Library Management Practices in the Libraries of Pakistan

Abstract

Library and information science has been at an infant stage in Pakistan, primarily in resource management, description, discovery, and access. The reasons are many, including the lack of interest and use of modern tools, techniques, and best practices by librarians in Pakistan. Finding a solution to these challenges requires a comprehensive study that identifies the current state of libraries in Pakistan. This paper fills this gap in the literature by reviewing the relevant literature published between 2015 and 2021 and selected through a rigorous search and selection methodology. It also analyzes the websites of 82 libraries in Pakistan through a theoretical framework based on various aspects. The findings of this study include: Libraries in Pakistan need a transition from traditional and limited solutions to more advanced information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled, user-friendly, and state-of-the-art systems to produce dynamic, consumable, and sharable knowledge space. They must adopt social semantic cataloging to bring all the stakeholders on a single platform. A libraries consortium should be developed to link users to local, multilingual, and multicultural collections for improved knowledge production, recording, sharing, acquisition, and dissemination. These findings benefit Pakistani libraries, librarians, information science professionals, and researchers in other developing countries. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind providing insights into the current state of libraries in Pakistan through the study of their websites using a rigorous theoretical framework and in the light of the latest relevant literature.