Friends,

Here is an interesting article from BBC that deserves to be shared widely among Indian librarians, esp. academic and research librarians.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cevj80gld7do

Ms Ananya Vajpayee, currently with CSDS, Delhi, was a Ph D student at the University of Chicago, where the great A K Ramanujan was heading the Centre for South Asian Studies and Mr James Nye was heading the South Asia Collection in the library, in 1996.

In an interview she gave a few days ago to Mr Soutik Biswas, BBC's India correspondent, and author of this essay, she says, "At the Regenstein Library, I never failed to find the books I needed or get them quickly if they weren't already there."

"The books are safe, valued, accessible and used. I've visited libraries, archives and institutions in every part of India and the story in our country is universally dismal. Here they were lost or destroyed or neglected or very often made inaccessible."

Shouldn't we, members of the LIS profession, act immediately and make our libraries as user friendly and welcoming as the Regenstein Library in Chicago and other academic libraries in the West?

With warm regards and best wishes for a happy, productive and satisfying New Year.

Arun

[Subbiah Arunachalam]