Online Resources Lure Even Offline Lovers

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: It's almost a one-stop shop.” Heard anyone talk like that about a library? Well, it’s time for a change and why shouldn’t libraries change when everything around us is.

So, there you are. The British Council Library has been like one for a year now and the response has been positive. The library, which is a part of the Knowledge and Learning Centre (KLC), offers a fine collection of books educational videos, home videos, periodicals and newspapers from the UK. What gives the library an extra edge is, of course, the fact that it has a wide range of online resources for use by the members. The resources include electronic journals and newspapers, online reference sources and many other learning resources. Members can use e-resources using the state of art computers.

And the services have got a good response, at least that is what one learns after speaking to officials at the library, as well as its members. The library in the Delhi (which was the first one to go the ‘e’ way), for example, has 9,800 members, 10 per cent more than before KLC was launched. As a spokesperson of the library explains, “The basic idea behind KLC is giving people a lot of quality information facilities at one place. Besides the periodicals, electronic journals and online reference sources we also have detailed information and prospectus of all the universities in the UK.

And, of course, no one is complaining. Like research student Pooja Bharadwaj, who plans to enroll herself as a member puts it: “I think it’s a great thing to have a library, which gives you a lot more than just books.” For a student the online facilities, the journals, the information on various universities is just what one wishes for, she adds. Another member explains it simply, “It’s great for a place to be single point of information.”