[LIS-Forum] FW: On RTI Act

Dear Professional colleagues, I have been reading the views whether a Librarian should be PIO (Public Information Officer) or not with interest. It is always a business of Lib & Info Professional (LIP) when it comes to dealing with information. However, in current scenario note that everything is information and it is wise not to place our hands in every information that exists. RTI act was introduced in 2005 with a very broad interest to promote transparency and accountability in the offices where the Government funding is received. Any citizen of India now using this act can ask information from any office (designated as public authority) and the office is bound to give it. Providing information is close to the hearts of LIPs. The PIO is a very "powerful" person in the public authority and seek information from other colleagues in the organization. Having given this authority to the PIO, very large responsibility has also been bestowed on him/her. The Central Information Commission (CIC) views it very seriously if the information is not provided within the stipulated time (30 days) and also if the information is not provided if it is proved to exist (of course, there are certain items of disclosure and the definition of information itself indicates what all could be provided). As such it is, no doubt, an interesting process something beyond books for LIPs to handle. But not all roses! I am a PIO for our institute since the act came into force and so far answered 75 queries (note that each query has several paragraphs ranging from 10 to 250 nos!). Over 95% of the queries that have been answered are to satisfy personal interests (seem to be) and not public interests for which the act has been introduced. Moreover, with whatever sincerity you dispose off the requests, the querying person hardly gets satisfied with the replies and the process, at times, continues up to the level of two appeals. Lot of time is 'invested' (if some one does not like to use a word 'wasted') for an unproductive (in my opinion) work leaving aside the normal professional duties that take away peace of mind. I would sum up saying it is an interesting job for those having a temperament like an advocate, who can read through the words and play with the words and arguments. Let me also indicate that who so ever the PIOs I came across so far (either LIPs or from other profession), are doing this job because it has been 'assigned' to them. Of course, a human mind always feels someone else's job is better than theirs! With warm regards, Dr Murari P Tapaswi Natl Info Centre for Marine Sciences (NICMAS) National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) Dona Paula 403 004 Goa, India Phone: 91-832-2450275; Fax: 91-832-2450602 Visit websites: http://www.nio.org; http://www.mangroveindia.org -----Original Message----- From: lis-forum-bounces@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in [mailto:lis-forum-bounces@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in] On Behalf Of Kshipra Sardesai Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 8:14 PM To: rajankila@hotmail.com Cc: Lis forum Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] On RTI Act Dear LIS Professionals, I also agree with K Rajashekharan views about RTI Act professionals as Librarians.I would like to add some more points to that. 1. Librarians have approach of solving the problems. 2. They are good listeners and ability to know the subject. 3. Librarians are polite and servicing attitudes 4. Cataloguing and classification experts 5. They are expert in preservation, retrieval and dissemination . 6. To get the best implemtation of RTI Act among the common people they are the proper persons to guide in a correct fashion. 7. Reagrding Govt Procedures and regulations these things are to be trained to every professionals and once this type of training and knowledge is given then LIS professionals will definately give best outputs. 8. The Information Technology updates are being accepted by this profession 9. If such officer fron LIS is in this field and if he is in rural region, definately there will be more coordination from rural people to Librarian than a govt professional or other IPS professional.Rural people have fear and complex about Govt employees but they respect and listen to their librarians. 10. This will give status and Yes the job satisfaction too. Regards Mrs Kshipra Sardesai Librarian, RBI, DESACS Bandra sOn 3/11/08, Rajan wrote: Dear Shri P Vyasamoorty, As a person with very good knowledge about RTI act and its requirements, I would suggest that librarians are not very suitable for working as State Public Information Officers(SPIO) in the Institutions they work. The job requirements of SPIO are to receive applications, ensure access to information and dispose of applications after careful examination of merit of each one. Under the RTI Act. the cataloging, arrangement and retrieval of information need to be done by the concerned officer and not by anyone else including the SPIO. As well, an officer in sufficient command and authority in that office is the right choice for the position of SPIO so as to ensure easy access to information through the subordinate officers. The job of SPIO involves a lot of quasi-judicial decision making on which librarians are ill-equipped unlike the administrative personnel. As RTI involves a lot of administrative re-arrangement of records, the librarians can do a lot in that area, particularly in numbering and cataloguing of them. Best Regards, K Rajasekharan Librarian, Kerala Institute of Local Administration(KILA) Mulagunnathukavu, Thrissur - 680581 , India ----- Original Message ----- From: "Padmanabha Vyasamoorthy" Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] Right to Information Act -Jobs should be given to Information Professionals To: "vasanth raj" I am sorry to reply this message after such a long gap. Vasanth has raised an important issue. He states that Librarians are better suited to work as Information Officers and that they are neglected. I would like to ask a few questions and elicit views of LIS personnel on these: How many librarians know what is this monster RTI all about? What is the role of RTI officer in a govt institution? What type of information is the scope of RTI Officer? How is the librarian better suited? What do we librarians learn or know about Govt way of files (& records) organization - numbering, generation, storing, retrieving, archiving, rules governing files & documents & records preservation and conservation etc? How about confidentiality coding and providing restricted access? How about documents relating to public -- say birth certificates. With absolutely no theoretical or practical knowledge of any of these things how do librarians claim that they are better suited? The RTI was talked about for a number of years before becoming law. Why did not LIS schools provide changes in the curriculam to mould librarians into RTI officers? Well I have a lot of doubts. Any comments? -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. _______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner http://www.mailscanner.info/ , and is believed to be clean. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.