March 2011 - LIS-Forum - ncsi.iisc.ernet.in

What LIS Student Should Know
by srinivas rao 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

What LIS Student Should Know? Every year, a group of students joins the universities on their way to becoming librarians and information professionals. Each group is full of energy and ideas, and ready to take on the world. Each student believes in the power of information, even before they fully realize the power that information holds. Every person is willing to make sacrifices in order to reach his/her goal. While the wide-eyed "this is awesome" attitude remains during the semester, it often becomes tempered as students attend to the details of their classes and their lives as graduate students. The end of the semester is in sight, but there is so much to do before then! 1. You have selected a noble professional, no matter what name you use to describe it. Every organization and person needs help locating and using information, and you are becoming poised to assist them. You can help them with its organization and retrieval. You can help with its interpretation and dissemination. You can work to ensure that information is available to those who need it, no matter who the person is or where the person is located. 2. Yes, what we call ourselves is in flux. We do seem to be hung-up on labels, which is unfortunate. What really matters are the knowledge and skills that we have. Your knowledge and skills will open doors for you, and land you in positions that you might not have imagined when you first said, "I want to be a librarian." 3. Your coursework won't teach you everything you need to know. While you will learn a tremendous amount during your coursework, LIS programs are not apprenticeships and we're not like medical schools where students do full-fledged residencies as part of their programs. You will learn theory and introduce you to practice they will give you opportunities to learn and to dive into your practice through specific assignments and your internship. 4. Every information professional you meet during your graduate program is a person who can connect you to a job. It doesn't matter if you see the person in the classroom, at a conference, or on a library tour...that person has connections that could help you, if only you asked. mmm...and there is the problem...you have to engage the person in order to ask about opportunities. I know that it isn't easy talking to strangers, but you’re joining a profession that likes to share information and be helpful (those really are our traits), so just start with "hi" and let a conversation start. Remember to exchange contact information and then, when you're comfortable, ask about the opportunities that person sees on the horizon. 5. Your reputation, CV/Resume and portfolio matter. I believe in having a portfolio of work that you can share with a prospective employer, as well as your resume/CV. Many people are creating their portfolios online and including in them samples of their work (e.g., papers and presentations). Keep in mind that your portfolio doesn't need to be fancy; it just needs to be a good representation of you. Placing this information online -- either on a web site, in a blog, or in LinkedIn (perhaps with a connection to SlideShare) -- allows you to present what you want people to know about you and your work. It also makes you more findable. Someone searching on a topic of interest may stumble upon something you have and then be interested in you as a professional. And - yes - you want to be findable. As you think about your resume and portfolio, also think about your reputation. According to a Microsoft survey of more than 1,200 hiring managers in December 2009, 79% of companies and recruiters reviewed online information about job applicants and 70% had actually rejected candidates based on what they found. - Information Today, Nov. 2010, p. 1 Take time to clean up that information that is online about you in Facebook and other social networking site. Review the photos that you're in and make sure that they reflect the you that an employer would like to hire. And check your profiles - even in places like Twitter - to ensure that they say what you truly want to communicate. 6. Don't lose out on a job opportunity because you either were not findable or what was found wasn't deemed professional. Use all of the resources that are available to you. I suspect that you haven't explored all of the resources that are available to you on campus that will help you prepare to find a job as well as ensure that you're prepared for that job. Have you stopped into Career Services? Have you done mock interviews? Have you check out other resources that have been mentioned on syllabi, in classes or during orientation? Odds are that you haven't and that's a shame. Those resources are there to help you (and you've paid for them), so you should be using them. There are also resources on campus to help you when you’re stressed or when your world seems to be crashing around you. If you need them, please - please - please use them. If you don't know what those resources might be, please ask. Yes, there are also fun resources on campus. We tend to get caught up in all the work that needs to be done and forget that relaxation is important. So do schedule time to walk through a building that you think is interesting or to check out an art exhibit. Those few moments will help to refuel you. 7. Ingest more content about the profession. That includes reading blogs as well as the professional literature, watching videos and presentations, and listening to podcasts. You might start with: Information Today (magazine)Searcher (magazine)EContent (magazine)Library Journal (magazine) LibPunk Radio (podcast)Adventures in Library Instruction (podcast)T is for Training (podcast)Free Range Librarian (blog) Tennant: Digital Libraries (blog)Book of Trogool (blog)David Lee King (blog)Walking Papers (blog) Of course, these are a few of hundreds of resources available to you! So explore and find those that challenge your thinking as well as inform you. Develop an informed opinion about the profession and what we do (or should be doing). If you haven't joined a professional association, forum do so and then read its discussion lists, blogs, and journals as well as attend its meetings. Srinivasa Rao Ganta Librarian Bharat Institute of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad Mobile9666656116 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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Library Destruction in Egypt
by Prof. Juran Krishna Sarkhel 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

Dear Modrator, Please post the following message: Let's show the world that libraries have a heart and can unite to help the Egyptian people rebuild their public libraries. Two public libraries in Cairo, Egypt were senselessly destroyed this February by vandals who stole and burned the contents and left the two libraries in ruins. Queens Library has a formal partnership with the Integrated Care Society which operates the network of public libraries in Cairo. Library professionals of Egypt are rallying cry to libraries and library lovers globally to help the Egyptian friends rebuild and reopen as soon as possible. Together, the millions of people who support libraries worldwide can help reopen the doors to the information and opportunities that libraries provide to the people of Cairo. Please create and promote a link on your library's home page to the URL below so the people you serve have an opportunity to donate, if they so choose. Please do all you can do to promote this effort. http://www.queenslibrary.org/ext/cairo/index.htm The destruction of a public library is a blow felt by all - promoting this link on library home pages worldwide can make a difference by providing an opportunity for the people in our cities, towns, and villages to help. Thank you. Dr. J. K. Sarkhel Professor of Library & Information Science & Director, Directorate of Open and Distance Learning University of Kalyani Kalyani-741235 West Bengal; India Mobile: 09433175705 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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KOHA Implementation @ University of Mysore
by Nagana Goudar 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

Dear Professionals, After an extensive survey and analysis, an Expert Committee consisting of senior library professionals and teaching faculty of University of Mysore recommended the adoption of KOHA, an open source integrated library management system for automating libraries under University of Mysore including Main Library and libraries of Constituent Colleges (5), Institutions (13), PG Centers (3) and Departments (37). Our earlier attempts (before 2003) of automating our libraries using ILMSs like Libsys, TLMS and SLIM were discontinued with little OPAC work done due to various reasons. However, now we have migrated the bibliographic records created as a result of earlier attempts into a newly adopted system KOHA. Why KOHA? KOHA is selected based on the following key considerations: 1) Features / Capabilities: - KOHA’s cataloging, OPAC and circulation modules are of superior quality to alternativesavailable, both commercial and open access ones; - Acquisition and Serials control modules are adequate for our requirement at this time. We expect these modules to improve in the next version of KOHA 3.4 especially in the context of Indian libraries in the coming months due to extensive ongoing developmental work going on both sponsored and through strong KOHA community members (130) world over; - KOHA is MARC 21, SIP2, UTF-8 compliant and fully web based; - Moving context based “browse shelf” facility helps us to know books on both sides of selected books on the concerned shelf; - OPAC searching automatically picks up Google books concerned based on ISBN number with a facility to see related books, many a times with a full text availability; - KOHA supports integration of barcode and RFID integration/ implementation; - Web 2.0 and Lib 2.0applications 2) Adoption of KOHA in India: - Good number of libraries including few university libraries have already adopted KOHA; - KOHA has become very popular in Kerala; - Some libraries using other ILMSs have already switched to KOHA and some are in the pipeline; - British Council librariesin India and Sri Lanka, who were using Libsys are in the process of switching over to KOHA soon. - DRTC has taken appropriate steps towards popularizing KOHA 3) Upfront and ongoing cost: All software including operating system (Linux) and database server (MySQL) are open source irrespective of number of libraries, records, OPACs etc. Continuity of KOHA as open source is ensured. 4) No risks involved: KOHA being open source software we are not tied up with any software vendor and thereby we have freedom to choose /change any service vendor any time. 5) KOHA implementation at UoM: - KOHA is already installed and configured on Linux operating system; - Migration of existing record to KOHA is completed; - Creation of new OPAC records is in full swing; - We have trained more than 30 staff for database creation and all housekeeping modules; - Few staff members have been trained for Linux administration; - Still we need to implement circulation module; 6) Model we have adopted: - Createsingle database of estimated 11 lakhs bibliographic records of books available in above mentioned 56 libraries; - Distributed housekeeping and data entry activities at all institutions / colleges; - Search single or all libraries at one go; - Unique accession number for each document irrespective library holding it; - Unique patron number for different level of faculty, research scholars and students irrespective institution/college; - Plan to introduce master membership cardwith eligibility to borrow documents from any library under UoM; 7) Vendor for implementation and support work: - Nucsoft OSS Labs, Bangalorehave supported us in this venture; - They have strong team of more than 11 staff for serving their customers; - Apart from installation, configuration and maintenance, they have successfully migrated the old records originated from ILMSs mentioned above; - Our experience with OSS Labs is very goodwith ensured service in shortest possible time. 8) Database on third party cloud computing platform: - OSS Lab people have arranged hosting our database in cloud computing environment with Amazon’s elastic cloud computing platform with 99.95% availability, 99.9999% data durability, information security based on ISO 27000 standards, scalability and flexibility. 9) Future planning: - Networking of all library OPACs of affiliated colleges under University of Mysore; - Development of KOHA Community in India (in fact many libraries in Kerala have already adopted KOHA as well in other states facilitating formation of KOHA community); - We expect our staff to do documentation, testing and even some software development. 10) General comments: - Taking into account of the least cost involved only for implementation and maintenance, KOHA is the best option for different kind of libraries including academic, special and public libraries of all sizes; - We need to have more number of training programs on KOHA; - Some of the LIS Departments have already added KOHA in their syllabus, others need to follow; - Our users are very happy with performance of KOHA in all angles. Our OPAC is available at URL: http://libcat.mysore-univ.org All our library staff have been giving their best for realizing the long pending library automation and modernization program. Our Hon’ble Vice-Chancellor Prof. V.G. Talawar has given all the necessary support and encouragement in our endeavour. I appreciate in getting your feedback. I shall be glad to answer any related questions. Dr. IRN Goudar Visiting Professor and Library Advisor Mysore University Library Mobile: 919611165781 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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KELPRO Bulletin Student Paper Contest
by Surendran Cherukodan 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

kelpro bulletin (issn 0975-4911) a bi-nnual journal in Library & Information Science Published by kerala library professionals’ organization Since 1997, through 14 volumes, kelpro Bulletin has been a leader among scholarly journals in Library & Information Science in India. As part of its strategy to encourage budding LIS professionals kelpro Bulletin is announcing a call for “Best Student Paper of 2011”. This competition supports kelpro Bulletin’s goal of publishing the best articles from the next generation of Library and Information Science professionals. We are proud to recognize the best papers with special awards. The main objective of this awards are: To encourage lis students to present research papers addressing, the current trends in Library and information Science; To encourage the students to understand and participate in professional activities and there by promote communication, co-operation and unity among the library professionals. Participants Students include Post-graduate, M.Phil and Research Scholars in lis, below the age of 40 years are invited to submit high quality research papers to this competition. Single author/joint author (Maximum 2 authors) paper are invited. Theme of the Paper The theme is “Open Source Software in LIS field”. Research paper should address the significant issues facing todays Librarians, Information Scientists and Faculty members on the above topic. Case studies, best practices and pure research papers are welcome. Length of the paper should be in the range of 4000-6000 words. Language: English. Abstract should be given in not exceeding 200 words. Bibliographical references should be given on author date system. For more details see Instructions to contributors in kelpro Bulletin. Paper should be submitted in CD format done in MS word together with a printed copy. The paper should be submitted on or before 15th July 2011. Selection of the paper An expert committee constituted by Kelpro will select the best papers for awards. Paper will be judged on the basis of ± Originality of thought and observation. ± Depth of research and scholarship. ± Topicality of the problem addressed ± Quality of ideas, research methods, results or argument ± Quality of writing and referencing ± The decision of the expert committee will be final in this regard. Awards Three prizes will be given in this competition of the Best Student Paper-2011 First Prize - The author of the Best Student Paper will be honoured with a cash prize of Rs. 5,000/-, a Certificate of Merit and free subscription of kelpro Bulletin for 2 yesrs. Second & Third Prize - The author of the second & third Best Student paper will be given a Certificate of Merit and free subscription of kelpro Bulletin for 2 years. (In case joint author paper winning the award, the prize money will be shared equally). The award wining papers and few selected papers will be published in the Special issue of kelpro Bulletin December 2011. Submission of the Paper: Manuscript should be send to Dr. S. Humayoon Kabir Editor, kelpro Bulletin, Dept. of Library and Information Science, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram - 695 034, Kerala. Or Sri. R. Rajendran Pillai, Managing Editor, kelpro, Post Box No. 5543, Kerala University P.O., Trivandrum - 695 034, Kerala. Electronic Submission to: humayoonkabirs(a)gmail.com. The paper should be attached with the following 1. A certificate showing the details of enrolment of the student from the Head of the 2. Proof of Date of Birth of the Student (attested true copy). 3. Declaration stating that the paper is an original work of mine and has not been published in any journal book or presented in any seminar/conference. Regards Surendran Cherukodan Junior Librarian School of Engineering Cochin University of Science and Technology Cochin-682022 Kerala. India Mob. 09447579411 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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Call for Participation: DiversiWeb2011 -- First International Workshop on Knowledge Diversity on the Web
by Dimple Patel 06 Mar '11

06 Mar '11

******** Apologies for multiple postings *********** Please forward to interested parties and relevant listservs *********************************************************** Dear Colleagues We welcome your participation to the WWW2011 DiversiWeb Workshop. Kindly see below for details. Best Regards -- Devika Madalli, DRTC/ISIBC Co-Chair, DiversiWeb 2011 *************************************************************** ******** Call for Participation for DiversiWeb 2011 *********** *************************************************************** First International Workshop on Knowledge Diversity on the Web Workshop at WWW 2011, Hyderabad, India, March 28 or 29 (TBD), 2011 Supported by the EU FP7 projects RENDER and Living Knowledge == Organization committee == * Elena Simperl, AIFB, KIT, Germany * Devika P. Madalli, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, India * Denny Vrandecic, AIFB, KIT, Germany * Enrique Alfonseca, Google Zurich, Switzerland Website: ========= http://render-project.eu/diversiweb-2011/ Almost 20 years after its introduction, the Web provides a platform for the publication, use and exchange of information, at planetary scale, on virtually every topic, and representing an amazing diversity of opinions, viewpoints, mindsets and backgrounds. The success of the Web can be attributed to several factors, most notably to its principled scalable design, but also to a number of subsequent ICT developments such as smart user-generated content, mobile devices, and most recently cloud computing. The first two of these have dramatically lowered the last barriers of entry when it comes to producing and consuming information online, leading to an unprecedented growth and mass collaboration. They are responsible for hundreds of millions of users all over the globe creating high-quality encyclopedias, publishing Terabytes of multimedia content, contributing to world-class software, and lively taking part in defining the agenda of many aspects of our society by raising their voices, and publicly expressing and sharing their ideas, viewpoints, and resources. The other side of the coin in this unique success story is, nevertheless, the great challenges associated with managing the sheer amounts of information continuously being published online, whilst allowing for purposeful use, and leveraging the diversity inherently unfolding through global-scale collaboration. In this context, diversity includes different opinions, sentiments, preferences, or worldviews that are reflected in the way information is expressed on the Web. These challenges are still to be solved at many levels, from the infrastructure to store and access the information, through the methods and techniques to make sense out of it, to the paradigms underlying the processes of Web-based information provision and consumption. As an example, when searching for blog posts, state-of-the-art technology – be that popularity-based algorithms, recommendation engines or collaborative filters – tends to return either the most popular posts, or those which correspond with a personal profile and therefore with the known opinions and tastes of the reader. Alternative points of view, and new unexpected content, are not taken into account as they are not highly ranked, and posts expressing different opinions are sometimes even discarded. This behavior has particularly negative consequences when dealing with information that is expected and intended to be subject to diverse opinion – as is the case with news reports, ratings of products or media content, customer reviews, or any other type of subjective assessment. The same negative effects apply in a community-driven environment that is designed for collaboration – the most obvious example here being Wikipedia and the blogosphere. The information diversity exposed in such an environment, impressive both with respect to scale and the richness of opinions and viewpoints expressed, cannot be handled without adequate computer support in an economically feasible manner. In the long run, maintaining the current state-of-affairs will change the ways and the extent to which people are informed (or not) on a particular topic, tremendously influencing how they look into that topic, what they find about it and what they think about it. On top of all this, it is meanwhile acknowledged that the current state of affairs hampers true collaboration. Wikipedia is a tremendous success, but it is also a largely meritocratic system with a decreasing number of active contributors, whereas the blogosphere has to deal with the limited attention of the blog authors. What is needed are novel concepts, methods and tools that allow humans and machines to leverage the huge amounts of information created by a community, based on interaction models that support expressing, communicating and reasoning about divergent models simultaneously. This would not only enhance true collaboration, but would also significantly improve various aspects of the information management life cycle, thus addressing information overload in sectors which rely on opinions-driven information sources and mass participation – news, ratings, reviews, and social and information sharing portals of any kind. == Goal of the workshop == The overall aim of this workshop is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss their ideas related to the challenges posed by diversity on the Web. We aim to address a wide array of interdisciplinary questions, which need to be tackled in order to preserve the fragile balance between a world that is continually converging and growing together, the rich diversity of the global society, and the dangers of fragmentation and splintering. This includes but is not limited to questions such as ‘How to model diversity?’, ‘How to discover bias and opinion in blog posts, tweets, forum items, wiki edits, etc.?’, ‘How to rank, aggregate, summarize, and exploit information in a diversity-aware manner?’, ‘What are the applications of diversity-rich information sources?’, ‘How can we use diversity as an asset instead of regarding it as a barrier?’. Topics of the workshop include, but are not limited to: ======================================================= * Risks and advantages of diversity and diversification on the Web * Facets of knowledge diversity and conceptual and formal models for representing and understanding diversity * Discovery and mining of corpora for diversity-related information * Use of Natural Language Processing techniques for diversity mining * Classifying Web 2.0 content items such as blog posts, videos, tweets, and wiki-edits by their biases * Usage and benefits of diversity in the corporate context, e.g. in order to understand feedback and communication with the customer * Enabling or improving communication and collaboration over barriers induced by diversity * Extensions to Web applications taking diversity into account * Exposing and explaining diversity to end users * User experiences avoiding the radicalization of groups by exposing them to alternatives * User interfaces allowing the explicit annotation of content with diversity markers * Studies on the acceptance by end-users of diversified applications. == Organization committee == * Elena Simperl, AIFB, KIT, Germany * Devika P. Madalli, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, India * Denny Vrandecic, AIFB, KIT, Germany * Enrique Alfonseca, Google Zurich, Switzerland Contact us at <diversiweb(a)lists.kit.edu> -- Dr.Devika P. Madalli Associate Professor Documentation Research and Training Center (DRTC) Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) 8th Mile, Mysore Road, Bangalore - 560059 Karnataka, INDIA Phone: +91-80-28483002 /3/4/5/6 Extsn 497 or 490 Fax:+91-80-28482711 Email: devika(a)drtc.isibang.ac.in -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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Missed ICLAM 2011? View ppts of renowned speakers in Slideshare!
by nandini dutta 06 Mar '11

06 Mar '11

Dear Friends, For all those who could not and also those who could attend the international conference ICLAM 2011, here is an opportunity ! Relive the excitement of all the three-days of ICLAM 2011 conference from February 15 to 17, 2011 at the India International Centre, New Delhi through the Slideshare and Flickr. We have begun uploading selective presentations of renowned national and international speakers to the Slideshare. Please refer to : http://www.slideshare.net/event/international-conference-on-the-convergence… Keep watching, more ppts will be added .....Also check for photos in Flickr ! A golden chance to witness the truly historical event -- ICLAM 2011 was the first international conference in India that promoted the convergence of Libraries, Archives and Museums ! We believe in resource sharing. Happy viewing ! Nandini Dutta -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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Conversion of Pounds and Dollars
by murulieps＠excelindia.com 05 Mar '11

05 Mar '11

Dear Professionals, Please help me with the conversion of Dollars and Pounds into Indian Rupees. In different websites it shows different values. If you provide me with some website addresses that is reliable and gives the updated information that would be a great help. Thanking your in anticipation. Muruli Librarian Excel Public School Mysore 97421 33755 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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ASIS&T Bulletin February/March
by Dabas Bharat K 05 Mar '11

05 Mar '11

-- On Thu, 3/3/11, ramesh e <librarymrcet(a)gmail.com> wrote: From: ramesh e <librarymrcet(a)gmail.com> Subject: [MLOSC.12727] ASIS&T Bulletin February/March To: iala(a)googlegroups.com Cc: mlosc(a)googlegroups.com Date: Thursday, March 3, 2011, 11:00 PM For more information, please visit the bulletin February/March of ASIS&T. http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-11/Bulletin_FebMar11_Final.pdf Since 1937, the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) has been the society for information professionals leading the search for new and better theories, techniques, and technologies to improve access to information. ASIS&T counts among its membership some 4,000 information specialists from such fields as computer science, linguistics, management, librarianship, engineering, law, medicine, chemistry, and education; individuals who share a common interest in improving the ways society stores, retrieves, analyzes, manages, archives and disseminates information, coming together for mutual benefit. Purpose The Society seeks to stimulate participation and interaction among its members by affording them an environment for substantive professional exchange. It encourages and supports personal and professional growth through opportunities for members to extend their knowledge and skills, develop and use professional networks, pursue career development goals and assume leadership roles in the Society and in the information community. ASIS&T increases the influence of information professionals among decision-makers by focusing attention on the importance of information as a vital resource in a high-technology age and promotes informed policy on national and international information issues by contributing to the formation of those policies. It supports the advancement of the state-of-the art and practice by taking a leadership position in the advocacy of research and development in basic and applied information science. http://www.asis.org/about.html Regards, ELAGANDULA RAMESH Librarian, www.mrcet.ac.in ASIS&T Info-Share 2011 membership awardee 9951365011 Bharat Kumar Assistant Librarian Management Development Institute Gurgaon - 122007, Haryana, India Phone No - (M) +91-9968456404 (O) +91-124-4560390 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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Computerization of Library
by murulieps＠excelindia.com 05 Mar '11

05 Mar '11

Dear Professionals, As I am taking initiative to computerize my library I am in need of information about how to get in touch with the library software vendor and other issues related to training and follow up. However, I am not aware of any such institutions/agencies that prvode service regard to the same. Alternatively, I have come accross a number of open source softwares such as KOHA, GREEN STONE etc. But I am finding it difficult to download the software and proceed further process as I am not technically sound enough. How do I go ahead with it? Can a freely available software be helpful to my situation? Please advice and educate me on the same. If you provide contact information of such Agencies which are locally available (Bangalore/Mysore), that would be a great help. I look forward with anticipation. Muruli Librarian Excel Public School Mysore -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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Now, NET certificates at your fingertips
by Irshad Ahmed 04 Mar '11

04 Mar '11

Dear professionals Good news for students opting for NET exam. Now you need not to wait for NET certificates for months. click on the link below to read more http://www.deccanherald.com/content/142901/now-net-certificates-your-finger… Irshad Ahmed Information Assitant Deccan Herald Bangalore -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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