Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:55:19 +0530 (IST) From: I.R.N.Goudar Dear Professional Colleagues, Let us congratulate Shri P.Y. Rajendrakumar Director, Dept. of Public Libraries, Govt. of Karnataka for having been selected for Ranganathan-Kaula Medal for the year 2007. This award is for his yeoman services for the cause of Public Libraries in Karnataka and in India. As a professional and member of State Library Authority I am quite familiar about his contributions especially in making the public library system as a dynamic and visible institution by advocating and adopting information technologies for providing innovative services. More importantly he has been successful in setting up of libraries in all Gram-panchayats in Karnataka. Thanks to Rajendrakumar's efforts for making Karnataka as the first state in the country to declare August 12 as "Librarians Day". On the one side he has lead setting up of Hi-tech libraries and digitizing >30,000 Kannada books under CMU Million Book Project and on the other side facilitated setting up of hundreds of slum libraries. He has taken initiative to set up libraries at district level initially for making available books and e-resources useful for all competitive exams. He has been instrumental in changing the rigid attitude in the department and introduced "Single Window System", a transparent way of selecting books under the supervision of competent selection committee. Recently he had organised a National Seminar on "Public Libraries as Community Information Centres". During this seminar freshly prepared Draft for Public Library Act was discussed at leangth and give big momentum in this direction. He has served for the professional cause for more than 36 years in serving especially the general public. Now only the Public Library System in Karnataka has picked up in a big way under his dynamic leadership and at this crucial stage his retirement in March 2008 may slowdown the developmental activities. I wish Govt. of Karnataka will do something to continue his services at least till the appointment of a capable professional and not just an administrative replacement. Regards (Dr. I.R.N. Goudar) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. I.R.N. Goudar Tel: 91-80-25086081 Sci F & Head, Information Centre for 91-80-25235315 Aerospace Science and Technology Fax: 91-80-25268072 National Aerospace Laboratories E-mail:goudar@css.nal.res.in Airport Road, BANGALORE-560 017 India http://www.icast.org.in/staff/goudar.html