Mr Tan explained that teachers managing school media resource libraries had basic skills to manage a school library and listed the training activities provided to them currently. Advertisement Having taught some modules in several sessions of the short course mentioned, I would say that it offered participants only an introduction to and an appreciation of library science and practice and was not sufficient to qualify a person to manage or provide professional library services. Libraries and librarians have always helped people improve their state of knowledge by providing access to valuable information resources through their collections and services. Even in an age of instant information, libraries play an important role in guiding people to appropriate and useful sources of information.
Libraries are natural bedfellows to life-long learning.
With the increasing emphasis on life-long and independent learning in our education system, and indeed the whole of society, libraries and librarians are therefore critical components in helping to achieve a learning nation. Finding useful, appropriate and reliable information, not only from the Internet, but also from a complex information infrastructure that existed before the Internet and is still developing worldwide, is an important step in any independent learning effort. I believe Prof Hart's comment on students 'cutting and pasting' from webpages in project work is meant to highlight the need for our school children to be introduced to the diverse sources of information and not be totally dependent on the Internet. There is a lot of misinformation on the Internet and students must be trained to be more discerning about the information sources that they cite and use. Librarians have the training and experience to provide such guidance and services and contribute in other information-management activities.