Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:47:56 +0530 (IST)
From: Dr. M. Koteswara Rao
Dear Colleagues,
I do not mean to hurt the sentiments or demoralise the library profession,
but let us be practical in approach. I am aware that librarians are taught
about 'book selection' in LIS schools, but it does not mean that they
should select books for the library. For a specialised library dealing
with a subject or two, the librarian can make the selection. Imagine a
University library or a medical library or an engineering library where
the subjects are specialised and/or too many, and I am sure that no
librarian can really do justice in selecting the books. I think it is
foolish to think so, and if someone feels that 'we are experts in all
subjects' then we will be called 'jack of all and master of none'. In
todays world books are written on very narrow subjects, which our
professional colleagues are not able to even classify them. I sincerely
feel that we should restrict ourselves to our duties rather than trying to
learn all the subjects of the universe of knowledge. I think that
Librarians can still command respect and participate in the collection
building process in many other ways.
Dr. M. Koteswara Rao
Librarian, UoH
Dear All,
I presume that there would be some librarians,like me, who think that the
selection of books and other documents in a library is the most critical
factor in bettering the library services in which librarian should play a
very prominent role as a key selector based on the principles he learned
from the subject ' book selection' he studied in the library schools.
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Best Regards,
K Rajasekharan
Librarian, Kerala Institute of Local Administration(KILA)
Mulagunnathukavu, Thrissur - 680581 , India
Email rajankila@gmail.com
