ABSTRACT

Libraries have traditionally existed to collect and organise information, make access to knowledge more democratic, and preserve the record of ideas for future generations. From Ebla to Alexandria, from Pylos to Pergamum - libraries litter the landscape of ancient history. Whether they be rightly called libraries, archives, or repository, or proto-libraries, their legacy has lasted throughout the ages to modem times (Price, n. d.). Libraries and information services are being transformed by the increasing availability of information resources. The management of information has long been regarded as the domain of librarians and libraries. Librarians and information professionals are trained to be experts in information searching, selecting, acquiring, organizing, preserving, repackaging, disseminating, and serving. The management of information resources in libraries is of greater, not lesser importance in the digital world. The sheer abundance of information available on the Internet leads to limited user attentionand a high reliance on gate-keeping services, such as search engines. Th hese gate-keepingservices capitalize on user attention scarcity by channelling users’ attention toward certaindocuments and away from others.If anything, the Internet, has added to the range ofservices libraries provide - hybrid library services- and in turn this has also increased the variety ofroles available to librarians. For the librarian, according to Naidu (n. d.), these roles include: Librarian as Information/Knowledge Manager, Librarian as an Information Expert, Librarian as an End - User trainer, Librarian as Consultant, Librarians as Teachers, Librarians as Technology Specialist, Librarians as Advertisers, Librarians as Event Planners, Librarian as an Evaluator, Librarian as a Search Intermediary, Librarian as a Facilitator, Librarian as a Navigator, Librarian as a Website Builder, Librarian as Hybrid Librarian, Librarian as Researcher, Librarian as Sifter of Information, Librarian as a Content Manager and Librarian as an Information Ninja (Nwosu &Babatope, 2016) among others. Librarians are by their training managers of information resources in all formats. As a result, librarians are well placed to provide leadership in the new century as they draw on enduring principles and updated skills to provide organized access to worthwhile information resources in order to meet the needs of library clients.This necessitates information professionals to make available the right information in the right format to the right user at the right time. This chapter fills that gap by presenting an overall view of information, librarians as information resources managers that library clients are likely to require in the 21st century.