Education and training have become central to the process of change in the society. The entire world has been witness to the rapid transformation taking place in the social, political and economic fabric across the Globe.
The fast changing principles and methods of learning system in Universities and colleges are major contributors in bringing about the change in the perception of the students.
As Information and Technology are the most buzzing keyword in the education system it calls for re-structuring, redefining and rethinking the whole learning and teaching paradigm.
In this context Libraries that are referred to as an archive zone of knowledge and information has a prominent role to play. Higher Education is not about achieving high end knowledge through the classroom lectures limited by the text-book materials.
Course study is open to unlimited information and knowledge on the subject via different sources. Education programmes in Higher Education have now become multi-disciplined run on a more student centric approach.
When Universities and colleges overhaul their course structure and syllabus they are compelled to re-stack their libraries with the latest and the old research papers, books and journals beyond the course demand.
Change in academy itself has a magnified affect on the library of a University, which is the most integral part of a campus. Thus it becomes mandatory or rather unavoidable on the part of the librarians to re-organize the learning set-up in the libraries.
Educational technology is being improvised upon everyday to match the pace of the changing academic syllabus. Libraries are no more bound by only course related materials it rather is the source of much information for better learning.
In most of the Universities, students and faculty fail to utilize effectively the library resources for their learning and instruction work, reducing it to a status of a Reserve Room that comes only to the use of the undergraduates.
This old tradition has however changed with the renewed education pattern and demand of more Research and Development (R&D) in every sector.
Research and Libraries go hand in hand in India, where lack of proper Information and Communication technologies (ICT) has restricted easy access of all possible data everywhere and every time.
India is still rich in recording and preserving most of its confidential and informative data in hard copy files. Most of our research papers have their sources in the ancient records maintained by libraries and later explored and studied by students.
This research oriented study mechanism in the country has been a driving factor for the Universities to keep their libraries updated and most resourceful.
Manav Rachna Educational Institute (MREI) has maintained its knowledge asset in an organized manner as it believes in encouraging its students to delve into greater Research and participate in preparing Developing new assets for the University, which indeed lays the foundation for a good output.
Presently, MREI has 11 well stocked libraries with over 1,50,000 volumes of Text/ Reference/ Hand Books. These libraries subscribe more than 30,000 National/ International Journals and have also large number of e-resources in the form of DVDs and CDs apart from Reports/Thesis/ Dissertations.
A collection of more than one lakh documents in print and electronic format is available creating a balance between the print and digital information collection, equipped with online database and technological applications including e-books, audio books, ejournals and i-pads.
In order to match the fast growing technology, most of the library operations remain fully automated to make it manageable for the thousands of readers in the campus.
The library infrastructure in Manav Rachna, offers an appropriate balance to the whole process of learning as it allows students utmost privacy and silence to work on their assignments in its large spaced out libraries, divided into corridors of books meticulously arranged.
Hundreds of Corridors lined with books in different racks are available with enough knowledge materials for the students of Manav Rachna, thereby encouraging students to locate their own interest and dig out useful information.
At this point in time, libraries are more suitable and responsive to the learning purpose of the students. It is not merely treated as a Reserve Room but plays a vital role in bridging the gap between the classroom summarized training and an intrinsic Research based study.
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