Librarians' Day 2009

August 2009 is just eleven months away (time flies, isn't it) and we need to start thinking about the "Theme" of seminar. What would be an Ideal Theme?
Quite obviously, the first thing that comes to our mind is, any latest topic or issue(s) in the field of library and information science.

Things are changing so fast that catching them is becoming really tough, for example, we have just started learning about Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 is knocking the door (Thanks, Ms. Shweta for sharing the information). The library professionals working in Special/Research libraries having good IT infrastructure and facilities are privileged to take maximum benefits of the changing scenarios. But is the case same for other libraries? What about the professionals working in colleges, schools or even universities? Are they equally aware of the technological changes and their implications? OR is there a Librarian Divide that exists. Remember, those who were present during Librarians' Day 2008, Ms. Renuka Dave in her concluding remarks said, "In a family if someone is having Pizza, he/she should also prepare Khichdi-Kadi (traditional Gujarati food) for those who, for some reason or other can not have Pizzas" (this is transliterated from Gujarati). Hope the sense is transmitted to all of us.

So, what do we do, that is a BIG question. If we have a Topic which is of interest to the "privileged" professionals, may not be even understood by the "not so privileged" professionals, and a Topic which is understood and of concern to the "not so privileged" professionals, would be insipid for the "privileged" professionals.

We must strike a balance to see that both groups of the professionals are equally interested and contribute to the seminar and the audience seats are full to capacity till the end of the day, a big challenge.

Another big challenge is to reduce the gap between two groups in the profession.

All library professionals are requested to put their thoughts/views and suggest some topics for Librarians' Day 2009.

Together we will Grow, and Change the way World look at us

Librarians' Day 2008

ADINET Celebrated Librarians' Day 2008 and Seminar on August 9, 2008 to mark the birth anniversary of Dr. S. R. Ranganathan, father of Library Science in India, the Topic of this year Seminar was "Current Trends in Libraries in the Digital Era". It was huge gathering of library professionals from across the State of Gujarat.

The days program started with beautiful invocation by Ms. D. Patel followed by Introduction by Ms. R. R. Bharucha, Director ADINET and lamp lighting by eminent dignitaries which included, Prof. J . N. Goswami, Director PRL, Shri. K. Sarabhai, Chairman ADINET, Shri. S. Shah, Vice President AMA and Dr. J. Arora, Director INFLIBNET.

Inaugural address by Prof. J. N. Goswami was lively but sounded warning bells for the profession, he expressed his view from the point of view of a scientist, what he thinks of a librarian, emphasized on understanding the difference between Information and Knowledge. Can librarians provide knowledge? That's a big Question, attention professional friends, time for re-thinking...

Guest of Honor Mr. Sunil Shah gave his thoughts from the point of view of an entrepreneur.

Presidential address by Shri. Kartikeya Sarabhai was as usually enlightening, he too emphasized on embracing technological advancements in our libraries to meet the changing demands.

In his keynote address Dr. Jagdish Arora give an overall picture of the current trends in libraries and beautifully explained Library 2.0 and its applications.

Inaugural session ended with vote of thanks by Shri. K. Manoj Kumar, Scientist D (CS) INFLIBNET.

There were seven technical papers in total divided in two sessions, technical session-1 was chaired by Shri. Satish Deshpande, Ex-Head British Library Ahmedabad and it had following technical papers:
1. Information Literacy: A Critical Skill of Knowledge Society - Dr. C. R. Karisiddappa
It was gem of a lecture, a class apart.
2. Emerging Trends in Librarianship - Mr. H. Anilkumar
3. Virtual Reference Service - Dr. T. S. Kumbar

This session also included three commercial presentations by Elsevier, Sage and Springer respectively.

Technical Session-2 was chaired by Mr. Prem Chand, Scientist-D (LS) INFLIBNET and it had following technical papers
4. E-learning: Trends & Opportunities for LIS - Ms. Shweta Shroff
5. Bibliographic Control: Electronic Media - Mr. Shailesh Yagnik
6. Impact of ICT on Changing Scenario of LICs - Dr. (Ms.) P. Lalitha
7. Scholarly Search Engines - Mr. Saroj Das

This session also included four commercial presentations by Beegees Computers Pvt. Ltd., IET, Emerald and INFLIBNET respectively.

The event was successful though there are some areas to be looked upon in future as there is always scope of improvement in any aspect.

Those who participated may share their views/opinion/suggestions so that we can conduct such events in a better way.

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Librarians' Day 2008