Transforming Academic Librarians’ Skills and Competencies to Facilitate Millennial Learners Effectively

Abstract

The modern era we live in has been defined as an ‘era of knowledge’ and the society is defined as the ‘knowledge society’ and according to some arguments the ‘information society’, where information is the base for the knowledge creation. The drive of the knowledge society, in which the knowledge is the base for intellectual capital, has taken sharp bends making the social life complex and paving the way to emergence of new social identities. As members of this society librarians engage in knowledge transactions in social space, business space, citizen charters and in all aspects of environment related actions. The modern society also is driven towards different debatable discourses such as intellectual capital, openness of knowledge and open science, copyright and licensing systems of intellectual capital, open culture, cyberspace, digital living, technology adoption in societal activities which had created a subject area called informatics, unconventional science streams etc. In the industrial economy, physical capital (land, equipment, buildings) and financial capital were the primary factors of production and the sources of wealth. In the knowledge economy, knowledge or intellectual capital is the primary factor of production and the main source of wealth generation. The technological advancements as the main driver of the information society have been created strong impact over the all aspects of social living. The information sector as the main impact area of this transformation and competencies of librarians as its main stake holder is being seriously challenged. The situation requires critical insight into the competencies of academic librarians where higher education plays exceedingly important role in the knowledge society. Universities are the platforms where research based knowledge is generated, therefore impact of knowledge society over the universities as higher seats of learning is significant in shaping the economy, technology and social life. Surrounded by this fast growing landscape, new identities emerge in higher education sector with new functionalities and mandates where the academic librarianship also has been challenged to be converted into a new identity with newly defined set of skills and competencies. Among the competencies Intellectual Capital Assets of academic librarians need to be identified very clearly.