Dear All,
It seems that Mr. Saheb (?), the original query poser,
requires moral
support in exerting himself as a professional librarian in
his work place
where he might have been sidelined and left to be in
defensive without
providing the basic support by his institutional managers.
So he should be
motivated to do whatever he can in choosing books,
classifying them
properly, providing better services and in demanding more
institutional
support.
He should not be discouraged or dissuaded just
because some others in the
profession cannot read, understand, select,
classify qualitatively the books
or information materials on the emerging
subjects and leave aside some
critical part of their professional work,
either to the book suppliers who
can even manage faculty recommendation or
to the faculty who remain as
'rent-seekers' of the book supply firms. There
can be much variant scenario
too in many other better libraries. But
specialist faculty members alone are
not good book selectors for developing
a comprehensive collection, in
majority of cases. It doesn't mean that the
entire faculty should be kept
away, like a leprosy patient, from the entire
process of book selection. The
former is a strenuous route of deeply
involving in book selection by
utilizing the well read facility and the
latter is to leave aside everything
to others and get even 'speed money'
from the book supplier. This is the
practical reality in our library scene
which we need not be afraid of to
speak. If you choose the former
option, you can become a provider of
information or knowledge materials to
the most learned professor or academic
dean in your institution and can
become a most respected knowledge manager
on par with your professors. Other
wise, your can became a 'store keeper
librarian' or a bureaucratic librarian
and possibly a 'money maker' too. The
option is yours.
Almost all our
libraries (except a very few) and the library profession,
which I belong to,
doesn't command respect in India like most other
professions as per my
experience. The most important delimiting factor is
our attitude that
doesn't motivate us to grow and our tendency to confine
ourselves in some
earlier learned rudimentary things without knowing much
about the knowledge
development and technology environment around us. The
'post Google era'
provided us so many tools to develop, grow and flourish
ourselves as god
knowledge managers due to the imaginative work of the
information technology
professionals, which we are poorly using.
I think that we, as
librarians, should be able to gather about new ideas,
important books and
digital information in diverse areas which we deal with
so as to feed the
users as a knowledgeable professor, as we get professors
salary and
better facilities.
The purpose of this third and last mail is to
motivate the query poser to
develop a healthy disregard for the status quo
in order to him as a good
library professional and not to convince
others.
Best Regards,
K Rajasekharan
Librarian,
Kerala Institute of Local Administration(KILA)
Mulagunnathukavu, Thrissur -
680581 , India
Email
rajankila@gmail.com-----
Original Message -----
From: Dr. M. Koteswara Rao
To: Rajan
Cc: Dr. M.
Koteswara Rao
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 6:29 PM
Subject: [?? Probable
Spam] Re: Librarians Role in Book Selection
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