Mr. Hiremath has a point about the fact that in many other countries, people do not speak such good English. But...................as far as I have noticed librarians from these countries presenting in International conferences, their presentation matter is something of absolutely high standards. So, I dont think we are then talking of a lack of only English. It may be one lack, but reality is that a majority of our people lack communication skills and presentation skills. I know exactly what Dr. Vyasamoorthy means. The problem today is not of any great English skills, but of the lack of the ability to write a "plain and simple covering letter" for a document. And incidentally, this is not restricted to librarians, but across the bunch of graduates. And - while I am sure all of us would be proud of having colleagues who speak excellent Hindi / Marathi / Gujarati / Tamil - or whichever of our innumerable languages, the harsh reality is that in India, the business language is English. If we wish to excel in our profession, then good, plain, simple English - written correctly is all that we need. Learning it is no big deal. All that is required is to kill two birds with one stone. While reading the newspaper or any English magazine article / stroy , focus on the correct use of language, in addition to absorbing the news. Do the same while watching the TV news / any English serial. I know of a librarian who studied upto BA in Tamil medium, in a small town in Tamil Nadu. She then moved to Mumbai, and learnt English to a level higher than what I am defining as minimum expectation, simply because she decided to do it. All it takes is "wanting to". Once one wants to - there are a million simple ways to do it. I am sure each of us who has written about the importance of English, is very willing to teach and help our colleagues working with us, to improve. If they want to Regards Vasumathi Sriganesh Director, QMed Services Pvt. Ltd. A-3, Shubham Centre, Cardinal Gracious Road Chakala, Andheri East, Mumbai 400099, India Ph: 91-22-28229223 Fax: 91-22-28224358 Mobile: 98211-14510 Email: vasu@qmedin.com, Web: www.qmedin.com