Daily Times

The Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) is in the process of setting up a modern repository that will have a wide-range collection of research journals and theses.

The initiative aims at meeting the academic needs of research scholars and students of MPhil and PhD. The repository is being developed as part of the extension plan of the university’s central library. The students other than the AIOU will have free access to the repository where research material will be available both in hard and digital forms, said Central Library incharge Umar Khan.

The facility will have special cabins of international standards having the capacity of entertaining around 40 students at a time. The extension wok will be completed without a couple of months.

The AIOU is the country’s mega institution which in the recent years has been engaged to fulfill its basic responsibility of constructing and creating a knowledge base and disseminating the same to the end users through research-based activities. As many as 17 research journals were published and 33 national and international conferences were arranged for the purpose in a short span of time, according to a press release issued by the university.

The university’s extension plan is also a part of ongoing efforts to develop the AIOU as a research-based institution and to promote research culture in the country according to the socio-economic needs of the society.

Currently, the university’s central as well as regional libraries are equipped with modernized and automation systems. In order to promote the reading habits, timing of the library has already been extended and now it remains open from 8 am to 7 pm seven days a week. The book data of the library is managed through a software. There is an automatic system for circulation of books among the readers. Radio frequency identification system has also been introduced for the safety of the books.

Published in Daily Times, June 25^th 2018.