Librarians "Live" NOT "Leave" Expectations

A lot is expected from Librarians and why not, the profession is such (if we believe), but are we living up to their (our users/readers), or even our own expectations? A BIG question.

Please read the following email from Mr. Jayantbhai Meghani, a highly learned multi faceted literate to Ms. Pragnyaben Pathak, Librarian at IPR Gandhinagar.
(used with permission)

"Dear Pragnyabahen,
Nice to have a few words from you. You seem to have collected a lot of papers. The one by Yashvantbhai very succinctly tells what the world expects from trained librarians. We teach of a lot of theory and techniques, neglecting practical aspects of a librarian's job. Our students know very little about our literature in different subjects, our learned societies and institutions, our periodicals. The students holding master's degree know about IFLA and DRTC, but they have not any idea what National Book Trust does, how Gujarat Itihas Parishad functions, what are their principal publications. They do not know, and they are not required to know -- because that is not covered in the syllabus! I have seen Gopaldas Patel managing Gujarat Vidyapith Library in a much much much efficient and organised way than any of the librarians since him. He knew a lot more about the world of knowledge, about notable books in all subjects. When Kanubhai was in charge of library science courses at Vidyapith, I could persuade him to introduce a paper of Sahitya Parichay that included outline knowledge about books in various subjects and about scholarly and publishing institutions but they could not find teachers and the paper was dropped after two years! It is a pity that the masters of present day have no idea about critical editions of Mahabharata and Ramayana, about the great dictionary of Sanskrit being created on historical principles, about the National Bibliography of Indian Literature (not INB), about the Bhandarkar Institute, about Central Institute of Indian Languages, about Indian Science Institute, about Indian Institute of Advanced Studies. Pragnyabahen, tame to nasibdar chho ke ek bahu j samruddh sansthamam kam karo chho, pan juo, Gujarat University has no librarian, after Manibhai Prajapati retires, what will happen to Uttar G Univ. Library? Bhavnagar Univ. Library has to do with only two technically qualified people, and the entire library runs with six people including class iv staff.
On the whole the picture is so disappointing. Please excuse me for sharing such gloomy views. In the situation, we are so happy when we find exceptional good experience, but what about the whole lots that come out of the universities?

Jayant"

This mail speaks a lot about the status of our profession, what's your say. Please excuse me for the satire - "Picture bahut Gloomy hai mere dost"

Posted by saroj175@gmail.com

Librarians' Dilemma

In our last posting we had an opinion poll asking to vote for a desired topic for Librarians' Day 2009. After more than 200 visits to this blog, there are only negligible votes to count. Don't know why? Does anyone know?
There could be many reasons:
-we are not serious about this
-we are very busy
-it does not matter to us
-we don't really care
-fear of getting noticed
-let them (ADINET) decide
-still there is a lot of time for this
-why should I vote
OR it could be anything. So, let us not discuss this anymore now, time will come and thing will be decided and we will have another successful Librarians' Day.

Now, let us rewind our thoughts to Librarians' Day 2008. The following were the recommendations and resolutions:-

-In the current era, Librarians have to reorient themselves. They should think creatively and embrace new technology to generate services and resources where their skills of structuring and organizing resources (especially Open Access Resources) are put to the best use.

-Explore the possibility of even small and new libraries in providing new services and making existing services available in new and interesting ways by using more ICT, since a lot of material is available in the digitized form.

-Use more specialized search engines (scholarly and meta search engines) that help to search even the contents of Deep Web, that are a rich wealth of information and available mostly free of cost.

-With collaborative and cooperative efforts, more sharing of bibliographic records amongst the librarians would reduce the duplication and workload. ‘COPY CATALOGUING’ facility will help to provide standardized Bibliographic Control.

-Information is a source of instant power as it facilitates decision-making, problem solving and action taking. In this world of ICT, Information Literacy (IL) is not only about the training in ICT but it is the ability to make effective use of information.

-Traditional LIS education should be supplemented with e-learning and LIS staff should be provided with short term training programs on ‘Library service marketing strategies’ and ‘development of soft skill’ (better communication and behavioral patterns etc.)

“One who makes a resolution and then makes sincere efforts to realize his dreams, nothing stops him from realizing his goal.” - Rig Veda

How true is this saying, we have made these (above mentioned) resolutions, if we make sincere efforts (collectively) to realize these resolutions, nothing can stop us to achieve our goals.

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