Information Resources-Definition

When the human society entered in a world named as information technology era, the library science discipline started experiencing the result of information revolution and the difficulties of finding information due to information explosion and information overload. When the searching of information become difficult due to the exponential growth of information quantitatively and qualitatively, the library and information science professionals started thinking the ways and means  to organize the  information with the help of information technology. 

The term Information sources and information resources have been used synonymously in various literature (Gopinath 1984; Rajagobalan 1986; Krishankumar 1984; Seetharama 1985 ) of Library and Information science since early 1970s. In his book ‘Information sources in science and technology’  Parker used the term ‘information sources’ and  categorized  information sources into four types as people, Organisations, the literature and the Information services (Parker 1975). The same concept was followed by Gothard and he used the term ‘Information resources’ instead of ‘sources’ in his book ‘Information resources guide-Britain’ (compiled and edited). The library collections of various institutions were considered as the resources of their institutions. (Gothard  1975)

Though both the terms are used interchangeably there is a difference between these two terms. A particular information material is regarded as a ‘source’ of information for an individual when it would fulfill the information need of a particular user while all the materials in a library is  treated as resources.

 It was identified that the term ‘resource’ was more appropriate than ‘source’ in the modern society in which information is treated as a resource.  The term has not yet been included in the standard dictionaries and glossaries of the discipline in spite of the fact that it has been in use since 1970s.

The term resources are more suitable for present day library for following reasons.

           ·         The transformation of defining the concepts of information from traditional approach which regards information as both input and output of research and development to economic approach which views information as a fundamental energy that affects all community pave the way to consider all the recorded information as resources.

          ·         The present day libraries are no longer to be a store house of knowledge, limited to only particular members of the society, and books were meant for preservation. It has grown from one library of a community to many libraries of different kinds to serve different types of users and is regarded as service institution aiming the users to make the most effective use of the resources and services of the library by satisfying the first law of library science ‘ books are for use’ .

           ·         The present day libraries are considered as resource centre for their parent institution and categorization as academic libraries, public libraries, special libraries  according to the nature and the purpose of the parent institution make libraries to have only suitable materials for their users by satisfying the third law of library science ‘every book its reader’.  All materials of the particular library will be treated as resources and inactive materials will no longer be in the shelves.