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Voices of the new library professionals
Edited by David McMenemy
Introduction
The library is a service-oriented institution and an indispensable part of society, which helps to inculcate social virtues, responsibilities and duties among readers. Thus, librarianship is a service-oriented and noble profession, which deals with the dissemination of knowledge. [11] Sonal (2002) has stated that librarianship is subject to the general laws of social development, of economic and cultural progress. It is an exalted profession, which enhances and broadens vision, increases the sphere of knowledge and the depth of friendship amongst human beings.
With the emergence of the digital era, human society is undergoing revolutionary changes. The library as a social institution and librarianship as a service-oriented profession are now at the focal point of rapid social, cultural and technological changes. [10] Rubin (2000) has assumed that rapid change has not been an aspect that librarianship has generally had to deal with; the field has remained stable for many years. Since the late nineteenth century, whatever changes have occurred have been slow and evolutionary, not revolutionary, and the role of the librarian has remained relatively constant for more than a 100 years. If changes have occurred, they have been incremental. According to him in many ways, the slowness of change in librarianship has been good. It has created a solid historical identity and important patterns for its actions and goals.
Research methodology
Keeping in view the evolutionary changes in the past and revolutionary changes at present, this study aims to review the different aspects of library and librarianship in the past and at present for the better understanding of future predictions. This research is based on a literature search, website visits, personal communication with related experts and interviews of future librarians. A purposive sample of 20 final semester students from the Department of Library and Information Science, University of the Punjab was chosen. The survey was based upon eight questions about the future of different aspects of librarianship i.e. future form of libraries, role of librarians, types of users and services, etc. The next section will review the different aspects of the librarianship in the past and then present. The later section will analyze the data collected through interview, personal communication with experts and the...