Dear Friends: Madras Library Association and Roja Muthiah Research Library Trust invite you to a Lecture bySubbiah Arunachalam(Distinguished Fellow, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, ChennaiVisiting Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore) OnNational Knowledge Commission and its implication on Libraries Date: 27 November 2007 Time: 5.30 p.m. Venue:Roja Muthiah Research Library3rd Cross Road, Central Polytechnic CampusTaramani, Chennai 600 113Phone: 2254 2551 / 2 (Tea will be served at 5.00 p.m.) ----------------------------------------Short CV of Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam Subbiah Arunachalam started his career as a research chemist, but found his calling in information science. An avid admirer of the printed word right from school days, it was while he was a student at the Indian Institute of Science his native flair for searchig information came to be recognised. In the past four decades, he has been a student of chemistry, a laboratory researcher, an editor of scientific journals, the secretary of a scholarly academy of scieces, and a teacher of information science. For the past 12 years he is a volunteer with the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation and is associated with the Foundation's information and communication technology-enabled rural development project. He is an honorary fellow of CILIP, a life member of IASLIC and a member of ASIST. He is on the editorial boards of eight international refereed journals including Journal of Information Science, Scientometrics, Journal of Community Informatics, and Current Science. His current research interests include improving information access both for scientists and for the rural poor; scientometrics, and open access. He has travelled extensively and delivered talks in more than twenty countries. He is on the Executive Committee of the Global Knowledge Partnership, on the international advisory board of IICD, The Hague, and a trustee of the Electronic Publishing Trst for Development. His papers have had an influence on Indian science policy. -----------------------------------------Summary of the talk The past two decades have seen a tremendous transformation in India. Largely thanks to the late Prime Minister Mr P V Narasimha Rao and his Finance Minister Prof. Manmohan Singh, a new era was ushered in and like Hercules unchained India started realizig her potential and today we are among the fastest growing economies in the world and capital is flowing in at a rate unimaginable only a few years ago. All of a sudden, the world found that they needed young Indian professionals, to start with in the IT industry but later on also in management and manufacturing industry. It became clear to the rising middle class in India that the learned would be welcome everywhere. The oft repeated cliche that knowledge is power became true in the lives of many young people. India as a whole has come to realise how knowledge can bring about great transformations. It is this realization that led to the setting up of the Knowledge Commission. I will talk about the mandate of the Commission and its working. In particular, I will dwell upon the work and recommendations of two working groups, viz. the WG on Libraries and the WG on open and distance education. And talk about how the benefits of the knowledge revolution could be made more inclusive, a challenge which needs to be addressed immediately. I will touch upon the implications of the Commission's recommendations for libraries - mainly public libraries, but also research libraries. -Subbiah Arunachalam------Hope to see you on 27th. With best wishes, L. R. Gowri Secretary, MALA _________________________________________________________________ Check out some new online services at Windows Live Ideas—so new they haven’t even been officially released yet. http://www.msnspecials.in/windowslive/ -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.