Empowering the field of Librarianship as a key role in Preserving Indispensable Information
Keynote address delivered by Mr. W. J. Jeyaraj, Senior Assistant Librarian, Eastern University, Sri Lanka, at the International “Empowerment Program”, conducted by the Department of Library Information Science, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu, India. 17–18 February 2017.
The 21st century has become an era bombarded with technological advancements and innovations. This upsurge in technological devices has now provisioned users with limitless access to one another, through the web. With this boundless access came the power to share self-generated text, audio, and video content with other users around the world. Though on one hand, this is a positive stride towards the promotion of freedom of speech and information sharing, it has also brought about a dire need and adjacent concerns in how all this information can be maintained and managed effectively.
With tons of information being generated at a vast rate, the role of librarians and library staff has become all the more important when compared to earlier times when the maintenance and preservation of tangible resources were the only concerns. Hence, this article elucidates the types of information that have come into perspective due to technological advancements, the extraction and identification process of information that is deemed to be solely useful and worthy of being preserved, the disaster management techniques in safeguarding information, and the dispersal of awareness along the library network hierarchy.
1 Types of information within the perspective of technological advancements
Initially, let us skim through the ways in which information was preserved during ancient times.
1.1 Evolution of information and communication methods
Communication and thought-expression were born in the form of paintings, artworks, carvings, incised tablets, and bones, shells or scraped rocks. With little to no evidence of established language or specific speech communication methods, the early man used their creativity and artistry to express themselves as well as communicate information to one another. Such existing legacies can mostly be found in the form of cave drawings and carved tablets such as the Paleolithic cave paintings in Alampadi in Tamilnadu, Bhimbetka in Bhopal, Odisha and Ajantha cave paintings in India and Sigiriya cave paintings in Sri Lanka.
Proceeding this, picture-writing came into context. As the painting and drawings became more abstract, the early man began to see the possibility of using simple and small images that can be used to convey the same ideas that they were representing through paintings, carvings, and inscriptions. Communicating through picture-writing was a rather slow and tedious process as every word had to be individually expressed using a picture. Egyptian Hieroglyphics was a more advanced form of picture writing and is shown here below
However, picture-writing was the predecessor and originator for alphabet-based communication. The first ever modern alphabet was invented by the Phoenicians who were living in the presently known region of Syria. This alphabet was adopted by the Greeks and different versions of the alphabet were born as the Romans started improving it.
As the alphabet was born, people slowly evolved into the phase where they began attaching sounds to the letters or symbols in the alphabet, which was known as ‘Cuneiform’ and was introduced in Mesopotamia. Since back then they did not have paper, the ancient Mesopotamians wrote on clay tablets. Such clay tablet writings were mainly written to establish important legal and commercial constitutions.
With the advancements and evolution of such communication methods, the ancient scholars were concerned about how they could preserve all this information. And that is when they started constructing special devices and buildings where they could store these items. The temples are one such example where valuable instructions, writings, and artifacts were stored in ancient times. These can be viewed as the core idea from where libraries were thought out to be necessary for the preservation of history and the maintenance of documentation.
1.2 Types of information viewed on the basis of technology
In a time when information has obtained a broad spectrum of forms and definitions, we encounter not only the classification of hard and soft information, literally meaning the tangible book-based and digitized information sources respectively, but we also come across the need to look at the various classes of digitized information.
Beyond the conventional documents, text files, audio, and databases, computer-generated or hosted information is now being classified into further forms such as Free or raw text (such as Wikipedia articles), Video materials (Youtube content), Knowledge bases (Freebase, NELL(Never-ending Language Learner), DBpedia), Knowledge graphs (Google Knowledge Vault), etc.
With such a massive collection of omni-various forms in which information exists, there is a dire need for information professionals such as librarians, to transition from conventional information storage methodologies, to cater to each and every form of information that may serve the libraries reader community. In addition, since each of these storage methods has its own dictum on how they need to be preserved and carried through time, we need to further analyze the capabilities that we, as librarians, need to have to provide such indispensable information to the present and future readers.
2 Identification and extraction of information worthy of being preserved
In the preceding section, we were able to observe different forms and types of digitized information and the need to preserve them in their individuality. However, not all the information can be counted as worthy resources that need to be preserved. Though all of the information resources, despite being true or false, or considered as a form of information, their importance in the academic field, and more specifically, the university department-related coursework, may vastly contradict.
Let us evaluate the academic construct of a university. The most common fields of courses conducted within universities pertain thto e fields of Medicine, Engineering, Computer Science, Management, Arts, Languages. Whereas some other universities are specialized in providing sports, architecture, fashion, tourism, etc. based courses. In such cases, the university libraries need to properly identify the curriculum handled by their university’s departments and work solely on catering such course-related resources.
On the other hand, deep consideration needs to be given to the form of information that needs to be provisioned within the library. Nowadays, generations consider the mandatory inclusion of all forms of digital devices and platforms in libraries. However, this is not absolutely necessary if those digital devices fail to provide academic content. Hence, picking and choosing the forms of digital devices that need to be made available in libraries is crucial in serving a library’s intended goal.
Modern libraries overseas are now transitioning more towards digital data and access to the web as their main service. This will be a fool-proof plan considering the purpose of attracting new users, especially the present generation of readers. But there needs to be a balance to accommodating full-on automation of information resources and preserving the traditional hard-cover resources. Striking this balance can be the difference between being a successful library network that eventfully serves its reader community and a tech-savvy building that hosts information in a mixture of plausible distraction.
Therefore, libraries need to evaluate their options in taking safety measures against any threat that may come along in preserving both tangible and digitized information.
3 Disaster management techniques in safeguarding information
When it comes to information, it needs to be considered as an invaluable, irrevokable resource, once lost, can never be retained if not well protected. This is the dictum that calls for disaster management or risk management techniques to be ordered in place. Risk management measures need to be taken during each and every stage of resource acquisition, classification, cataloging, browsing, and lending.
The three main steps in risk management are the identification of the risks, assessing the safety measures of the building and prioritizing the possible risks based on their level of threat and aftereffect. Applying the same concept to library information preservation, all types of disasters and risks to the library collections need to be identified. If natural disasters are thought out to be devastating, then the frequently occurring disasters in that locale need to be evaluated. Then, their potential damage and threat to the library collections can be identified, providing a way to pre-plan the steps needed to be taken.
Following the identification of potential risks to library resources, the safety measures that are already available and employed in the library need to be thoroughly evaluated to verify if they are sufficient to withstand the occurrence of a disaster and safeguard the resources. In the case of a need for additional safety measures, libraries need to first prioritize the different types of risks in the order of their level of threat to the resources as there may be further constraints such as space limitations, insufficient technology, financial constraints such as the lack of available budget, etc. If the library management chooses to randomly take the safety measures against any risks that they identify, high priority risks may not be covered and may leave irreversible aftermath if the risk is actually met. Hence, prioritizing all the identified risks in the order of their level of threat posed to the library is crucial.
The above steps mainly elucidate the pre-processes of risk management, that is, the prevention before a disaster or risk strikes the library’s resources. Moving forth, the library network needs to be well aware of the steps that need to be taken if the risk is ever met as well. This deals with the steps in reducing, containing and transferring the effects brought about as a result of the disaster. For example, in the case of a fire hazard, steps to minimize the fire or contain it within a constricted space so that it does not spread to other regions and damage all the resources, has to be implemented.
Finally, dealing with the debris of a disaster that could not be avoided or contained has to be a part of a library’s risk management infrastructure as well. Opting for a suitable insurance cover for the building, physical resources, collections, etc. can be considered as a suitable measure in the worst case scenario.
Considering the digitized resources of the library, a proper data backup plan has to be implemented. Though traditional external drive backups are an option, storing resources on a third-party cloud server will be a thorough backup plan considering the fact that a physical disaster cannot directly harm the data on a remote cloud as well as the fact that out-sourcing data maintenance and storage will reduce the hassle in maintaining internal resources, server space and effort.
4 Dispersal of awareness along the library network hierarchy
This section will be discussing the possible awareness flows that could happen through a library network. Awareness can be of various types. With library staff hailing from different backgrounds and specialties, providing awareness and enlightening the staff on different areas of the library can be a crucial task in operating smoothly within the network.
First, let us take a look at the four possible types of awareness that can take place within a library.
- Awareness about the library infrastructure and its services
- Awareness about the security conditions and status of possible threats
- Awareness about the reader community and satisfaction
- Awareness about modern library technological operations
The following subsections will discuss further the types of awareness that propagates within a library network.
4.1 Awareness about the library infrastructure and its services
This is basically the first and most vital type of awareness that needs to be propagated to every single person who joins a library network as a staff or a user. Educating on the library infrastructure and its services provides a way to understand how the library works, what are the services provided by the library, what are the rules and regulations that need to be upheld while using the services of the library, how can the library services be utilized to their full extent, etc. This awareness circulates in a top-down manner.
The librarian and the top administrative unit of the library hierarchy are responsible for making that the second level of library staff fully aware and knowledgeable about the library infrastructure. Since the second level of library staff are the ones who directly or more closely deal with the readers and their users, they will proceed further on with dispersing this information.
4.1 Awareness about the security conditions and status of possible threats
This is more of a fully connected awareness flow. Since security threats can come from several directions it networks an awareness and instruction flow from different levels of the library hierarchy.
If the security threat comes from a digital network point of view such a potential server downtime or a network hack, then the second level of library staff such as the network analysts or technical staff need to notify the Librarian in this regard. If the security threat is observed by the non-academic staff such as the security guard, in the form of an unidentified or unruly visitor to the library, the security guard can notify this to a second level staff member who will, in turn, report that to the librarian. The resulting instructions will then be transferred from the librarian to the security.
4.3 Awareness about the reader community and satisfaction
This is one of the important awareness flows that need to occur on a periodical basis within the library in order to analyze, evaluate and strategize the library services accordingly.
So, what basically propagates through his flow is the feedback that the reception or academic staff receive from the readers who visit the library to fulfill their information needs. The comments, suggestions, and complaints from the users need to be evaluated as the library strategizes or plans for the next quarter or year.
4.4 Awareness about modern library technological operations
For libraries striving to enter a modern era with advanced digitization and technological resources, the flow of awareness about library technological operations is vital. This can also be viewed as the process of educating library staff on how to utilize technology to efficiently carry out their day-to-day library service tasks.
This flow begins with either the librarian’s instructions for the inclusion of more technological advancement or the system analysts’ information about newly available technological systems that could enhance the performance of the library. Either way, in the case of a successful introduction or consideration of the possible implementation the rest of the staff and users will be educated or made aware of the technology.
Conclusion
This article serves as a reference to how information evolved from mere paintings to the alphabet to documented information forms and how this information can be preserved. In order to understand the need and techniques in preserving such indispensable information, we also discuss the types of information that have come into context due to the innovation of technology and. Most importantly, library resources need to be preserved anticipating the occurrence of disasters and potential risks. Hence, taking risk management measures to safeguard library resources was further elucidated as well. Finally, any risk or threat can be prevented by being well informed. This was explicated in the form of how and when awareness needs to be propagated and to whom it needs to be delivered in order to reach effective decisions.
