INDUSTERIAL REVOLUTION AND ROLES OF ACADEMIC LIBRARIES: Cultivating Sets of Skills and Knowledge for Leveraging the Impacts Section Articles

Abstract

The Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR) is revolutionizing the world with emphasis on human

centricity, resilience and sustainability. 5IR presents a transformative period for academic

libraries, requiring them to embrace digital technologies, adapt their services to meet evolving

users’ needs and equip librarians with the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in this new

era of advanced technologies (5IR). Information needed to actualized this paper was gathered

from secondary sources of data which were obtained from text books, journal articles,

conference papers, and online sources, etc. This involves reading meaning into materials

consulted for the purpose of achieving a reliable conclusion. The paper explores the impacts of

Industrial Revolution on librarians’ roles and responsibilities, highlighting the need for

academic librarians to acquire skills and remain relevance in this challenging era. It also

examines potential benefits and possible challenges of 5IR for libraries and librarians for

efficient service delivery in meeting with users’ expectations. The study concludes that

academic librarians must be proactive in embracing the changes brought about by 5IR,

leveraging its potentials to become embedded librarians and cope with the trending situation

(5IR).