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With the passage of time things have been evolved from manual to automation and then integrated. The successors and versions of the cataloguing standards has come up with their enhancements alike AACR2 to Resource Description and Access. RDA is being developed to provide a better acceptability with object-oriented database structures. Today card catalogues are totally replaced with OPACs and now discovery interfaces are replacing OPACs. Discovery interfaces are also called next generation catalogs which give an enriched web-based interface used by users including scholars and researchers. It also provides link resolver and an indexing, search and retrieval element. This paper discusses the discovery services and its development in the libraries and provides an overview of how libraries are using and take advantages of advance technology and make their resources easily accessible to the patrons through single search interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advocate and contribute to a more nuanced and discerning argument when ascribing a democratic role to libraries and activities related to information literacy.Design/methodology/approach The connections between democracy and libraries as well as between citizenship and information literacy are analysed by using Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism. One example is provided by a recent legislative change (the new Swedish Library Act) and the documents preceding it. A second, more detailed example concerns how information literacy may be conceptualised when related to young women’s sexual and reproductive health. Crucial in both examples are the suggestions of routes to travel that support equality and inclusion for all.Findings Within an agonistic approach, democracy concerns equality and interest in making efforts to include the less privileged. The inclusion of a democratic aim, directed towards everyone, for libraries in the new Library Act can be argued to emphasise the political role of libraries. A liberal and a radical understanding of information literacy is elaborated, the latter is advocated. Information literacy is also analysed in a non-essentialist manner, as a description of a learning activity, therefore always value-laden.Originality/value The agonistic reading of two central concepts in library and information studies, namely, libraries and information literacy is fruitful and shows how the discipline may contribute to strengthen democracy in society both within institutions as libraries and in other settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

400 lectures and company presentations as well as 150 exhibitors formed the technical framework for the 101st German Librarians’ Day in Hamburg in May 2012. Whether e-books, Discovery Services, Patron Driven Acquisition, or the latest offers of service partner, the rich palette of topics offered something for each of the more than 4,500 information professionals. This paper provides a summary of the professional part and let some of the participants report on what personal benefits they draw from “Librarians’ Day”. Due to the technical orientation, a summary of the rich entertainment program was intentionally left out here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]