1 Do you remember when you were given electronic services at the library for the first time? How many years ago was it?
2 Has the situation changed a lot ?
3 What is the list of computer services that students can have at Sumy state university library? Are students satisfied with them?
4 Is it easier to find the information you need just staying at home with your computer attached to the Internet?
5 Read the text about Electronic libraries.
Electronic Libraries
Prompt and efficient provision of documents or information is the most important function of the library. Librarians have worked for a long time towards performing this function more effectively and satisfactory in the service of users.
Recent developments in information technology, which could be defined as a sophisticated technology related to the production, transfer, processing, and presentation of information based on a combination of computer and telecommunications technologies, opened a new way for librarianship. Save for some small libraries, it is difficult now to find one not equipped with a computer. The computer has come to be used for almost all tasks carried out in the library: acquisition, cataloguing, searching, circulation and for reference services.
Currently with the development of computer technology, there have also been the development of communications technology and the construction of extensive communication networks. The library community has been working to exploit this technology as well. As a result, library networks, large and small, have been built in many parts of the world. At present, many libraries, having completed the first phase of computerization and networking, are trying to make the systems more intelligent and easier to access and to make use of extensive information resources distributed at many places. The libraries resulting from these efforts are sometimes called electronic libraries.
By the term “electronic library”, however, different people mean different things. Besides the problem of the definition, the distinction between the electronic library and certain other concepts is not clear. In fact, there have been a variety of approaches to the electronic library:
- library automation and networking
- electronic publishing
- computer networks
- hypermedia systems
- more intelligent systems
Actual systems usually adopt some combinations of these approaches.
1 Answer the questions:
a) What is the main function of any library?
b) What new technologies have come to librarianship?
c) What tasks are performed by computers at the library?
d) Why is it so difficult to define what electronic library is?
e) What is your personal concept of the electronic library?
2 Complete the sentences:
a) The computer has come to be used for almost . . . . . . . . . .
b) Library networks have been built . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
c) By the term “electronic library” different people . . . . . . . .
d) In fact, there have been a variety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3 Give some practical advice to electronic libraries users from your own experience.