On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 3:09 PM, M Nandeesha wrote:

Dear All,

LIS-Forum was launched in November, 1994 by NCSI under the leadership of late Dr. T.B. Rajashekar as a current awareness tool for improving professional knowledge and competence of LIS professionals in India. The vision of Dr Rajashekar has benefited all library & information professionals in enhancing their knowledge and also helped in professional networking.

Time keeps moving & with it brings in a lot of changes in all aspects. In the recent years, the changes in technological areas are tremendous with Web 2.0 applications. The success of web 2.0 applications can be evidenced with the high usage rate of Blogs, Wikis, Social Networking Sites, etc. So, the way people communicate & collaborate is taking a new shape. Professional/Social Networking sites like LinkedIn.com, FaceBook.com, etc are being used by most of the people across the world to communicate & collaborate for professional & personal needs.

So, in view of the developments in the professional networking area, do you think it's time for LIS-Forum to move on to the next level of communication & collaboration by having a "professional networking site"? Your feedback please

Few Benefits of Professional Networking Sites: (1) User details will help to know each other better (2) Helps in networking & expanding network easily (3) Helps in locating experts (4) Serves as a knowledge repository (5) Discussions can be categorized (6) Each member can have their own space/presence

If the responses are positive for having a LIS-Forum professional network site, then NCSI may kindly take up this suitably & explore the options. One such platform which can be explored is www.ning.com - an online platform for creating social networks.

Regards,

M Nandeesha Tata Consultancy Services Mailto: m.nandeesha@tcs.com Website: http://www.tcs.com ____________________________________________

Dear Sir/Madam, You raise a very pertinent question. However i don't agree that LIS Forum should move to a social networking site. As because LIS Links (http://lislinks.ning.com/) already taking a lead in this direction. As on 23rd August, 2009, LIS Links have "1509 members", 2227 Email and RSS Subscribers, 434 SMS subscribers, and 118 followers. If LIS Forum again move to social networking site like LIS Links it will be again duplication of effort and time and nothing else. For more details one can read my blog post in this regard over http://lislinks.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lis-links-is-still-not-linking What the present need i felt is "collaboration" among all major online groups/forum/social networking site. As more or less every groups/forum/social networking site is functioning by taking into consideration of same user group with same area (even same messages are routed everywhere). There is a high need to have collaboration to avoid duplication of post and cross posting of message over different forum, so that we can save the time of our professional colleague in their desire to updates own knowledge base. In this regard i personally like to invite the attention of all group/forum administrator or moderator. After all we don't have the right to waste the time of our own professional colleague by routing same message every where just to showcase that our own forum is better than other. I would also be great if this discussion is made over LIS Links itself. As if it is happened over LIS Forum, the messages or replays will be scatter and will be difficult to arrive at some conclusion. Thanking you Yours faithfully (Sri Badan Barman) Academic Consultant, Library & Information Science, Krishna Kanta Handique State Open University, Housefed Complex, Last Gate, Dispur, Guwahati-781006, Assam, Phone: 0361-2234964 / 2235971, Fax: 0361- 2235398. Website: www.kkhsou.org -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.