Syed Rahmat Ullah Shah

Role of Information Officer: Past, Present, and Future of Librarianship Syed Rahmat Ullah Shah

This book was submitted to Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya, KL, Malaysia as degree requirement in International Masters in Information Management (IMIM). It covers different roles of Librarian whose role evolved from a documentation officer to the Information Officer of the present age. There is a drastic change in his professional role and high expectations since the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), particularly of internet in the late nineteenth century. Future role of Librarian is beyond the limitations of borders and other restrictions of duty timings, duty charts, and many others. Emerging concepts of Wikis, Library 2.0, and Don Tapscott's ideas of open enterprises look like initial steps for future role settings of a librarian. Presence of highly efficient search engines equipped with enormous information resources on a desktop screen looks like defining librarian role as information find engine. End users of internet have wide variety of search engines but they lack finding proper information at proper time for proper use. There seems space for information officer to perform his future information role.