Digital and Electronic Libraries: A way forward for a sustainable development in Nigeria

Abstract

In recent times, electronic and, digital libraries offer a huge range of multimedia services, (everything from movies, speeches, images and photos to sounds, text and beyond) in the information industry. The amounts of CD-ROMs and other digital sources found in the information technology are now accessible in digital and electronic libraries without limits. In building the next generation of digital libraries, multimedia and artificial intelligence will play several important roles, hence the advance in librarianship, which has given raise to the emerging profession of today digital librarian. The multimedia nature of digital libraries require digital librarians for the location of relevant information efficiently and effectively and disseminating it in a wide variety of formats of digital information system (DIS). The advent of digital libraries in this field has presents a good platforms of challenges and opportunities to the digital librarian. Digital librarians are those professionally trained Librarians who add values and make digital libraries truly useful and user friendly. In view of the foregoing, this chapter covers the meaning of digital information systems, components of a digital information system, an overview of electronic library, conceptual explanation of digital libraries, who are digital librarians?, need for a digital librarian in the era of electronic and digital libraries, the role of a digital librarian in the era of electronic and digital libraries, as well as competencies and skills of a digital librarian.