SCIENCE & EDUCATION

VietNamNet Bridge - Unless academic libraries become proactive, visionary and innovative in the way they deliver services, hardly any students will be interested in exploring the valuable resources that libraries have to offer in light of the information explosion, according to Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, head of the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism's Library Department.

John Hickok, who is the Instruction/International Outreach Librarian from California State University Fullerton in the United States, highlighted the vital roles that libraries have at the academia.

According to Hickok, libraries serve as an e-resource gateway for a university and a vibrant centre for student collaboration, which train the rising generation to be ‘Information Literate'.

"However, most Vietnamese academic libraries are far from fulfilling either of those roles," Mai said

According to a report prepared by the Department of Higher Education under the Ministry of Education and Training in 2009, the network of academic libraries at universities and colleges generally failed to respond properly to students' research and academic needs.

There were more than 1,700 libraries in 369 universities and colleges nationwide. However, a large number of the libraries were out-of-date, had inadequate materials and resources, poor infrastructure, unqualified library staff and ‘closed' services, the report stated.

Source: VietNamNet