Corporate culture in libraries and information centers to promote “knowledge‐based business” in IT era

Abstract

PurposeThe phrase, “corporate culture”, refers to a company's values, beliefs, business principles, traditions, ways of operating, and internal work environment. In the perspective of corporate culture, the paper attempts to trace the changes in some libraries round the world.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides a conjectural approach to corporate culture and how the same could be applied to contemporary libraries and information centers and to show how the five laws of Library Science coupled with the evolution of IT have not only made the library services more competitive, but also profoundly influenced the ethics of twenty‐first century librarianship.FindingsThe paper finds that contemporary libraries will have to adapt corporate culture to promote knowledge‐based business so as to make their services customer‐friendly.Originality/valueThe paper portrays the different aspects of corporate culture and cites the contributions of well‐known authors on “organization culture”.