Internet use in university libraries of Pakistan
| Published date | 01 April 2000 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520010330364 |
| Pages | 154-160 |
| Date | 01 April 2000 |
| Author | Hamid Saeed,Muhammad Asghar,Muhammad Anwar,Muhammad Ramzan |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Internet use in
university libraries of
Pakistan
Hamid Saeed
Muhammad Asghar
Muhammad Anwar and
Muhammad Ramzan
Introduction
Universities in Pakistan can be categorised
into general and professional universities.
There are 14 in the general category, while
the professional category includes 12
engineering institutions, four agricultural,
three medical, and one each in management
sciences and distance learning. The general
universities, with the exception of Quaid-i-
Azam, which is a teaching institution, are
both teaching and affiliated institutions.
Through the system of affiliation, higher
education is controlled by the universities
while at the same time providing for a large
portion of the population by means of a
network of degree colleges, spread throughout
the country, which serve as agents of the
universities. These colleges are at
undergraduate degree level (Virk, 1998).
There are 140 libraries in the universities and
their affiliated institutions (excluding
colleges), with 452 service points and 3.9
million volumes, or more than a fifth of all the
books in Pakistani libraries (Ministry of
Education, 1998).
Computers have been an integral part of
research and academe for a while, and with
the increase in processing power and
availability of software, they have also become
indispensable tools for business (Abdullah,
1996). The Internet has provided a new
dimension to the information industry and
has emerged as the core of the information
infrastructure. Today no one really knows
how vast it is; all that can be estimated is its
growth rate and its impact on society.
No other medium can match the speed,
efficiency, spontaneity, global reach,
interactivity and cost reductions afforded by
the Net. Computer communications and
information access technologies are effecting
revolutionary changes in the way information
is stored, retrieved and disseminated. These
technologies have considerable impact on
library and information centres.
User applications on the Internet cover a
wide range of subject areas. The avenues for
exploitation of the Internet by Library and
Information Centres (LIC) are unlimited. It
provides access to a variety of information
resources: bibliographic and full-text
databases, online journals, tables of contents,
The authors
Hamid Saeed is a Research Scholar at the School of
Applied Science, Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore.
Muhammad Asghar is the Director of the American
Centre, Lahore, Pakistan.
Muhammad Anwar is a Library Manager at the Small
and Medium Enterprise Development Authority, Ministry
of Industries and Production, Lahore, Pakistan.
Muhammad Ramzan is the Head Librarian at Lahore
University of Management Sciences, Pakistan.
Keywords
University libraries, Information technology, Internet,
Pakistan
Abstract
The study examines the status and use of the Internet in
university libraries of Pakistan. A questionnaire was
distributed among the university libraries including the
degree granting institutions. The data derived from this
study indicated that half the university libraries in
Pakistan have access to the Internet and it has become an
essential part of library services. The Internet is also being
heavily used for performing various library functions such
as reference work, classification and cataloguing,
document delivery service, subscription to online journals,
etc. The study also discusses the problems that are
preventing wider use of the Internet in the higher
educational institutions of Pakistan.
Electronic access
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
http://www.emerald-library.com
Received November 1999
Accepted December 1999
154
Online Information Review
Volume 24 .Number 2 .2000 .pp. 154±160
#MCB University Press .ISSN 1468-4527
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