Dear Forum members, The Indian LIS Professionals (http://lislinks.ning.com/), is India’s largest social networking site for the Library and Information Science professionals with 2500+ moderated membership. The “ning” authority says that they will close all free service from 4th May, 2010. It all means that “Indian LIS Professionals” social networking site will be deleted or else they will do the job. How we can survive in this environment. Which options to choose, please speak out. Options are. a) Asking members to pay a little from their own pocket so that we can make the payment from our end (Hey friends, most probably it will cost only Rs. 100 per member for a year, though higher donation are highly desirable). Our Answer: We will go for this option if we receive more than 500 comments in favor of it on or before April, 30, 2010. Please note that Email sent to my personal mail address and other mailing list will not be counted here. You have to leave your comments over http://lislinks.ning.com/profiles/blogs/pay-up-or-shut-down-option-for b) Asking, seeking, and arranging sponsorship for our site. (Book publishing company, book vendor, company related to library software / furniture, etc). Our Answer: We will choose it, if one can arrange for sponsorship worth Rs. 50,000/ before 10th May, 2010. c) Deleting the ning site and shifting the platform to other platform. Our Answer: If the approach of a) and b) fail then we will go for this last option. Please note: We have a very good number of memberships here, to develop to this level over other site(s) we will need another three years! so, to speed up the process, we will take the backup of the whole database of our members on 1st May, 2010 and invite them over our new platform. The backup will be the "ning memory" in the days to come, and form the largest database of LIS professionals in India. So please update your profile page giving all essential details on or before 30th April, 2010. Leave the answer of the questions as blank that are not applicable to you rather giving as "Nil", “no”, “NA” or other symbol. Use appropriate upper and lower case letter in filling up the answers of the questions. For sample visit my personal page. To update your page click here. Note: 1. Please take a backup of all your contributions to the “Indian LIS Professionals” social networking site. The site may not exist from 4th May, 2010 onwards. 2. Please circulate the message widely among your friends. Origin: April 20, 2010. Updated: April 21, 2010. Leave your comments over: http://lislinks.ning.com/profiles/blogs/pay-up-or-shut-down-option-for Indian LIS Professionals: http://lislinks.ning.com/ Thanking you Yours faithfully (Sri Badan Barman) Academic Consultant, School of Library & Information Science, Krishna Kanta Handique State Open University, Housefed Complex, Last Gate, Dispur, Guwahati-781006, Assam Phone: 0361-2234964 / 2235971, Fax: 0361- 2235398. Mobile: +9198642-05166 Website: www.kkhsou.org Note: If you forward this e-mail, please delete my e-mail address to reduce Spam, Viruses & Identity Theft! -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.