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Introduction:
The library connects us with
the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest
minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and
from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make
our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think
the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the
underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by
how well we support our libraries – Cosmos Karl Segan
The Central Library of the University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya (USTM),
consecrated in the name of Maulana Azad Central Library came into being in the
year 2011. The Library sets the goal of a world class library by integrating
information sources and services across disciplines in one umbrella by building
a sound and comprehensive collection of both print and electronic resources on
all branches of knowledge with a robust hi-tech infrastructural facilities and
to redesign and revamp the systems and services in efficient, effective , and
dynamic ways tailoring to meet the myriad information needs of students,
research scholars, and faculty members of the university pin-pointedly,
exhaustively and expeditiously anytime during library hours for promoting
academic excellence.
The Library is named as Maulana Azad Cental Library after the name of Abul Kalam
Azad, the first education minister of independent India, the man who instroduced
national education system with free primary education and modern institutions of
higher education. Maulana Azad is also credited with the establishment of the
Institute for national importance like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and
the foundation of the University Grant Commission (UGC), an important
institution to supervise the Universities.
Maulana Azad Central Library supports the teaching, research and extension
programs of the university. All students, faculty members and research scholars
and employees of the university are entitled to make use of the library
facilities on taking library membership. The Library having a collection of more
than forty thousand volume of books on Applied Sciences, Biological Sciences,
Business Sciences, Education, Engineering and Technology, Social Sciences and
Humanities, offers library services through its various sections. The Library
has now been catering to needs of more than 2000 students, research scholars,
faculty members, administrative and non teaching staff of the university With
the developments in Information and Communication Technologies, the behavioral
characteristics of the library users have been changing rapidly and the library
is trying its best to adapt with the technological advancement by digitization
of the library. The identity of all books and the library users are fully
bar-coded and all Library house-keeping operations like, acquisition,
cataloguing, circulation and periodicals services have been automated with the
help of software package. The library is also equipped with modern facilities
and resources in the form of CD-ROM, On-line databases, e-journals, e-books,
journals, project reports, thesis, etc. E-library facility is also available.
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