart of the institution it serves, the library and information services can conveniently be described as the heart of the library.

Although the nature and efficiency of services provided vary from one university library to another, yet traditionally they have all been offering the following to their clientele:

Circulation / lending services
Reference services
Current awareness services

At the same time, university libraries, perhaps for lack of adequate funds and professional manpower, cannot provide the whole range of intensive information services offered by the special libraries/ information centres. However, with the coming of computers and their application in house keeping operations university libraries are in a position to offer a wide variety of services over a wide range of areas. Of late, the professional manpower of university libraries is developing new skills and competence considered necessary to provide a range of computer-based services.

The services (traditional and new) offered by university libraries include the following:

Circulation services and Interlibrary loan
User education and information literacy
Literature / Information search
Circulation of lists of new additions
Display services
Reference service
Referral service
Current Awareness Service
Selective Dissemination of Information
Indexing and abstracting services
Reprographic services
Maintenance of newspaper clippings
Internet access
Access to e-journals

It is through these library and information services that the university libraries can ensure the effective use of their information resources. This is what reflects the suggestions of the UGC (UK) Committee that “each university library should do all that it can to ensure that its resources are fully known”. On the other hand, the UGC (India) Library Committee went a step further and suggested that in a university library there should be a documentation section and a reference section charged with the responsibility of providing various services to teachers, research workers and students.

7.1. Resource Sharing and Consortia

With the emerging electronic information environment, the library users are changing and they are becoming more demanding and IT savvy. As a result university libraries are also changing from stand-alone entities to networks, and their services moving from document-based to information-based. The university libraries are now ready to share their resources with users of other libraries as well. It provides a wider access to information resources and limitation of poor document collection is overcome through this technique. Libraries have formed networks and consortia to share even the human and electronic resources to satisfy users’ expectations.

In India also some of the academic libraries have formed consortia. Few examples are given below:

INDEST
FORSA
UGC-INFONET
CSIR E-CONSORTIA
IIM CONSORTIA

Of these UGC-INFONET was an ambitious project of the UGC to cover all the universities in India. It has covered about 200 university libraries so far when the project was closed on 31 March 2012 and has since been replaced with another project called UGC-INFONET 2.0.

8. IMPACT OF IT ON UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

In this information age, India is evolving into an Information Society where information and knowledge have been recognized as capital. In this changing scenario of 21st century, one who is able to possess information and knowledge leads the path of success. A huge and large variety of information has been made available through Internet in the form of databases, multimedia, displays, etc. To keep up with the times, many educational and research institutions around the globe have been engaged in creating their own homepages to describe academic activities and programmes as a part of their mission and vision.

These and other changes have been necessitating the academic libraries to change their functioning and services to keep pace with the changing times. During the last twenty years or so, this change has been appreciable in the university libraries, particularly with the support of INFLIBNET, an Inter University Centre of UGC. The university libraries have made steady progress in the application of IT in their house-keeping and information retrieval activities. Recently, the application of Information and Communication Technology in libraries has also been recommended by the Working Group of Libraries set up by the National Knowledge Commission.

In order to provide efficient and effective information to their users, university libraries are building up their information resources and other infrastructure. They can easily share their resources and increase utilization of information not only in India but all over the world by linking their webpages and resources with other websites.

As a result of these developments, university libraries shall have the following functions:

To provide Internet facility to all users to access global information in their specific disciplines.
To create and maintain library websites.
To maintain OPAC to provide access to its collection to its users through campus networks as well as to the users world wide.
To take part in establishing e-journal consortia to share journal resources through UGC-Infonet.
To provide access to wide variety of information resources including reference sources, indexes, full- text articles, etc.
To build specific electronic collections of the library with CD-ROM collections and in-hose databases.
To promote the use of Information Technology, and speed up the information retrieval.
To take up digitization projects to preserve the manuscripts and other rare documents.

8.1. Changing Roles of Librarians

The computerization process has helped significantly to improve the quality of library and information services in university libraries thereby benefitting the users. The librarians need to work as Drake said, “with faculty in the classroom to inform students about the library’s electronic resources, how to access them, and how to use them. Faculty / librarian collaborations deliver great dividends to librarians and library users”. According to a study, quoted by Drake, many see the future of the library transforming into “a more electronic hub offering a variety of services to support campus needs for research, teaching, and learning”.

There has been a positive change in the attitude of the librarians and library profession toward the changing information needs of the user community. University libraries will be working in a challenging environment for years to come because slow economic growth is not likely to increase funds for libraries to support their services. They have to demonstrate the library value to teaching, learning and research activities. Librarians have to expand the use of social networking tools and mobile devices as new generation students rely on them, and thus transforming the university libraries into gateways of information and knowledge for future generations.

9. SUMMARY

In this Module, the objectives of university libraries in support of university education have been discussed. The fundamental function of university library is to serve as a dynamic instrument of education, and how with the application of information technology the functions of the university libraries are also undergoing a change to keep up with the changing information environment. It describes the backbone of the university libraries in the variety of information services they offer to their clientele. For this purpose libraries have to build adequate information resources, physical resources such as building, furniture and other equipments required to serve the users better. Takes into account the sources of finance needed to employ sufficient manpower to serve the faculty and students as per their information requirements. To achieve their objectives and functions the university libraries now are participating in various networks and consortia through which the ambit of resources and services has been made much wider.

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