University Libraries Hardcopies for How Long?

By: Prof. Dr. Younes Megdadi

University libraries are among the basic components of the educational and learning process in universities and institutes, which aim to provide learning resources to their members, including students, faculty members, and the local community. Therefore, we are witnessing in light of digital transformation and artificial intelligence is that publishing houses, scientific journals, international research centers, and others have stopped paper publishing because digitization has many advantages and benefits for the benefit of its beneficiaries.

However, despite these advantages, we do not find any radical change in the purchasing decisions and policies for books, references, paper periodicals, and even doctoral and master’s theses, which are accumulated in large quantities in universities, not to mention that they have become out of the reach of the students and faculty members who benefit from them due to the Internet, which stops us. Questioning the extent to which university and institute libraries need this large amount of paper distributed over large areas and in special buildings with conditions imposed by accreditation and quality assurance requirements, given our certainty that the patrons of these libraries do not exceed 5% of the university and institute members, not to mention their exorbitant operational costs on the one hand. And the digitization of education and scientific research, which has raised questions among the academic community, especially in light of the Internet and the open and diverse sources for students and faculty members in particular.

Hence, the academic community wonders about the extent of the necessity of paper libraries, which have become a repository of papers in the age of digitization and the Internet. This leads us to two main questions: How long will paper libraries continue to operate? Why the delay in switching to electronic libraries, despite their many advantages that are known to everyone, and they operate under subscriptions with local and international publishing houses and local and international magazines, subject to renewal and under certain conditions, all of which have become open via the Internet out of the belief that the era of paper has passed?

The space to benefit from electronic libraries is large and has many benefits, including the absence of the need for large buildings and spaces, which saves universities and institutes the costs of purchasing paper books and references, which will no longer be needed after a period of time due to their obsolescence and thus will become a burden and a large financial loss compared to electronic books and references, not to mention the ease of providing library services. For beneficiaries electronically for a nominal fee, in addition to that electronic libraries provide an opportunity for universities and institutes to develop and keep pace with scientific and cognitive development in terms of knowledge and research dissemination compared to what paper libraries provide. In addition to that, electronic libraries can get rid of the traditional thought in university education, which we referred to in a previous published article entitled Smart Universities.

Together, we look forward to thinking carefully about reconsidering the terms of accreditation for university libraries in order to advance our universities and institutes in light of what is happening in universities around us around the world and the real change we are witnessing that touches on the need of the university education sector and its facilities such as libraries for change and transformation towards modernity, and for this purpose it requires setting a future vision. Insightful in reconsidering the components of the educational and learning process inputs, represented by the terms of accreditation by moving towards completely electronic libraries and getting rid of paper completely in response to the requirements of the era of digitization, which has become an inevitable reality, and the evidence of this is the global trends we are witnessing towards distance education of all types.