First V-Book In Library and Information Science

Shailendra Kumar. V-Book 2003 "European libraries in new millenium (a travelogue by a professional)". New Delhi :Softlink Asia Pvt. Ltd., 2003. 112p. 2 hypermedia CDs.

The advent of information technology (IT) has profoundly influenced libraries in general and library activities in particular. Some of our libraries have also started undergoing the change more or less the same way the libraries of the developed countries have undergone. Some of us are fortunate enough to see those changes with our own eyes. But, most of us are not that fortunate. But, everybody is interested to have at least a glimpse of the changes that IT has brought about in the domain of library and information. Here is a book that provides a rare opportunity to witness those changes in virtual reality.

Dr Shailendra Kumar had an opportunity to visit some libraries of Germany as a member of the team sent to that country by Max Müller Bhavan, New Delhi in the year 2003. Apart from the German libraries he also visited a few libraries of Great Britain . He not only took note of various aspects of the libraries but also captured them along with some of the vital activities through his powerful video camera . One can read about the libraries in the book and then see the library through multimedia enjoying the narration, colourful pictures and the animation. In the sphere of library science this is most probably the first V- book in India , may be in the world which have most extensively used hypertext and the multimedia facilities.

The book embraces four libraries of UK covering one school library, one college library, the British Library and the Bodleian Library, i.e. the library of the University of Oxford. Under the Pimlico School Library, the author describes the curricula of lower school, for the years 10 and 11, and of the sixth form apart from the description of the library. The British Library and the Bodleian Library have been discussed at greater length compared to other libraries. The British Library has been described covering among others the collection (not in terms of quantity); inter-library loan; admission requirements for academic researchers; postgraduates and undergraduates; admission process; online catalogue; reference desk for humanities; access to material; Internet access; facilities provided for disabled readers; maintenance, safely and security; and finally the public facilities. Bodleian Library has already completed 400 years of its active existence in 2002 . It has 163 km of shelving space to house six million books and, 29 reading rooms to seat around 2500 readers at a time. Apart from the missions and objectives of the Library, the important services, users’ responsibilities, regulations governing the library, electronic resources, library finance, etc. have been described.

The German libraries which the author had the opportunity to visit are Goethe-Institut Inter Nationes library; Bavarian State Library; Stuttgart Public Library; The Wurttemberg State Library; the Hochschulbibliothekszentrum, Public Library, Cologne; and the State and University Library, Hamburg. Salient features of each library have been described in about two – three pages along with coloured photographs which help a reader to a general idea about the German libraries, their functions, state of automation, and so on.
The author had the occasion to visit the Departments of Library and Information Science of the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences; University of Applied Sciences, Cologne ; and the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences . Going through the syllabus, one get an idea that they are not ahead of us excepting the fact that they are possibly laying greater emphasis on information technology, media technology and information economics.
One important feature of the book is that it has dealt exclusively with some technology-based activities of those libraries such as circulation system, OPAC, conveyor belt system, and compact-shelving system.

Considering the fact that this is the first book Softlink Asia Pvt. Ltd , the production has been of very high order. In fact, printing, paper and the quality of colour photographs are excellent as we see in this book are rarely seen in Indian LIS publications. A detailed alphabetical index at the end has enhanced the value of the book to a great extent.

V-book in the form of two CD-ROMs is the unique feature of this book. The video-recordings embedded in the CD-ROMs take one virtually to the real world of some of the European libraries for 80 minutes and show you bit by bit how the libraries look like, what they are doing and how they are doing.
The contents of the V-book does not figure in the textual part and references to the CD-ROMs from the textual part are also missing. Neither there is any mention of its price anywhere in the book.

Reviewed by Prof. B K Sen