UNAIR NEWS – Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) Library held a seminar on “Strengthening Digital Libraries in Improving Library Services” on Thursday, October 6, 2022. The event, which was attended by UNAIR librarians at Dharmawangsa-B Campus, was a manifestation of UNAIR Library’s commitment to transformation in the digital era.

The Head of UNAIR Library, Suhernik SSos MSi, opened the seminar with a warm welcome. Then, it was continued with a presentation by Hendro Margono SSos MSc PhD, a lecturer in Information and Library Science FISIP UNAIR and Dr. Taufiq A Gani SKom MEngSC, the Head of Data and Information Center of Indonesian National Library.

Looking at Digital Library development

Technological disruption encourages changes in people’s perspectives on accessing information. One of them is related to the use of library services which are now turning to digital forms.

Taufiq said that nowadays, people, especially the millennial generation, prefer to read e-books rather than printed books because there is a quick reference feature that can make their work easier. Other changes also include reader preferences for the type and content of books, publishing methods, and use of library applications.

“Digital library services must transform its collection provision, including web archiving and e-resources. Now library materials are obtained through interoperability, so developing library collections does not have to be from physical books or e-books we have, but from interoperability how we get the metadata and know where the books are,” he said.

Taufiq believed it is a challenge for libraries to initiate new innovations and for the librarians as the manager. “Not only managing collections, librarians need to be able to manage knowledge and knowledge transfer activities,” said the lecturer of Syiah Kuala University.

Utilization of Data Science

The development of digital libraries can take advantage of big data scientific data to identify user needs patterns. According to Hendro, data science is multidisciplinary because it combines statistics, mathematics, and other sciences with specific expertise.

He also explained various kinds of data science techniques that can be used to find data patterns and attain new information. Scientific data is utilised in digital library services, for example, in an open-source system.

In addition, there is an association rules (AS) analysis method that can be used as a library dataset. “You can use any methods, the important thing is that the user must know what to do and the flow of thinking from analyzing big data,” he said.

Author: Sela Septi Dwi Arista

Editor: Nuri Hermawan