Friday, November 5, 2010

Libraries for economic development

Certainly, it is indisputable how information plays a critical role in improving economies of nations. Information by its nature is a commodity relevant in the knowledge economy. The significance of information in helping decision makers in mapping strategies for the survival of economies is imperative.

In view of the above it become important for economies to support libraries and continue oversees their survival in times of hardships. History has revealed that support awarded to libraries has been dwindling over time due to a number of reasons, among them poorly performing economies, lack of funds and issues relating to priorities as determined by mother body. Budget cuts for libraries, especially national and public libraries have detrimental reparations to the services offered by the library. The information role played by libraries need to be supported at every level. That is the library functions should be espoused by the funding body be it a government agency, department or private company. The effectiveness of a library in an economy is determined by the collection it house, thus more efforts should be done to evaluate the library collection and the user requirements to enable the information function to be played effectively. Probably the emerging of open access would improve the role of information in improving the economic standpoint of a country.

The library is an interactive institution that, besides holding a collection, should offer conference and training facilities to provide a platform for discussions and further researching areas that require critical attention such as policy implementation and industry productivity. At national level economies may fail to perform to expectations because the industrialists lack information - information on standards, information on processes, information on specifications and information on human capital management. The knowledge economy survives depends on the availability of current information to allow decisive decision making. In knowledge economy organisations are encouraged to have libraries that facilitate information collection handling, collection, management and dissemination as well as archiving. This practice is known as knowledge management.

The consumers of information in organisation are the human capital that performs functions that changes the company’s fortunes through their input in production. If the human capital is starved of information the productivity of the company is likely to be drastically affected. Generally the collection of information is the mandate of the librarian in consultation with the management and through that exercise plans are changed into information and later into production after consumption. The collection development function played by the librarian is more of transforming the company expectations into information so that the employees would read and improve performance in their roles. Economic development is achieved with information. One in many times corporations has failed to achieve economic development because they lack information.

The most current information is available in journals that provide research information in a wide range of discipline. Information to be useful for national-economic development should be current and research based. Libraries are critical for economic development as they play an information function. Information is easily transformed to action and that is when the benefit is realised. The support given to libraries should be enough to play the information role effectively if libraries are to remain critical in economic growth. Libraries are relevant in economic growth and the community should start to recognise their role in information dissemination. Due to the fact that libraries have circulation functions that allow equal access to the collection, human capital should make optimum use of the collection to foster economic growth.

The role played by libraries in economic development is a crucial one. The information economy or knowledge economic thrives on the availability of information to prosper and achieve economic targets.



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