He was speaking at the inauguration of a workshop on ‘Quality Indicators and Best Practices for Academic Libraries’, organised by the Department of Library and Information Science, Punjabi University, today.

Prashar further added that declining budget for libraries was adversely affecting the quality of resources and services available to library users. He said that library professionals should update their skills and improve their competency level to live to the expectations of users.

Speaking on the occasion, Punjabi University Vice-Chancellor Jaspal Singh said that libraries should be second homes for information seekers. He added that Punjabi University has decided to preserve old manuscripts in its library and allocate it more funds in the next financial year to make it a model of excellence for other university libraries to follow.

He added that Internet could not replace library as library professionals were experts in finding relevant information for users and add value to information resources. They, however, must develop soft skills and professional competency to modernise their libraries and to satisfy library users, he said.

In his keynote address, the Deputy Director General of National Informatics Centre, M Moni, said that ICT must be used to spread education and support library outreach, particularly in the rural areas. He emphasised the need for opening more public libraries and developing them into rural information centres.

Kalpana Dasgupta, Library Advisor, National Knowledge Commission (NKC), said the NKC was designing a system to facilitate access to quality information at grassroot level. She said that a national commission for libraries has been proposed and the effort was on to put library and information services on the Concurrent List of the Constitution.