Dear Sir/Madam, This is in replay to the message on Automation of Government First Grade College (GFGCs) libraries in Karnataka posted on 12th May 2011. The Department of Collegiate Education (DCE) effort in automating college libraries in Karnataka is laudable effort. However the same zeal or enthusiasm is missing in addressing the plight of libraries and the librarians. As many of the GFGCs librarians aware or experiencing the ground reality, this automation process of the libraries by the DCE looks absurd. Today the librarians of these colleges are very much in need of man power, infrastructure and understanding the vital role that the libraries playing in shaping the young minds and enriching the quality of the teaching in these places by the heads of the colleges. As mentioned above, many of the colleges are running without proper buildings, library books kept in staff room or in a very tiny place, librarian has to work in this very deplorable condition. In recent years there are genuine efforts from the government in providing financial support and land for colleges. But because of lack of understanding of the importance of libraries and lack of library building plan, the authorities build rooms in keeping view that the rooms would be used as a class room not as libraries. They allot one of the classrooms for libraries to run there. But these rooms become insufficient in short period of time as the number of books and other library materials increases. In many colleges, two to three classrooms were converted as libraries. Librarian has to take care of all these rooms or divide his time accordingly. The authorities at the DCE or college heads are totally alien to the ground reality. The only interest of the college principal is, student should not complain that the books are not issued to them. They never listen to librarians or they have no interest in libraries (with few exceptions). GFGCs need principals who understand and have keen interest in overall development of libraries/colleges. DCE has appointed librarians to colleges but there is no supporting staff. As experienced by many, still for many college libraries no support staff is provided. Alone they are maintaining the whole library. Acquisitions, circulations, routine maintaining of libraries all other work is on the shoulder of the librarian. There is lot of grants for purchasing library books in recent years. Because of lack of professional staff librarian has to take care of the acquisition process, whole year the only job that librarian can be able to do is accessioning the books. We left no time or interest in concentrating other library works. Another reality is the power problem. As many colleges are situated in rural areas or tulak head quarters, power supply is very serious problem. We hardly get two hours of power supply every day. With this sorts of ground reality, what they accept from the librarians. This is not the first time that DCE is going for automation, in early 2008 there were similar efforts to automate college libraries, and they invested huge money at that time, why it has failed? It seems that because of NAAC accreditation, DCE is emphasizing for automation of libraries, this effort is like putting the cart before the horse. [views are personal] ------------------------- With best wishes Vasantha Raju N -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.