Dear All It is indeed a good sign that a library school has begun looking at revamping the syllabus for the Bachelor's degree in Library Science and is seeking the help and advice of concerned professionals. Having had some experience of interacting with both students and tecahers of library science, I feel that the following issues are vital to be addressed. 1. The quality of intake into B.L.I.Sc and M.L.I.Sc courses is key to ensuring that future professionals in this field provide the leadership and ensure greater advocacy to libraries and visibility of the profession with the users, managers, and decision makers. I think it is well known that most students who come to library schools in India are those who do not make it to the other so called elite courses. In other words, people who join library courses do so without really a career in their minds. To most of them a degree in library science is a way to a job, any job. Unless our admission norms along with the content are made attractive both to students and potential sectors of the country like corporates (who require innovative information managers, knowledge coordinators/facilitators), research and development centres, academic and public libraries. Academic libraries need to see how their presence is felt in respect of the teachng and learning objectives of the academic environment they are to serve. 2. The course curriculum at present, in my view, is too much steeped in traditional subjects. These are required but need to be re-oriented to their application in computer- and web- based environments. Fundamental concepts and the theories underlying these are important to be emphasized and then how these are used in both a traditional library and in information systems needed across application environments is required. 3. My own experience of most new library science graduates have very poor soft skills. Their oral and written skills are extremely poor, evidence of the backgrounds from which they come. This does not help them in their jobs, nor are they able to create an impact on others. They need also to be trained to think logically. It is essential that they should be taught life skills in understanding and improvong their self confidence and self image, the value of their skills to society, and in seeing the bigger picture in which they exist as professionals. I beleive these are sorely lacking in most of our library courses. 4. Many library schools do not provide adequate access to past and current literature (both books and current journals) although the syllabus does contain many topics of current interest. Faculty and students in these courses cannot keep themselves updated and refer to classic writings in these fields. 5. My experience is that even in post graduate courses the student is not encouraged to become self-reliant. The emphasis is on completing the syllabus and passing the exams rather than learning and skill development. This can only be done by asking students to do assignments that help them understand the subject or skill (e.g., subject indexing, searching). Performance in the assignments and the student's capability to present his work are important skills that need to be inculcated in these courses. 6. Many others will, I am sure, spell out in detail new topics in the computer and web related areas in which library professionals need to be equipped with. I congratulate the university library school in thinking of changing the syllabus. Haravu On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 Subbiah Arunachalam wrote :
Friends:
A leading Indian university library school is in the process of revising its BLISc curriculum. The school is seeking the opinion of many experts. I am also asked to give my suggestions - perhaps as an avid user of academic and special libraries and as one involved in scholarly publishing.
I will be grateful if you could give me your valuable ideas and suggestions, latest by 29 March. Surely the situation has changed a lot from the days when most of us went to college. Then there was no Internet, no Web, no journal aggregators or online journals, no institutional repositories and the list can be really long. But the purpose of libraries remains the same. The tools have changed and the way we do things are somewhat different. The question is how best we can train the new librarians to excel in their profession in today's context. We are not concerned only with academic and special libraries; graduates will find jobs in the corporate sector, in government and public libraries as well.
Best wishes.
Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]
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