[LIS-Forum] Abscence of recognition to Librarians --inactivity of Library Association

Some 5-6 years back, traveling from Mangalore to Manipal in a bus, I asked my fellow passenger, a 3rd year student of Manipal Institute of Technology, who is your Librarian ? I was shocked n surprised that he was blank ! Hope things have changed for better now. Best Wishes Mukesh Anand ----- Original Message ----- From: "JK Vijayakumar" To: "Prof. N. Laxman Rao." ; "Rangashri Kishore" ; "Vasumathi Sriganesh" ; ; Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 5:45 PM Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] Re: [nmlis]Abscence of recognition to Librarians --inactivity of Library Association

1. The Top 10 Reasons to Be a Librarian http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/selectedarticles/top10reasons.htm

2. Librarianship as a Profession http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/tutorials/professionalism/lib.html

3.Dinosaur or Phoenix!: The Profession of Librarianship http://anulib.anu.edu.au/about/steele/dinosaur.html

4. CILIP Ethical Principles and Code of Professional Practice for Library and Information Professionals http://www.cilip.org.uk/professionalguidance/ethics/

5. Korean Library Association Code of Ethics for Librarians http://www.ifla.org/faife/ethics/klacode.htm

6.Code of Ethics for Information Professionals in Portugal http://www.ifla.org/faife/ethics/badcode.htm

7. Sri Lanka Library Association Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics http://www.ifla.org/faife/ethics/sllacode.htm

8. Persatuan Pustakawan Malaysia (Librarians Association of Malaysia)Code of ethics http://www.ifla.org/faife/ethics/lamcode.htm

9.Japan Library Association Code of Ethics for Librarians http://www.ifla.org/faife/ethics/jlacode.htm

10.Jamaica Library Association Code of Ethics http://www.ifla.org/faife/ethics/jamlacode.htm

11.Code of Ethics of Czech Librarians http://www.ifla.org/faife/ethics/czlacode.htm

12.The Code of Ethics of Slovenian Librarians http://www.ifla.org/faife/ethics/slacode.htm

13................................. (India)....

--- "Prof. N. Laxman Rao." wrote:

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hi I appreciate the anguih of Mrs Rangashri, i think she hould not get excited about the lapses from the associations and professionals. after all many things matter, such as environment, training, traditions--what not.

I will appreciate Mrs. rangashri , if she can also send communications through egroup, to enable to share her ideas and knowledge. let us join our hands to make our professiona great. let us not fight but learn from the past and improve ourselves in terms of productivity and image. please do not accuse any one, we all ae responsible for everry thing as we are also part of the profession. thanks laxman rao

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Dear Vasumathi,

I sincerely appreciate your efforts to highlight the issues concerning Librarians. You have rightly pointed out the serious lapses in our professional attitude. Very few are actually thinking in

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to introduce myself, I belong to a family of Librarians! I am the

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followed this line and I am proud to be in

--- Rangashri Kishore wrote: this direction. I would like third generation who this line. I have found

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during my experience of working in various Libraries of repute it is just not sufficient to remain within the sphere of Librarianship alone ..it is important to realize that we have the skills that can be applied for enriching all other professionals. For example, I have tried to use training Mentally ill patients in Librarianship which has helped them in getting employed in school Libraries. I was instrumental in setting up homes for mentally challenged in India and I realized that as a significant part of their rehabilitation Library skills can be applied -which I found very successful and satisfying. One has to walk that extra mile to get recognition in our field.

I thus received three International Awards..

FIRST ASIAN WINNER OF ASCLA EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE AWARD FOR THE YEAR 1999 FROM ALA.

http://archive.ala.org/ascla/awards_recent.html#1999

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LEARNINGTIMES INNOVATIVE INFORMATION SERVICES

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FROM USA. ( Two Indian Librarians one myself and the other is Kaushik Purohit of Reliance Industries..Jamnagar was confered along with 6 other Librarians from all over the world..that too we had the honour of sharing this with Hillary Clinton) http://www.libraryconference.com/awards.shtml

IFLA/ALP IN 1996 FOR MY WORK ON LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SUPPORT FOR LITERACY EFFORTS FOR WOMEN IN BANGKOK.

Having won all these accolades it is a shame

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Associations in India ever approached me to know more about it so that others in our profession can get motivated although this was widely publicised in Newspapers in 1999. None ever came forward to support my efforts for these causes. I had to personally apporach and be a self advocate for all the achievements. Come to

AWARD FOR THE YEAR 2003 that no Library think of it that someone in

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US is able to confer these awards to persons working in India while in our own country people hardly realize the value of this profession.

These are my views and I welcome people to comments.

With warm regards, Rangashri Kishore

Vasumathi Sriganesh wrote: Dear friends

There are many sides to this:

There is no question that we are one of the most under-rated breed of professionals. In a country that has had Dr. SRR, it is an irony that the maximum percentage of population would not have heard of the need for a professional degree to be a librarian - let alone anything else.

Having said that - what have we done about it ourselves?

a) Have we pushed up our own standards? I am sorry to say that a majority of librarians are unable to communicate well, or market themselves well

b) Do we market our profession to school and

college children? How many > of us would encourage our children to take up the same profession? > Most young people tell me that when they were in college they hardly > used a library - they then accidentally heard about Lib Sc and joined > the course > > c) Majority of our conferences have papers of no real value - they are > accepted because we need participants, and participants will get a TA/DA > only if their papers are accepted, so we accept papers. Most speakers > have no sense of time - they overshoot, they "read" the paper and do not > "present" it, very often there is nothing new. > Many participants do not attend all sessions - more time is spent > sight-seeing. How many actually go back and implement something new in > their library? > > d) How many of us have attempted to show our organizations that they the > library is a terribly important entity? And that the collection is being > used to the best? > > I am sure there are a million more questions that can be added. Like > Prof Laxman Rao, I do not aim to hurt any individual. I will blame > myself too. > It is a vicious circle. We are unable to prove ourselves, so we are > badly positioned and paid. Thus we cannot attract the best talent, and > when we dont get the best, we do not prove ourselves. > > Where do we break this circle? > > For a start, can all of us do something in our own sphere and control? > Go BEYOND what we are paid for, do our best for our organizations and > readers - not expecting immediate rewards? If we can get something for > ourselves - great - if not - can we work hard and sow the seeds for the > future generations? And can we improve at things like conferences? If we > can say YES, to at least some of these, only then we have some hope. > > It would be very good, if we can have some ideas coming in as to how we > can tackle all this positively! > > Regards > > Vasumathi Sriganesh > Director, QMed Services Pvt. Ltd. > A-3, Shubham Centre, Cardinal Gracious Road > Chakala, Andheri East, Mumbai 400099, India

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