Dear All,
It seems that the library careerists masquerading as professionals, may not
be able to appreciate the pre-eminence of the decisions of a few
universities like Kerala University & JNU which dispensed with part time
research of working librarians. Standard Universities institute research to
serve the public purposes of advancing the frontiers of knowledge rather
than to address the parochial careeristic aspiration of a few under-employed
librarians to gain a couple of increments or a shortened tenure of career
advancement.
There exist innumerable universities which would send a doctorate degree for
a payment of a fee and submission of any typed rubbish in the form of a
thesis. Such degrees will be enough for anyone to get a higher job, if he is
ready to invest some sort of 'political capital' into his career desires. So
kindly let some other universities like JNU to have provision for some sort
of qualitative kind of research, by committed fulltime researchers leading
to
the growth of professional body of knowledge in librarianship, as a measure
to ensure plurality of options.
If the thinking about upliftment of library profession revolves round
gaining increments, obtaining promotions or supremacy of designation, the
library fraternity cannot grow above the level of a clerk, a store keeper or
at the most a technician. That would not be good for improving the
professional image of librarians in general which is at the low ebb right
now.
Best Regards,
K Rajasekharan
Librarian, Kerala Institute of Local Administration(KILA)
Thrissur
----- Original Message -----
From: Puna Das