How many Librarians in East Europe, Japan, France, China and Russia
and many other countries know English. Haven't these countries
progressed ? If the Librarian has studied in Vernacular upto high
school, is it his fault ? Library Science teacher's are there to teach
Library Science and not English Language skills.
When you were recruiting an Information Officer, what was the basic
requirement ? Was it his skills in Information Management or English
language ?
You have a done a great disservice by writing highly unwarranted
mail. This will dissuade many Librarians from writing to this forum.
They all will develop inferiotity complex. Itis a national shame that
when two Indians...Librarians.... from different parts of the country
meet they have to communicate in English language. Have you ever
thought about conversing in Hindi ?
I jolly well know the importance of English language in the world. But
that doesn't mean that we have to look down upon our fellow
professionals who are not proficient in English. We have all become
slaves to English language and take great pride in being so.
I as a customer, have received many e-mails from your Organization and
I don't think ICICI as such attaches much importance to English
language skills and rightly so. Why is it that only you are so keen
about it when it is not an Institutional policy. Working knowledge of
the languages is more that sufficient for providing the services.
Unless ofcourse you are going to write a treatise.
Jayadev P Hiremath
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:36:38 +0530, Vyasamoorthy@icicikp.com
Dear Friends,
I am sure that some of you were expecting this. I am really appalled at the lack of any semblance of proficiency in the use of English language among many librarians. I wonder how one could pass through some 17 years of schooling and even after that manage not to learn basics of English Language. It is regrettable that our present system of Education does not emphasize the importance of Language abilities. Because of selfish politicians promoting their own agendas at the cost of the nation and because of a tendency to promote or put up with mediocrity everywhere -- the necessity for striving for excellence is once in a way heard from our president, though -- students do not look at Language skills with any concern.
Recently we had to recruit an Information Officer for our VIC. Out of about fifteen persons we considered, hardly two or three could measure up as far as basic English Language skills are concerned.
On one hand we find the Indian librarians community in India to be prolific writers - even an entry level resume mentions two or three 'papers' published and on the other hand we find that their presentation and communication skills at horribly very low levels. What are reasons? How can this be changed? Who should take action? Is it OK to be where & how we are? What do LIS teachers have to say?
In this lamentation I am not bothered about typing errors (may be you are just lazy - not that you do not know), spelling mistakes (heavy dependence on spell checkers), occasional slippages (it happens to everyone), unheard of abbreviations being thrust on everyone by cell phone (or email?) culture and the like. I am concerned with basic English Language skills expected of a tenth class student. Kindly do not take recourse to "It is the same everywhere - in all other preofessions too" type of argument.
Dr.P.Vyasamoorthy, Advisor, Virtual Information Centre, ICICI Knowledge Park, Genome Valley, Turkapally, Shameerpet Mandal, RR District, Hyderabad 500078 INDIA Email: vyasamoorthy@icicikp.com Phone - Office: +91(40)23480053 Fax: +91(40)23480007 Phone Residence: +91(40)27846631
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