INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR EDUCATIONAL AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS IN THE EMERGING ECONOMIES

Abstract

Libraries and Information Centers (LICs) or the Learning Resource Centers (LRCs) set up by educational and research organizations around the world, especially those in the emerging economies, are facing a plethora of challenges in times of the kind of revolutions that are taking place in the domains such as digital, mobile, cloud, social media, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence, big data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT) etc. There is of course no denial of the fact there are a host of opportunities too, awaiting these centers to leverage on, from the new technology trends. The biggest challenge the LICs face today is not only to dispel the stakeholder prejudices, but also to remain meaningful, efficient and relevant before the stakeholders. It is so because a large majority believe that their information and knowledge needs are well addressed by the new-gen services like open access scholarly resources/services/networks, google, facebook, twitter and so on. A close analysis of the impacts of technology and also the markets reveal that there are basically two new trends sweeping the world - more to do with respect to the consumer behavior - the ‘disruptive technologies’ and the ‘disintermediation effects’ as its aftermath...