Educating library and information science professionals to cater to the modern needs: A Pakistani perspective

This article examines the Pakistani model of library and information science (LIS) education in the light of changes brought about by information and communication technology. Library and Information Science is a profession that is concerned with the attained knowledge and skills that support the collection, organization and utilization of the records of human communication. The education of library and information science at postgraduate level is being offered by ten public sector and three private sector universities of Pakistan. The LIS education during pre-partition period was started in Lahore in 1915 with a certificate course but this program came to an end after few years. After partition, the first diploma course started in 1956 from University of Karachi, which converted into a Master’s degree program in 1962 and later on as a Ph.D. program. The other universities of Pakistan followed the traditions of University of Karachi and now a total 13 universities are offering the programs to professionally train the librarians. The courses taught in these universities are regularly revised to meet the demands of the society. Besides educating traditional librarianship, the curricula of all the universities impart modern education to train the future librarians accordingly. This paper completely covers the conventional as well as the modern-day courses being taught in these universities of Pakistan.