HOW BEST PRACTICES ENHANCE THE LIBRARY SERVICES

1. ENHANCING LIBRARY AND
INFORMATION SERVICES THROUGH
BEST PRACTICES
By
Dr. NINGAPPA.N.ARABAGONDA
ASSOCIATE LIBRARIAN
GOVT FIRST GRADE COLLEGE
BYADGI-581106

2. INTRODUCTION
 Globalization is playing major role in making today’s
students more focused and demanding. At the
same time it is introducing resource crunches and
concept of value for money even is education
sector. 21stcentury getting an admission in colleges
is a herculean task. The parents and students
identify the best colleges in terms of Quality,
Facilities, Library, Manpower and placement. In this
scenario only those LIS can excel and satisfy its
users which can develop best practices with the
available resources

3. QUICK LOOK AT CHANGES IN LIS
Libraries need to become an extension of the classroom:
Collaborative and interactive learning environments
Be the center of the intellectual community
Reinventing the Library--Technology as Catalyst
Libraries were predicted to be come obsolete with the advent of the
internet. Instead usage has gone up as libraries offer more technology and
services
The library is the only centralized location where new and emerging
information technologies can be combined with traditional knowledge
resources in a user-focused, service-rich environment that supports today’s
social and educational patterns of learning, teaching, and research
The goal of effective planning is to make the experience and services of
the library transparent to the user

4. ASK YOURSELF
Why do students enter the library?
What is the sequence of use of the services or
technology students require?
 How should service points be configured with respect to
anticipated types of inquiry and use patterns?
 Do we bring together library staff in a central
information commons, or should they remain with
specific collections or services?
 What configuration of services is most flexible?

5. LIC AS LEARNING LABORATORIES
A library must be built so that the placement of
services/activities can be changed as needed.
 Planning for libraries today should be premised on 24-hour
access, with critical services and technology provided and
located when and where they are needed.
 Electronic resources means that every student can look at the
book at the same time therefore being more collaborative.
 Must build group study rooms with good soundproofing.
 Now that information is available almost instantaneously
anywhere on campus, faculty expect their students to use their
time in the library thinking analytically, rather than simply
searching for information.

6. A PLACE FOR COMMUNITY, CONTEMPLATION
Libraries are "psychosocial"
 Still for education
 Also for socializing in an intellectual way.
 Students may like the new technologies but the favorite
place is still the reading room

7. THE PLANNING PROCESS
Ask:
 How should the “library,” and its services and its collections, serve the institution?
 What programs not in the library at present should be in the facility in the future?
 How does the library add value to the academic experience of the students and
faculty?
How is the library presently perceived, and how can it function as an interdependent
facility with other learning and teaching opportunities on a campus in the future?
 How much of the traditional library program must remain in a centralized facility?
 How does the library reflect the vision of the institution of which it is part?
 Libraries should be an integral part of campus.
 Anticipate learning patterns and the goals & culture of the campus.
 Involve the entire campus into the process of building a new library.
 The library planning shouldn't be only program driven but thinking about what you
might need to do in the future
 After the library is built, do a study to see how it works for them.
 Institutions today are asking for and receiving much greater accountability for the
use of their library space. They need to know how it enhances the institution’s
educational mission and at what cost.

8. FLEXIBILITY FOR THE FUTURE
Have the interior portions
reconfigurable to suit your new
needs.
Design should encourage
exploration in the search and
learning process.

9. IDENTIFICATION OF BEST PRACTICES
 Be dynamic and revisited periodically
 Be recognize diversity and cultural and historical
context
 Not lead to dominance of one specific view or
approach; and
 Promote quality of performance.

10. IMPLEMENTATION OF BEST PRACTICES:
 The implementation of best practices is really the
challengeable. There may be some genuine
limitations in the application of best practices, but
may are imaginary instead of finding solutions to
problems, sometimes our ‘professionalism’ may
lead us to final problems in every solution. The
implementation plans shall include Planning,
Resource Mobilization, Capacity Building,
Monitoring and Evaluation. Implementation
approach focuses more on performance than on
promises.

11. INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF BEST PRACTICES:
 Institutionalization is the process of making the
best practices an integral part of the institutions
functioning. It has been observed that many best
practices are institution specific and individual
managed where individual happens to be the leader
or Head of the institution.

12. INTERNALIZATION OF BEST PRACTICES:
 This refers to making things apart of one’s nature
by conscious learning and assimilation, making
excellence an integral part of one’s habit and
nature. Such internalization may also be looked
upon as making permanent the principle and
essence of the best practices as part of the
characteristic performance of an institution.

13. DISSEMINATION OF BEST PRACTICES
 It is not enough for the institutions to adopt best
practices, it is equally important for them to
disseminate these practices for wider application in
the system.

27. THANK YOU