Learning organisation and roles of Resource Centres

Abstract

This paper discusses the "Learning Organization and Roles of Resource centres". It argues that, resource centres must successfully translate learning into effective action and must also recognize the need to develop their own capacity to access, organize, use and disseminate information effectively. It is this capacity to innovate and create change that is critical to competitive advantage and success in a changing environment. In Peter Senge's five-discipline approach to organizational learning, a learning organization is defined as "an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future." It is an organization that changes and innovates based on continuous learning, which in resource centres' case constituted learning from industry trends, students, staff, faculty, and other key stakeholders. The rapidly growing focus on technology is causing many resource centres to look at how they manage themselves and they need methods that are both locally appropriate and globally connected. To meet this challenge, many resource centres have established or plan to establish learning resource centres. Well-managed resource centres are a valuable component of learning organizations, and can help reduce unproductive duplication of effort both within and among resource centres. They can also serve as centres of community learning and participation in civil society initiatives. This paper also provides a discussion of the conceptual framework guiding the design and ways to transform resource centres into learning organization.