1Society for Electronic Transactions and Security, Nungambakkam, Chennai, Tamilnadu.
2Department of Information Science, University of Madras, Chepauk, Chennai, Tamilnadu.
Emergence of Autonomous Colleges is the 21st century phenomenon which is an alternative to the system of affiliated colleges. The concept and implementation of the scheme of autonomous status to the colleges has come to stay in the realm of higher education in India. This paper brings out a survey of autonomous colleges in Tamil Nadu and the role of the libraries attached to these colleges has been described in the context of contemporary society. Tamil Nadu occupies prime position in the quantum of autonomous colleges in India. Further, a majority of the colleges are aided institutions and mostly catering to the women education in the disciples of Arts, Science and Commerce. It also presents role and duties of librarians in the autonomous colleges. Since, this paper forms a part of large scale survey which is in progress, only major observations on the state-of-the-art-of the autonomous college libraries in Tamil Nadu are listed. Based on the observations the authors venture to give certain concrete suggestions for the development of autonomous college libraries and their services, resources and infrastructure facilities.
