Dear friends of LIS Profession The Ministry of Human Resources Development released the National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 (final draft) early this month inviting public opinion and feedback from all stakeholders. The good news is, unlike in the earlier draft report of NEP released in 2016 as an input to the policy which mentioned the word library just in one place coming as part of a quote, NEP 2019 mentions library in more than 30 instances, in its 480 page report, spread over 23 chapters. But the disappointment is, library is just mentioned in a few contexts as part of various infrastructure support. As policy guideline, there are only two statements on libraries: - “Expansion of school and public libraries and building a culture of reading and communication” (p68)’ - “Enhancing access to libraries and online journals” (p241) – This policy statement in particular suggests setting up a mechanism to enable the Government to be the single buyer for online access to journals for all public institutions to replace the present practice of funding premier institutions for subscriptions to journals. The treatment given to library is more of a “such as” facility. In October 2017, the committee set up for developing the new NEP 2019 had arranged a meeting of a few librarians in NAAC, Bangalore. This group of librarians had given a set of thirteen policy recommendations. None of these recommendations is found as specific policy statement in the NEP 2019 draft report which is surprising. I consider it important that the LIS groups initiate quick debate on NEP 2019 (draft) and its implications on the future of libraries in the country if accepted without according adequate and appropriate focus on library as an integral part of and yet distinct role player in education. It is highly desirable that LIS groups and in particular the professional associations like ILA, IASLIC and others initiate quick debate to evolve a national library policy document and submit to the NEP 2019 (draft) committee for inclusion as a distinct chapter in the report. |N. V. Sathyanarayana| |Chairman & Managing Director|Informatics India Ltd.|Bangalore 560004|INDIA| |www.informaticsglobal.com|+91-80-40387777| -- *Confidentiality Notice: *T*his electronic message transmission, including any attachment(s), may contain confidential, proprietary, or privileged information from Informatics Publishing Limited. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any dissemination, copying, distribution, printing or use of the contents of the information contained in this electronic message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this electronic message by error, please destroy all copies of the message and contact the sender immediately by either replying to this message or calling 91-80-40387777.* -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.