Digital Information and Its Impact on Higher Education in Agricultural Sciences

This paper discusses about the need for the agricultural research and education systems to redefine their visions and goals to reflect the new expectations of the society from agriculture. Information and communication technology can be powerful strategic tools, whose benefit has been brought to bear on all key aspects of agricultural research and education and which has contributed to the growth of Indian agriculture and the national economy during the past few decades. Education and library are two inseparable/indivisible concepts, both being fundamentally and synchronically related to and co-existent with each other. The scope of a library as an effective aid to study and to educate is virtually multitudinous. Information infrastructure includes computers and computer networks, telephone and satellite communication system, broadcast and print media. It encompasses a wide and ever expanding range of equipment like cameras, scanners, switches, compact disks, video and audio tapes, cable wires, optical fiber transmission lines, microwave nets, televisions, printers and much more. It also explains that digital conversion of library has advanced rapidly in the recent years. Digitalisation is an excellent way of providing access to the library material, and it has proven to be possible for nearly every format and medium presently held by the libraries from maps to manuscript and from movies to musical recordings. Access to knowledge on advances in agriculture production technologies through internet would lead to technological empowerment of people; agricultural students in general and post graduate students in particular should, therefore, be made computer literate as the future progress lies in this area.