A Professor of Library and Information Science, Emmanuel Adebayo, has urged students and educators to embrace digital information services to seek more knowledge.
Adebayo, Acting Dean, School of Library, Archival and Information Science, LASU, made the call while delivering the 101st Inaugural Lecture of Lagos State University (LASU), on Tuesday.
The lecture had the theme: “Invisible Users and the Regulations: Library Manager on a Stick Wicket”.
He said that digital libraries were the ultimate beauty and rhythm of information flow and the dream of information providers and seekers in the knowledge distribution network.
“Digital libraries can satisfy the information needs of users in all possible ways.
“With this, it will not be out of place to assert that invisible and absent users are actually present, they are indeed the real users, this is the offing of our profession.
“The gown should indeed have an impact on the town, we should carry our services to the town by making electronic library services in the town,” Adebayo said.
He added that the beauty of digital service was that millions of users could use the same resource at the same time at different locations across the globe.
“A practical illustration at LASU reveals that all our four campuses libraries and the 13 branch libraries, at full capacity, can accommodate about two thousand readers at a time.
“Government through TETFUND should support all institutions to embark on purposeful digilisation of all library resources by providing equipment and resources to individual institutions.
“More researchers have also agreed with the idea that virtual libraries can support distance learning in several ways,” Adebayo said.
He advised library staff to be friendly, operate as a team, embrace new technologies and take steps to attract alternative funding. (NAN)
