21st century libraries can help fight poverty: Vice-President Ansari

From a Correspondent

TEZPUR, October 26: “We are living in the information age. This implies that the main sector of economic productivity is changing from agriculture and manufacturing to creation and processing of information and knowledge,” said Vice-President of India, Hamid Ansari after lighting the lamp to iugurate the tiol Convention on Knowledge, Library and Information Networking on Wednesday at the Kalaguru Bishnuprasad Rabha Auditorium in Tezpur University. Attending the iugural ceremony as the chief guest, the Vice-President further opined that new business infrastructure, health care, academic research, economic development and social interaction had sprung from the arrival of networking, data storage, new innovative software and microprocessors, providing for direct access to information, elimiting the intermediaries and gaining on space and time. He said that libraries of the 21st century can help fight poverty and rrow the gap between rich and poor

The three-day long CLIN-2016 has been organized by DELNET and supported by Tezpur University. Vice Chancellor of Tezpur University, Prof. Mihir Kanti Chowdhury, earlier welcomed the distinguished gathering.  The tiol convention was iugurated by the Vice-President Hamid Ansari with a motive to equip the latest technology in the field of education and to facilitate the students to a large extent on knowledge, library and information networking.

Tezpur University, in collaboration with DELNET-Developing Library Network, New Delhi, has organized the tiol convention. DELNET is a major resource sharing library network connecting more than 5,600 libraries in India and eight other countries. CLIN-2016 will discuss a large number of latest issues under the theme ‘Smart Libraries and Inspired Librarians: Maging New Technologies, Digital Content and Service’.

On the gracious occasion, a number of eminent persolities were present like Governor of Assam, Banwarilal Purohit,  Dr HK Kaul, Director, DELNET, New Delhi and Tezpur MP, RP Sharma, State Irrigation Minister Ranjit Dutta, and  Sangita Kaul, Mager of DELNET.

The Chancellor of the university and Governor of Assam, Banwarilal Purohit in his speech said, “It is practically momentous to change the present era with technology by war foot measure. Llibrary always played a very important role in the our lives and we should mark the path laid by Srimanta Sankardev for uplifting our mental strength to discover many more resources available in this holy land. Technology is always counted as a blessing for human beings and we should properly utilize the privilege.”

Director of DELNET, Dr H K   Kaul added on the occasion, “The tiol convention is focusing on numbers of issues in connection with the development of smart libraries and inspiring Librarians. The landscape of ‘libraries’ has undergone a major shift in the last three decades. From the traditiol libraries to computerized collections and mobile libraries; from local content access to the instant global access; from manual check-ins/check-outs to barcode/RFID, the libraries need to get transformed into centres of unlimited collections, connections and collaborations.”