APPLICATION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES AND INFORMATION CENTRES(LICS) IN CHENNAI: A STUDY OF ITS IMPACT ON LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES(LIS)

Abstract

The ongoing Information Technology(IT) revolution has deeply affected almost all areas of our life and all aspects of humans activity. Libraries, Information and Documentation Centres(LIBIDOCS) are no exception to the impact of Information Technology. The application of IT in different types of libraries in India has gained sufficient momentum. The IT application tools are essential for providing efficient and cost effective library and information services to the user community in the present scenario. Review of literature reveals a number of studies conducted in the application of IT in LIBIDOCS in the recent years. This paper presents one such study which has been carried out by surveying the application of IT among academic LICS in and around Chennai. There are nearly 100 academic institutions at graduate, post graduate and research levels in various disciplines. Libraries of 45 institutions like universities and colleges have been covered in the survey to analyse the nature, extent and types of application of IT based services. It also studies the areas of IT application, collection development policy , manpower development and the attitude of staff towards IT application. Finally, it also analyses the reasons for poor use of IT if any, and concludes objectively that application of IT in university libraries would certainly bring about orderly operations in Library and Information Manager Environment (LIME) without much of human interventions.