Training Librarians for 21st Century Repository Services: Emerging Trends

Abstract

[The final form of this paper was published in the journal Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology.] The paper reviewed the emerging roles of the 21st century librarians, charged with the responsibility to manage repository services across libraries in present-day information technology environment. Librarians need to be trained and empowered with requisite skills and knowledge needed for successful management of the ICT driven repository initiatives that the 21st century demands. Literature was reviewed on the roles and responsibilities of librarians, training needs and opportunities, career path and recruitment of librarians, and community support necessary for effective and efficient implementation and management of repository initiatives. This entails the ability to comprehend trends and change patterns which are essential for providing research focused and user-friendly models in open repository services that are based on thorough analytical understanding of the challenges of emerging trends. To achieve this requires the training and retraining of librarians to reposition them as information specialists in their career path. The role of the library as an integral part of its social environment is to educate the community about the existence of an open repository by building partnership with community-oriented research centres through seminars, workshops, symposium, training, and awareness programmes. The study recommends that librarians should strategize and collaborate with researchers to make open repository an essential research tool.