WHY UNIVERSITY LIBRARY IS A DANGEROUS PLACE FOR AN UNDERGRADUATE
Introduction
There was an article on the topic, “Why your university library is still important” but this article explores this concept in a different angle. Most people tend to be blindly following things without using their brain power. This article is not to degrade the importance of university libraries but to realign this library concept into the right track as it is exactly derailed currently and during last fifty years in this country as well as entire world.
Library concept
Since very ancient periods, the concept, library was there. Even during kingships, there are evidences that, we had very larger scale libraries. Library is about a specific place where books, periodicals and all other journals are stored. Simply it is about knowledge. Those who use libraries extensively are called “intelligent people”. It believes university undergraduates are knowledge. Undergraduates need to gather knowledge from these library resources. Now with the technology, libraries have gone online. There are many online sources that all books and all other library sources can be reached. Therefore the future will be about not any specific location, it will sometime be purely online mode.
Undergraduate role
What is the role of an undergraduate? In our societies, the biggest problem is people start thinking with some assumptions. Once a person entered into cinema hall, if the movie is a comedy, people assume every scene in the movie is to laugh, if the movie is a horror movie, they assume, every scene in the movie is to get scared. Exactly, likewise people assume libraries are to acquire knowledge from each and every source available. And what is the role of an undergraduate? People believe undergraduate role is to read library books and other sources and store them in undergraduates’ mind, so they can become intelligent people.
Right role of an undergraduate
Then what is the right role of an undergraduate? Undergraduate is about storing knowledge, undergraduate is to create right knowledge. But practically what happened is, people read everything with an assumption. Assumption is that they believe the content of these books are perfectly accurate. If the author is well known one, professor or a public figure, this assumption is further strengthened. And, if the author is from foreign university or a foreign peronality, our people accept the content at the outset without questioning. This nature can be seen in Sri Lankan universities. University undergraduates are advised to refer library sources. So they blindly refer these library sources. But the question is who justify the content of these books and other sources. Somebody has written something which is subjective to his knowledge, subjective to his experience. Sometime it may be right, sometime, it may be wrong. But societies completely believe libraries. This will lead our societies to a dangerous situation. Society starts believing things, which can be wrong. Undergraduates need to understand this reality, they have to refer libraries without any assumption and the purpose has to be new knowledge creation but not just gathering things from books blindly. We need to clearly differentiate graduate from a school boy, graduates are to create new knowledge or practice right things, knowledge. But school boys and girls are to learn fundamentals of knowledge creation. But the problem happens, once school boys and girls entered into universities, still they follow schooling days practices. But graduates need to be visionary. They have to create right knowledge but not just collect existing knowledge. This new thinking has to be created inside undergraduate mind. Undergraduate need to come out and freely discuss their views and ideologies, but libraries work in this process as a barriers. It block free thinking and control people, limit people into somebody’s frames. This rational is very difficult to understand for the mass audience. Undergraduate should look at things with a broader perspective and objective manner. This is the turning point of this country and the world.
Summery
People blindly believe things as it is from past systems, societies, cultures. One fundamental concept here is the library concept. Every student is taught the importance of library. It said knowledge is power, but here the argument is, if knowledge is power, where the power has gone in these countries. Still we are a developing country. So what has happened to the thousands of brilliant graduate minds which Sri Lankan universities were producing all over last decades? Where is their knowledge contribution? What have they done to this country? Answer is nothing has happened. But nobody was interested in finding the core issue here. Therefore one thing is clear. It is about that the knowledge we learned throughout past centuries was not exactly the right knowledge. But we blindly follow these social norms.
This article talks about the right role of graduate, their right role is creating right knowledge and new knowledge, but not just gather things blindly from library sources which is happening currently. This article suggests, every graduate need to think independently without any assumption. Not just reading books, but mainly focus on creating new knowledge relevant to current societies. This knowledge creation happens inside the mind. This is objective thinking, this is free thinking. So we need to understand the danger of libraries that can impact over undergraduate own knowledge creation. We need not just knowledgeable people but we need visionary people who will develop this country with the practice of right knowledge, not the knowledge stored in libraries and brilliant minds.