Are we Librarians taken seriously? Most of us would say NO. But why? What are the reasons? There are claims by the Library Professionals (at least in the listservs) to be at par with the other professionals, but deep within ourselves we know the reality. Its hard but its true.
For example, a decent job at par with other profession, an LIS professional must have double masters degree, i.e., an additional masters degree along with LIS masters, whereas only masters in a particular field is sufficient for the other professional. This itself shows the disparity.
Now, who are to be blamed, those who do not take us seriously or we ourselves?
We are unable to project our importance to the society. In this 21st century we still need to make a common man (most of them literate) understand what we do, they view librarians as a person sitting and putting due date stamp in the circulation counter, because they may have seen librarians doing just that, and captured the image in their thoughts.
There could be many reasons for this Librarians Identity crisis, some are:
-Lack of Self Confidence;
-Lack of Effective Communication Skills;
-Lack of Proactive attitude;
-Lack of Creativity;
-Lack of Innovative Ideas;
-Lack of Competitive Course structure; and
-Lack of Unity among professionals
Time has come when we address the issue seriously, UNITE, SHARE our thoughts and move together.
Why not establishing a School may be called, "Indian Institute of Library and Information Management" where the LIS professional would be trained on various aspects of Library and Information management, technological challenges, creative and innovative thinking, entrepreneurial qualities, communication skills, etc. so that they are capable enough to take up the challenges and re-write the concept of librarianship in this era of Googleism and Web 2.0.
(The thoughts posted are solely of the Blogger (saroj175@gmail.com) and in Indian context)
For example, a decent job at par with other profession, an LIS professional must have double masters degree, i.e., an additional masters degree along with LIS masters, whereas only masters in a particular field is sufficient for the other professional. This itself shows the disparity.
Now, who are to be blamed, those who do not take us seriously or we ourselves?
We are unable to project our importance to the society. In this 21st century we still need to make a common man (most of them literate) understand what we do, they view librarians as a person sitting and putting due date stamp in the circulation counter, because they may have seen librarians doing just that, and captured the image in their thoughts.
There could be many reasons for this Librarians Identity crisis, some are:
-Lack of Self Confidence;
-Lack of Effective Communication Skills;
-Lack of Proactive attitude;
-Lack of Creativity;
-Lack of Innovative Ideas;
-Lack of Competitive Course structure; and
-Lack of Unity among professionals
Time has come when we address the issue seriously, UNITE, SHARE our thoughts and move together.
Why not establishing a School may be called, "Indian Institute of Library and Information Management" where the LIS professional would be trained on various aspects of Library and Information management, technological challenges, creative and innovative thinking, entrepreneurial qualities, communication skills, etc. so that they are capable enough to take up the challenges and re-write the concept of librarianship in this era of Googleism and Web 2.0.
(The thoughts posted are solely of the Blogger (saroj175@gmail.com) and in Indian context)
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