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Synopsis From the foreword: "Libraries have been witnessing transition in their set ups, shifting from print to electronic resources, from physical to web access and virtual storage, and from traditional to virtual library models. The emerging paradigm is indeed offering user friendly means for access to virtual resources. The academic community welcomes this sort of change and aspires that more and more resources in electronic form should become available for desktop access. Not only such a facility in the academic set ups would help accelerate and advance the pace of research but also provide teaching and research community new opportunities to engage in upcoming facilities and programmes such as e-teaching and e-learning. The futuristic academic libraries must therefore be seen as stronger information resource centres and gateways to distributed knowledge sources. In the emerging set up, physical libraries, however, are not going to disappear but would continue to serve as cultural centres for the benefit of academic community. In this context, it is felt that the ambience of the physical space in the library buildings must receive top priority. The future academic libraries should, therefore, be seen as a balance between library with a human face and library with virtual electronic resources.