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Usefulness of digital and traditional libraries in higher education

Article  in  International Journal of Services Technology and Management · May 2013

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2013.054203

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Int. J. Services Technology and Management, Vol. 19, Nos. 1/2/3, 2013 149

Usefulness of digital and traditional libraries in higher

education

Asad Abbas* and Ali Faiz

Department of Informatics,
Swedish Business School,
Örebro University,
SE-701 82, Örebro, Sweden
E-mail: aabbas@inbox.com
E-mail: alithe_man@hotmail.com
*Corresponding author

Abstract: Due to the role of information and communication technologies

(ICT), libraries are in a process of fundamental changes. Digital library is a
rather new concept in higher education in Pakistan. The aim of this study is to
explore the role of library in higher education from a student’s perspective and
to get the answers on this question: “How is the digital library useful for higher
education students as compared to the traditional manual library?” In this
qualitative study, data had been collected (from three colleges of Foundation
University, Islamabad) with face to face, semi-structured interviews from
twelve students. Data were analysed according to the four factors described in
our conceptual framework. Students have to physically visit a traditional library
when one can access digital library from one’s computer. Searching has
become fast on a digital library as compared to a traditional library. Although
digital library provides easy access, fast search and a lot of related materials but
the feeling of holding a book and intellectual environment of traditional
libraries cannot be replaced by digital libraries.

Keywords: digital library; traditional library; manual library; usefulness;

National Digital Library; Pakistan.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Abbas, A. and Faiz, A.

(2013) ‘Usefulness of digital and traditional libraries in higher education’,
Int. J. Services Technology and Management, Vol. 19, Nos. 1/2/3, pp.149–161.

Biographical notes: Asad Abbas completed his undergraduate degree in

Computer Science from Public Sector University in Pakistan. Further, he
entered into the web development and systems/networking jobs during
2005–2010. In 2010, he joined Örebro University as an international Master’s
student in Sweden. He successfully completed his degree in 2012. His
professional experience remains focused around information technology and
served various public and private sector organisations. His keen areas of
interest cover electronic government, IT project management and ICT4D.

Ali Faiz has a graduate degree in Computer Sciences from Pakistan and has a
Master degree in Information System Sciences from Luleå, Sweden. He is
currently doing a Masters in Informatics from Örebro University, Sweden. He
has worked in Oracle Development for one year and has three years of
experience for customer handling in the largest internet service provider
company in Lahore, Pakistan.

Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

150 A. Abbas and A. Faiz

1 Introduction

In this new era, every student is well aware of technology, especially students of higher
education due to electronic and social media (internet). But still there is partial use of
manual routines, which are not being replaced by digital system. “Library is known as
knowledge archival, preservation and maintenance of culture, knowledge dissemination,
knowledge sharing, information retrieval, education and social interaction” [Lee et al.,
(2005), p.2]. Whereas digital library (DL) is the combination of other libraries through
networks, which users can access from home or work, and this makes it more accessible.
Computers are better in searching, browsing and finding an information faster for
reference work which “involves repeated leaps from one source of information to
another” [Lee et al., (2005), p.1]. Information is shared through network making it
available for everyone. A DL has a main website where there may be many different
libraries attached to it. One can find information in which one used to travel long
distances to get the stored information. It brings the convenience to get the unique
material from long distance. DL is never closed, it is always open. Materials are neither
stolen nor missed-shelved and information is available when and where the user wants it.
Database is the best way to record and store information whereas in traditional libraries
books are found in printed form, which is not the best way to store and record data (Lee
et al., 2005). DL is basically an electronic library, which contains information in digital
form (Muqueem and Ambedkar, 2007).
The role of libraries has become important especially in e-government as government
departments and agencies move towards information and accesses other governmental
services. Libraries have been the foremost user of development and use of online
information. Library bibliographic networks are among the first governmental online
services provided in many communities and higher educational institutes. To make
e-government effective, governmental agencies have learned an important lesson of
management and technology issues (authenticity, security, interoperability, etc.) through
online library services, which made them an important team player. We can see the
evolution of e-government from providing simple information (bibliographic networks or
online governmental forms) to the next step of providing online transactions (ordering
and reserving books as well as submitting of applications on an e-services website)
(Bradley, 2001). The European Commission has identified libraries as the twelfth service
to citizens out of twenty basic public services and libraries are the most commonly used
public service (Berryman, 2004).

1.1 Objective of this paper

DL is a rather new concept in higher education in Pakistan, only being used since 2005,
allowing researchers and students to access information electronically in various subjects.
As this is a new service for students and librarians, they are still learning to access and
search useful information from it. Students get no help while searching content from their
laptop in university or computer labs, but only if they go to the university library to seek
help. But it is difficult to decide the usefulness of any of the two libraries for higher
education students as very little work has been done on this topic in Pakistan. Also
according to Jackson (2009) there is no difference between the two libraries aside from
 Usefulness of digital and traditional libraries in higher education 151

DL being online. This study has not only investigated the usefulness of the libraries for
students but has also compared the attributes of the two libraries. This has given us a
clear picture of the scenario, which has further helped us to improve the situation for
students during their research and education by giving them better service. This study
was conducted in Pakistan to explore the role of libraries in higher education from a
student’s perspective and we have tried to get the answers to the question, “How is the
digital library useful for higher education students as compared to the traditional manual
library?” By comparing the two libraries, we would get the usefulness and limitation of
each library and how it has affected students and their studies. Usefulness not only helps
the use of DL, but also talks about improvement and innovation (Buchanan and Salako,
2009). Improvement in shape of manual search to computerised search; does it make it
faster to search for material? And the web browser has brought the library on your
computer. Is the DL accessible from anywhere, anytime? This study has not only
identified the current situation but also trends between students about the use of both
libraries, and what they are looking from each library.

2 Literature review

Every government wants to connect their country with every part of the world by availing
opportunities and providing all facilities to their citizens in the fields of education,
economy, science and technology. After evolution of new technologies such as internet
and World Wide Web (WWW), which provides technological environment for
development of DLs, DL does not have walls; it contains less date and more ideas. The
main reason to establish a DL is to provide better and the latest information to users,
which is not possible in the past (Berryman, 2004; Sastry et al., 2011). DL has no limits.
One can access materials wherever it may be located. There is no need of physical place
or items. Cataloguing of books is not restricted to author or subject but it is now down to
individual words. DL is everywhere for students, they can access it from universities,
home or during travel. Searching has become fast as well as fruitful due to dynamic
nature of searching with the help of keywords or any classified measure of relatedness
(WTEC, 1999).
Conventional or traditional manual libraries are based on physical container
(example books) of information and this information is directly and also physically
accessed (Singh, 2003). The world’s largest conventional library is in the USA and that is
the Library of Congress which contains approximately 120 million items, filings, and
books in more than 460 different languages including English, and more than 500 miles
of shelves (Panel of Digital Libraries, 2001).
DL has a very short history. According to Saracevic and Covi (2000), it was predicted
in 1965 that future libraries will be highly innovative and different in structure,
processing and through application as compared to a traditional library. At the end of
1990s research and practical development exploded in the field of library globally. In the
2000s growth of many different efforts related to digital libraries continued at a high
speed. Nowadays, DL is the result of all the hard work which is being done in the
previous decades.
152 A. Abbas and A. Faiz

National Digital Library is part of a programme by the Government of Pakistan to

provide degree awarding institutes in public or private sector to have an access for their
students and researchers with the innovative and advance research in their respective
fields. National Digital Library is a programme of Higher Education Commission (HEC)
of Pakistan. Its aim is to provide researchers all over Pakistan, whether they belong to
public or private universities, with access to international scholarly literature online
which includes journals, databases, peer-reviewed, articles and e-books over a wide range
of field (National Digital Library, http://www.digitallibrary.edu.pk/). According to
Niwaz (2010), researchers are not fully skilled to utilise the DL for their research and
study in Pakistan.
When we talk about student perspective for using libraries we have to know for what
purposes students use libraries. According to Nagata et al. (2007), it is generally agreed
that most students use libraries for educational purpose. Some students go to libraries to
spend their time (social interaction) and use computers but others go to libraries for study
purpose, borrow course books, use reference books, or search for other study related
material. Traditional libraries provide them environment for study, silent rooms, and
rooms for group studies or discussion. Whereas digital libraries is like a website, where
one can find articles, journals, conference papers, and e-books.
According to Lee et al. (2005), DL is helpful for students during their studies,
especially when they are doing research. The main reason of establishing digital libraries
is to provide better delivery of information that is not possible in the past due to
traditional library. Now, DL is helpful in studies due to its new features and facilities.
The facilities provided by the DL as compared to traditional libraries are (Lee et al.,
2005):

1 digital libraries bring the libraries closer to the users

2 computer technology is used for searching and browsing

3 information can be shared

4 information is always available

5 new forms of information become possible.

3 Conceptual framework

There is no specific model available to compare both libraries but Devchoudhary (2007)
has defined the fundamental functions of libraries, which are

• purchasing or acquiring books, journals, etc.

• managing those books and journals at some place

• searching a specific book when a library has millions of books

• delivery of information.
 Usefulness of digital and traditional libraries in higher education 153

According to Chuttur (2009), perceived usefulness is basically individual’s beliefs toward

a specific system which improves the tasks. So, for this we have selected common
attributes of both libraries to verify their usefulness, and identify which is more useful for
students in their education. For comparison, we have selected four common variables,
and for analysis we obtained individual responses to different questions regarding
conceptual framework (Chuttur, 2009).
To check the performance of any library for its usefulness, these are basic
functions which can give true reflection of reality of any library and its contribution
towards its user. The following points have been derived from above mentioned
fundamental functions for comparison of both libraries (see Table 1, comparison of both
the libraries),
1 access location
2 interaction
3 search
4 query of access.
All these functions are essential for any library and it covers all aspects of traditional and
DL so this is one of the reasons to choose this framework. Also, those functions are
present in both libraries to compare the attributes and get the answer to our research
question. These attributes of both libraries for comparison give transparency to our study
as we have not taken only strong attributes of one library and weak of the other to create
any bias. We have designed this framework from the article of Devchoudhary (2007).
Table 1 Comparison of traditional manual library and DL

Attributes Traditional manual library Digital library

Access location Centralised access location Distributed access location
Interaction One way communication Two way communication
Loosely coupled Tight coupled
Fast interaction
Search One way search Systematic search
Query of access Structured text queries Complex interaction of query
Navigation/browsing
Social filtering
Source: Devchouhary (2007)
Common attributes are used in conceptual framework for comparison of both libraries as
shown in Figure 1.
In Figure 1, we have three entities, student, digital and manual library. Student is the
main entity, who can access and interact with both libraries, and there are four common
attributes which are shared between libraries. Students distinguish both libraries by the
facilities provided to them according to their studies and research work. Students visit
traditional libraries for different educational purposes, to get a study environment, to use
silent rooms and discussion rooms, this not only provides them critical thinking but also
social interaction. It is a fact that computer has made searching easy when there are
thousands of books and other material to search from. In case of digital libraries all
154 A. Abbas and A. Faiz

those results come on your computer screen and one can have an easy access to that
material. In traditional library one has to go to search shelves to find the desired books or
material.

Figure 1 Conceptual framework model

Traditional library
Access location
Digital library

Interaction

Search

Query of access

Student

4 Method

In this study, we have used a qualitative research approach, because it tells us what is
important as we have focused this study on a normal situation with all its difficulties
(Leedy and Ormrod, 2005). Our focus was to construct factual description based on
face-to-face knowledge of students instead of generating numerical data (Qualitative
Field Research, 2012). We tried to picture it as it looked like without clarifying or
simplifying it. In qualitative research, interview is often used to collect data (Leedy and
Ormrod, 2005; Baxter et al., 1996). Interviews were conducted in three constituents’
colleges of Foundation University Islamabad, Pakistan. We were granted permission
from the management of the university to conduct the interviews and universities have
made our work easy as they have selected the students who have used both libraries
during their studies.
A total twelve students (five male and seven female students) from three colleges of
Foundation University were interviewed and we can call this sampling convenient as the
university has provided us the interviewee students. Of the five male students, three were
studying business administration at undergraduate level and the two were Bachelor of
Medicine, and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) students. Four of the female students were
doing Doctorate (PhD in Education), one was studying business administration and the
other two were studying MBBS.
 Usefulness of digital and traditional libraries in higher education 155

We have a limited time of two weeks to collect the data through interviews from
university students in Pakistan. Because of this limited time, we only manage to collect
the data from convenient sampling. As our study sample has represented three different
colleges and three different levels and areas of study, we could generalise their statements
(observations and experiences) to the group outside of our sample as those findings
adequately represent the existing research. Moreover, the interviewees were using both
digital and manual libraries for their studies as all students from their college or
programme has similar experience of using both libraries due to similar environment and
requirement for their study.
Data were collected with semi-structured interviews with an informal and friendly
environment so that students could speak without any restraint. We have conducted face
to face (Ftf) interviews to obtain the desired information as these interviews can give you
additional information such as gesture, intonation and body language during the
important point of the interviews. During the interview we did not interrupt any of the
students so that they could explain what they thought about these two different kinds of
libraries (Leedy and Ormrod, 2005; Opdenakker, 2006).
All interviews were audio recorded on an MP3 voice recorder and we have taken
some notes during the interviews. While transcribing the audio recorded interviews the
field notes were really helpful as transcribing from audio to written form is really time
consuming as we have to play the recording several times to be able to write the exact
words of the interviewee. The interview contains ten questions which were derived from
conceptual framework and literature (see the Appendix). National Digital Library
claims that it has relevant resources on a wide range of disciplines or fields and students
have access to that material, and this is why the first two questions were formed to check
their claim. The next two questions deal with access location, interaction and search:
three points mentioned by Lee et al. (2005). The last three questions were taken
from Lee et al. (2005) and Devchoudhary (2007) as they talk about access, search and
benefits.
After transcribing the data we have selected the relevant data according to the factors
mentioned in the conceptual frame work. After the close examination of data we tried to
find the single occurrence of data which could give specific meaning to this case and then
identified pattern that could lead us to a meaningful conclusion. We have used the
conclusions to generalise and synthesise and to make a meaningful picture of this data
(Leedy and Ormrod; 2005).
According to Yin (2003), multiple sources for data collection such as literature
review and interviews has been used to make the study valid and free of mistakes and
biasness. For reliability we have audio recorded all the interviews, field notes have been
taken and we have transcribed the audio into verbatim written form. During the
interviews we did not interrupt the interviewees and let them speak their mind,
because otherwise we might put words in their mouths which would make the study
somewhat biased. We have informed them about the background of our study and all
interviewees were informed that we will record the interview and no one has any
objection about that.
156 A. Abbas and A. Faiz

4.1 Limitation of study

The aim of the study is to explore usefulness of DL as compared to traditional library in
higher education from a student’s prospective in Pakistan. For this research we travelled
to Pakistan and visited Pakistani universities and conducted interviews. Then we
qualitatively analysed the collected data according to our framework, and we were able to
describe the usefulness of libraries. However, no faculty member and librarian were
interviewed for usefulness of libraries. So, we have only considered usefulness of
libraries from a student’s prospective but we did not check the availability perspective as
framework did not cover that aspect of library. In addition, we have chosen our research
topic related to Pakistan, and due to time constraint we have collected data from only
three university colleges after getting permission from the competent authority of
respective universities.

5 Result and analysis

Interviews have been conducted in three university colleges of Foundation University

Islamabad during 23rd April to 4th of May 2012. Four interviewees were conveniently
chosen from each university. Access location, interaction search and query of access were
the four attributes of libraries being asked in the interviews plus some general and open
ended questions were asked. Here we have presented the data according to the four
attributes mentioned above.

5.1 Access location

When talking about the problems faced about access location of digital and manual
libraries students response was, in case of DL, they think that one needs to have computer
or laptop to access DL but there are other restriction as well like electricity failure, some
restriction from HEC such as some journals are not available and some time they need to
pay to get access and sometime membership is required to access, with all of these
‘difficulties’ still one has to have some expertise to use a DL. A female PhD student said
“Not all material is free of cost one has to pay for some journals and books to have
access”. A male student of business administration said “in digital library data is more
secure because it is distributed but in traditional library it can be destroyed with fire
because it is centralized”. Problems faced by students in case of traditional libraries are:
they get limited resources, a female student of PhD said “one has to visit library
physically in all weather conditions”, some books cannot be borrowed such as reference
books, library card is needed to access the traditional library, have to return the book after
specific time, searching a book from shelf is not easy as sometimes they are miss placed,
all in all it is a time consuming process.

5.2 Interaction
When we asked questions related to easy access of resources, students explain that
e-books are always available which make it easy to access. A female student of MBBS
said “what you see is what you get”. Huge numbers of books available on each topic but
most of the students easily find their desired material online provided good internet
 Usefulness of digital and traditional libraries in higher education 157

connection, electricity and computer. DL is limited to computer and university lab and
university premises. Traditional library is accessible while one is in the university only.
All printed material can be borrowed from the library. A male student of business
administration said “It is easier to get a detailed study and collection of researches in
traditional library as it has many reference books in the respective sections”.

5.3 Search
When asked, in which library students find relevant resources in less time, they said
searching is quick and less time consuming in DL but it needs some skills and expertise
to search quickly as there is a lot of material available on each topic which makes it
difficult to sort things out and search required material. A female student of MBBS said
they “search easily by using keywords and tags and easily take out irrelevant material”.
One can search a book from author’s name or from book name in DL which make it
easier to search. Another female student of MBBS said, “Whatever you want data comes
out”. Finding a book is a time taking process but some students think that in traditional
library all course related books are available and can be accessed. A female student of
business administration said in traditional library “one can immediately read and use” the
books.

5.4 Query of access

When we asked the students about the difference of libraries during searching, students
think that DL gives them sorted out material, they just write a query and get required
literature but sometimes it is not easy, they need some searching skill to search on DL
because there is a lot of irrelevant material. A male student of business administration
said about DL that “it is easy to access, acquire and sort out material”. A female PhD
student said that the latest material related to their studies is available on DL. Searching a
book in traditional library is a time consuming process because sometimes it is not on its
proper place but some students prefer physical material because they found physical
material easy to read. A male student of MBBS said in traditional library “searching a
course book is easy because of limited resources and place”.
All students prefer DL as they think it is easy to access, fast to search and also have a
large number of books, journals and other material related to their studies.

6 Discussion and conclusions

For the usefulness of libraries we have selected the four attributes of our conceptual
frame work to compare with our findings, we have discussed them with previous research
also. A traditional library in any educational institution has its physical presence in shape
of a building. Physical buildings have its limitation in shape of walls and these libraries
have limited number of shelves. All books in a library are present on those shelves which
make this place a central hub for books and other material. Students have mentioned that
they have to visit physically to access the traditional library. In case of DL it can have a
distributed access (Devchoudhary, 2007), but still students need a computer or a laptop to
get connected with DL and in case of Pakistan one has to use it in the university
158 A. Abbas and A. Faiz

computer lab or university premises as it is only limited to universities and only in

university timing. Some books such as reference books can only be accessed within the
traditional library and if someone is using that book one has to wait but this is not the
case in DL as one book can be accessed by many students. Physical books can be
destroyed or burned by fire but not electronic books. Traditional libraries have limited
number of books on each subject but DL has almost countless books on each topic.
According to Devchoudhary (2007) and Kumar and Srinivas (2004), traditional
libraries have one way and loosely coupled communication with user. Students physically
visit the library to search desired material where he/she goes to a specific shelf which is
already tagged, it provides facility but it is one way of interaction. But in case of DL, it
provides a digital interface to students to search materials. It is a two-way
communication, which is tightly coupled and during search desired materials appear
quickly as an output. Students find traditional library easy to interact and helpful for their
course books as they search their desired material easily. How they do that is explained in
the following paragraph.
In traditional library book searching is not an easy job as it takes some time to
search a book and if one has limited information about the book such as only
book title and author’s name is known, it might be difficult to find the specific book.
In DL search is quite an easy job, searching through keywords makes it systematic and
easy to reach one’s required material. Lee et al. (2005) has mentioned that computers
make it faster to search and browse the required information. Database is the best
way to record and store information whereas in traditional libraries books are found in
printed form, which is not the best way to store and record data (Lee et al., 2005). Most
of the students found it easy to search books and material on DL but for some students
finding a course book is easy in the traditional library. It is because of their previous
knowledge of library and its shelves, where their required books are located. When
students often visit the library they get the idea about their required books where they are
located in the library but it is difficult for them to search the books which is not related to
their subject area but in case of DL both books (one is related to ones subject and other is
not related) will take equal time to be searched as they have to type the name of the
required book.
According to Devchoudhary (2007) and Kumar and Srinivas (2004), in traditional
libraries structured text queries are used for searching there are some manual routines/
procedures, for example if any student needs to search and issue a specific book, one
needs to follow some predefined routines but in case of DL complex interaction of query,
navigation, browsing and social filters are used which helps the user to search material by
using browser, enter keywords and get output of search query. Social filtering is being
used as amount of data is huge which will narrow down the search material relevant to
their need/desire. Students find DL as time saving, easy to use, easy to access, easy to
search and get huge amount of data on it. Students have explained benefits of traditional
libraries as they find it a good environment to study, they want to spend time there for
social interaction as all students can access the library and no computer expertise or skill
required, in the end as one student said “it always feel good to hold a book in your hand”.
Students have pointed out benefits of DL and traditional library which has helped us to
draw a close conclusion to the reality. In case of Pakistan, access of DL is limited, as it is
accessible only in university premises and in university timing. This can be enhanced to
anywhere and anytime, so that students can access the library after the authentication of
user from the university library home page.
 Usefulness of digital and traditional libraries in higher education 159

From the above discussion we can conclude that all students prefer DL for their study
and research as it is easy to use, easy to search and easy to access even from a huge
available material. Although, there are some aspect which DL cannot replace. Traditional
library gives you the environment for study. One can go to traditional library and feel that
intellectual atmosphere. One can hold a book in his hand and enjoy reading it. In the
traditional library one can socially interact with other students.

7 Future study

This study gives the usefulness of digital libraries as compared to traditional libraries in
the context of higher education student. But, for further studies one can highlight
teachers’ and librarians’ perspective, how it is useful for them in their designated jobs.
Further research can be carried out related to design perspective including accessibility
and usability of DL.

Acknowledgements

This study was sponsored by the Swedish Programme for ICT in Developing Regions
(SPIDER) for Master’s project work thesis. We express sincere appreciation to those
students who took their precious time and participate in the interviews and also pay our
gratitude to Air Cdre. Tanwir-ul-Islam (Retired), Registrar, FUI and competent authority
of Foundation University, Islamabad, Pakistan who let us conduct this study in their
university.

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 Usefulness of digital and traditional libraries in higher education 161

Appendix

Interview questions
Question No. 1:
Which library you prefer, digital library or manual library and why?

Question No. 2:
Which kind of library has most relevant resources to your studies?

Question No. 3:
In which library it is easier to find relevant resources in less time and why?

Question No. 4:
What do you think, when you find it easy to access resources (papers, books or other
resources) in digital library (using web browser)?

Question No. 5:
What do you think, when you find it easy to access resources (papers, books or other
resources) in traditional library?

Question No. 6:
What problem do you face when you access the digital library?

Question No. 7:
What problem do you face when you access the manual library?

Question No. 8:
Which difference you find between both libraries (digital and manual library), when you
search for material related for your studies?

Question No. 9:
What do you think about the benefits of the digital library?

Question No. 10:

What do you think about the benefits of the manual library?

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