Electronic libraries and the emergence of new service paradigms

Enabling technologies have led to the transformation of library services from traditional services incorporating card catalogs, printed books and periodicals, bibliographic instruction, in-person/face-to-face reference, to new services and delivery modes incorporating: electronic collections, such as e-books, e-journals and databases; virtual reference services, and other online services. Innovation of new services that are peculiar to the online/Web environment is the trend in modern electronic libraries. During the last decade, many libraries, particularly those serving academic communities, have witnessed the emergence of new service paradigms in areas of information access and delivery, reference, instruction, technology facility and support to patrons. Libraries continue to harness new technologies to offer services in innovative ways to meet the changing needs of their patrons. This paper explores some of these emerging service paradigms in electronic libraries. The concept of “service paradigm” in this paper is used to refer to predominant service patterns.