Public libraries in the Internet age : Indian scenario

In India majority of people live in rural areas and new technologies are not accessible from remote villages, therefore a wide gap has been evolved between the libraries of ‘knowledge haves’ and knowledge have-nots. Today Internet and web technologies open up new ways of interactive communication between public libraries and the civil society. The progress in the Information and communication Technologies (ICT) enable remote people can be connected by several technical options in a more affordable manner. Based on the widely accepted conceptualization of "ICT for development," this article suggested various ways where convergence technologies can be used to improve and promote the existing library services. An attempt is made here to make a proposal for ICT driven public libraries for Indian states with suitable library extension programs to help the entire rural as well as urban community especially unprivileged masses