History and Development of Library Education in Sri Lanka: With Speed Reference to the Period after 1948

Abstract

Information and Information services play a significant role in the development of a country. Professionally trained, experienced and qualified personal needed for the provision of information services in a country. Hence library education system has been evolved in other countries as well as in Sri Lanka for this purpose. The fundamental problem related to library education is the evolvement of library education on non-formal base. The principal objective of this paper is to explore the history and development of library education in Sri Lanka. Based on the hypothesis the “Slow growth is the basic feature of Sri Lanka library education”, the other objectives formulated were to investigate Sri Lankan library education movement based on historical record of after 1948, to examine the institution and resources persons contributed library education and to identify the problems related library education. It was identified the real growth of library education started after 1950 and one of the key features is the formation of several school of thoughts. The slow growth pattern is the other principal feature. Fundamental problems identified were the non-availability of standardization and quality assurances on a library education at national level as well as non-availability of a responsible coordination organization for developing unique criteria and policies on library education in Sri Lanka. The fore suggestions are mode introduce and start library education standards, quality assurance all accreditation, making strategies for the cooperation all the coordination of library education institutions and programs, introducing new code of ethic and conduct for the speedy development of library education in Sri Lanka.