ROLE OF LIBRARIES IN PRESERVING CULTURAL HERITAGE IN TODAY'S INFORMATION AGE

In the era of rapid technological advancement and globalization, preserving culturalheritage has become both an opportunity and a challenge. Libraries, as repositories of humanknowledge and culture, play a pivotal role in safeguarding tangible and intangible heritage. Frommanuscripts and rare books to oral traditions, indigenous knowledge, and digital archives,libraries bridge the past with the present by preserving cultural memory for future generations.This paper explores the evolving role of libraries in preserving cultural heritage within today’sinformation age. It highlights the importance of digitization, institutional repositories, metadatastandards, open access platforms, and community participation in knowledge preservation. Casestudies from India and abroad, including the National Digital Library of India (NDLI), DigitalPublic Library of America (DPLA), and UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme, arediscussed to demonstrate best practices. The study concludes by emphasizing the need for policysupport, sustainable funding, capacity building, and integration of advanced ICT tools tostrengthen the cultural preservation mission of libraries in the 21st century.