Sri. K. Rajasekharan of Kerala Institute of Local Administration,   Thrissur in his recent postings in LIS-FORUM on creating website   with Google Page Creator has rightly observed "Our library science schools should not refrain from focusing on such things   (teaching of new technologies) too in their academic activities".    

While endorsing in principle the concern of Sri Rajashekaran, I   would like to add that a few library schools have been striving hard to prepare library science students to the new environment.   Unfortunately, their efforts are either rarely being reported or documented. I feel that  Listservs like LIS-FORUM  could be used as one such forums where  Library Schools can  report to the professional community  their activities and programs more regularly.    

Department of Library and Information Science (MyDLIS),   University of Mysore, Mysore has always striven hard to incorporate and inculcate new technologies in its  teaching/ mentoring programmes. Mention may be made of the following specific experiments/ innovations.

• Blogging : MyDLIS  has been  encouraging students to create their own blogs.  It may not be out of context to say that a blogging competition was held in November 2005 and 56 students out of 64 participated in the competition and successfully created their own blogs. 
• Email:  Students are encouraged to submit their assignments and other written documents and many times being made compulsory by some faculty members. 
• On-line tests:  Tests for students are being conducted in online mode for their internal assessment in one of   the subjects.
  
• Friday talks - one of our successful traditions for the last 4 decades, are being conducted every week.  Under this Friday talk programme, efforts are made to help develop students 'well rounded personality' both professionally and personally -   Under this program experts from   different walks of life, including those in the field of IT, are invited to talk on their experience.  This provides the students insight into challenges and issues that one   might face in their careers / life.
  
• The cataloguing practical is being conducted in IT   labs and students prepare catalogue records in MARC21, Dublin   Core etc. using HTML, XML and RDF formats. 
• Training in library automation software and digital library software are part of practical training. 
• Online Social bookmaking and other tools/techniques are being used for academic purposes by students and staff.
• The syllabus is being updated almost every   three years to incorporate the latest developments.
• Project work is compulsory and invariably students take up ICT based topics. The students key in their project/dissertation on their own using the computing facility available in the Department.   In fact, the custom of projects/work experience was introduced earlier to 1980.
• MyDLIS had introduced "Computers in Libraries" paper way back in 1980s
• A computer lab was started early as 1989 in the Department. It was the first among very few computer labs at that time in the Mysore University.
• The concept of electives was first introduced by MyDLIS in mid 1970s itself.

However , we would like to confess , that despite our enthusiasm and best efforts, the outcome may not be 'fantastic' for the simple reason that LIS profession does not attract forget about top level, not even the mid level talent.  Majority of the students come from rural areas, having studied in the regional language and from poorer section of the society without access to computers. They do not have any computer orientation at all.  They are starters as for as IT is concerned.  They have to not learn only the library science subjects but also the skill of IT within a span of 2 years.  For some students it is too much to cope up with.  However, we encourage our students to keep themselves abreast of new technologies.  given their background, some of them get motivated and are transformed.  Of course there is an urgent need for some organised mechanism to train the trainers (teachers) also.

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