New subject: [nmlis]Abscence of recognition to Librarians -- inactivity of Library Association

16 Jan 2005

      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

 --- Rangashri Kishore  wrote:
...
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 this direction. I would like
to introduce myself,
I belong to a family of Librarians! I am the third generation who
followed this line and I am proud to be in this line. I have found
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
LEARNINGTIMES INNOVATIVE INFORMATION SERVICES AWARD FOR THE YEAR 2003
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 that no Library
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 think of it that someone in
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
Ph: 91-22-28229223    Fax: 91-22-28224358
Mobile: 98211-14510
Email: vasu@qmedin.com,     Web: www.qmedin.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Smita Chandra 
To: vyasamoorthy@icicikp.com ; naglaxman@yahoo.com ;
jagatram2001@yahoo.co.in ; iatlis@yahoogroups.com ;
nmlis@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 3:59 PM
Subject: [nmlis] Re: [iatlis] Abscence of recognition to Librarians --
inactivity of Library Association
Dear Professionals :
I wish to echo the sentiments of Dr.Laxman Rao & Dr.Vyasamoorthy. We are
an unheard community because we wish to be heard without speaking out or
we talk alone !  I guess this says it all about our professional
associations and about the state of libraries in our country hence.
Thanks,
Smita Chandra
Librarian
Indian Institute of Geomagnetism
New Mumbai. INDIA
vyasamoorthy@icicikp.com wrote:
Dr Laxman Rao's observations are provoking and show his deep concern &
anguish at the present state of affairs. I agree with him. Charity
begins  at home. As a simple step,  Why not we think of revitalising
ALSD? Can ALSD take up projects of interest to Library Community? Can it
become confident and resourecful enough to accept assignments from
Private libraries/Info centers? Can such projects be self-financed by
selling services & consultancy? People in charge may express their
views. Vyasamoorthy, P
---------------------------------
From: Prof. N. Laxman Rao. [mailto:naglaxman@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thu 1/13/2005 6:03 PM
To: sushil sharma; iatlis@yahoogroups.com; nmlis@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [iatlis] Re: Welcome to nmlis
hi
it is a big issue. in our state, the college librarians have been
designated as lect in lib sc. the univ staff have been designated as
prof,
associ prof and asst prof. earlier ugc had given equivalent status, now
the age of retirement is differrent. it is unfortunate. the lirarians
responsibility had been enormously increased in the context of distance
education and they should be in better recognition than teachersand
otherr
staff.
it is also unfortunate, in spite of all the new developments, librarians
are unable to prove that they are essential and nothing can happen with
out them. they are also swimming in the same stream like teachers,other
employeees leaving their responsibilities to the air. ofcourse, every
one
is not like. i am only stating  majority. when the government does ot
have
the responsibility or accountability except the authority and power, how
we can expect support from the govt to rectify, the education system.
prvate orgns are doing better, as no out side involvment and therefore,
they play with employees. however, please understand that i am not
interested to criticise are comment on any one.
what r the reasons? it may be parents non-involvement, politicians
involvments, caste, religion and regional feelings--what not many? who
has
to bell the cat? i think the profession as a whole has to show to the
world like in other countries- that librarians are essential services,
and
nothing less than that. it is possile with our services and recognition.
i
know that the facilities are not given but expectations are high. we
have
to do our best with in the given environmet.
=== message truncated === 

=====
Prof.N.LAXMAN RAO,
Dept.of Library & Information Science,
Osmania University, HYDERABAD- 500 007 (INDIA)
President, Indian Association of Teachers in Library and Information Science (IATLIS).
Ph:+91-40-27171565 (res): +91-40- 27682290 (off) 9246547599 (Mobile)
e:mail--  naglaxman@yahoo.com    OR   naglaxman@indiatimes.com

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Re: [nmlis]Abscence of recognition to Librarians -- inactivity of Library Association

Prof. N. Laxman Rao.

JK Vijayakumar

Prafulla Chandra

++ Mukesh Anand ++

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