Digital Literacy skills is a column, educate librarians to address the issues on earlier basis.

1. February 9, 2021
Digital literacy skills in Pakistani option for librarians
By Abid Hussain
https://pakobserver.net/digital-literacy-skills-in-pakistani-option-for-librarians/
INFORMATION Communication Technologies (ICTs) brought enormous revolution
in our daily life. Individuals’ behaviour has wholly been changed in education, health,
agriculture, and industries, etc. Mobile phones, computers and the Internet have
trapped people and there is no exit chance in the coming decades. Traditional
political, economic and social lives of people in contemporary society become
nonadjustable. People are transforming their routine businesses from standard setup
to modern information technology.
Digital Literacy skills are computer, media, information and Internet literacy skills in
the modern digital environment. The ability to use information and communication
technologies to attain libraries’ goals with computer technology and Internet literacy
is called Digital Literacy Skills. The libraries are designed to preserve the
information, organize the information, and access the organized structure
information, accessed and retrieved with easy access. Libraries worldwide have
transformed their services over the Internet. Unfortunately, people are still using the
old traditional services in Pakistan and are not fully aware of Digital Literacy Skills.
In the era of Information Technology, sharing networks, retrieval and preservation of
information have become social, political and cultural survival for humanity

2. worldwide. Digital Literacy skills have become an essential tool for the general
masses and library administrations exclusively. In other words, the collection of
abilities, knowledge and personal characteristics via multiple communication
channels is considered as Digital literacy skills and learning these skills prepare the
library professionals for better knowledge sharing.
To recognize the sources and resources in the digital environment, Digital Literacy
skill helps the patrons to browse the quality research. To share the digital encoded
information and fulfil the users’ needs in a library, Librarians should be made digital
literate. Digital literacy skills could help them to stay abreast with the current
environment and provide the patrons with the best services in time of needs. The
librarians should fully be equipped with Digital Literacy Skills in order to search and
retrieve quality information for their users.
Librarians face numerous challenges and are less motivated to acquire the desirable
material for teachers, students and researchers. The authorities may help the librarians
to adopt a stable framework. They should be given the training to eradicate such gaps
in the digital environment. In the acquisition of Digital Literacy Skills, there are
several hindrances like lack of interest of librarians and poor-quality Internet. These
demotivating factors have a significant relationship to demographic characteristics
and should be addressed at the university level. Librarians in Pakistan have not been
educated in digital literacy skills for many reasons.
One such reason is the interest of concerned authorities and the role of library
associations. These obstacles should be addressed to enhance digital literacy skills.
There are five constructs of digital literacy skills essential for librarian’s and needs of
the day: Library literacy, computer literacy, information retrieval literacy, tools
literacy and research support literacy, librarians should be made cautious about these
skills. It has been found that digital literacy skills among Pakistani librarians are a bit
low and need proper attention to be improved. The university authorities should
prepare them for acquiring these skills through training programmes across the
country. Digital literacy skills in Pakistan would help the librarians to attain
organizational goals and will help them to enhance quality assurance services. The
Government of Pakistan may initiate some training programmes that help them to
educate their youth and prepare them for online digital businesses. In this connection,
the government should reserve meagre funds for educational institutions in order to
prepare our youth for online jobs. For Library professionals, Department should
revise the BS and Master level curriculum and will incorporate the topic related to
digital and literacy skills. All librarians should be granted training to attain such skills
that could help them augment performance. Moving to computer and laptop

3. technology with steady WiFi or fixed broadband connection will turn a library into a
partial digital literacy centre. Remember! Youth and libraries raise the countries,
ignoring them will create severe panic.
—The writer is working as Library Officer in Institute of Strategic Studies, a think-
think based in Islamabad.