Libraries in the knowledge era

With the advent of Industrial Revolution, the 19th century witnessed a sea-change taking place in all aspects of human society. Today millions of documentary and non-documentary sources are brought out in different countries of the world in several languages. This spectacular growth of documents has led to ‘Information Explosion’. Due to Information Explosion, the Universe of Knowledge is expanding at a faster rate than ever before and it is still accelerating and may reach to infinity. So to serve as a social agency, the libraries play an important role in assembling, organizing and preserving knowledge for its dissemination to all. This paper reviews various facets of knowledge like its growth, role in libraries, and its management.