Dear Dr. Goudar Let me first correct a statement in your mail -- "Committee of few librarians set up by NAAC". NAAC did not setup any such committee. A group of librarians in the Bangalore city were invited by the office of NEP 2019 (Draft) Committee which was located in NAAC. I am copying below the text of the note submitted to the NAAC Committee by the Group of Librarians attending the meeting called by the committee. *Policy Guidelines for Libraries under Proposed National Education Policy 2017* *“Libraries are more essential than the other facilities on the campus” * - Pankaj Chandra, Building Universities that matter: Where are Indian Institutions going wrong? Orient Black Swan, 2017. *PREAMBLE* Library is a critical national infrastructure in education. The unprecedented growth of information triggered by ICT has created an illusion of unlimited resources. But in reality our knowledge characterization acts as public perception that might further widen the digital divide and create inequality. There is need for developing a balancing policy. In this context, libraries are institutions in this mission to provide access to unbiased relevant information and related essential services that provide opportunities and promote development. The vital role of the library in preserving country’s knowledge heritage and democratic values is unique. Further, libraries do play an active role in the national development process. They provide systematic solution to pressing needs of the society by providing spectrum of library services in tune with national policy and priorities. This calls for development and delivery of need based learning resources and services beyond books and other media resources. The nation’s economic, social and educational progress is embedded in nation’s library infrastructure and the services provided thereof. In this context, to ensure the new role of libraries in enhancing the quality of education through policy intervention, following policy guidelines are proposed for inclusion in the proposed National Education Policy 2017 of the Government of India. *Library as critical Educational Infrastructure * 1. Recognize and develop libraries as institutional and social infrastructure in education, to create, provide access to and manage learning resources through effective utilization of ICT. *Redefining the Library* 2. The “library” to be redefined and repositioned as Knowledge Resource Centre (Jnana Sangam), to reflect adequately the changing educational ecosystem in the digital era. *Ambience for Learning & Research* 3. Library to create conducive and interactive environment to facilitate experiential teaching and learning, and kindle the minds for innovation and research *Skill Development* 4. Engage libraries as economic drivers to facilitate skill development training and entrepreneurship programmers through adequate information support system. *LIS**Education* 5. Recognize and reorient Library & Information Science (LIS) education and research to develop competent and skilled professionals for new challenges of digital era. *Library Consortia* 6. Develop a framework for national, regional and institutional consortia to provide for economically viable access to learning resources by the entire academic and research community in the country. *Funding* 7. Allocate minimum 6% of the nation’s spending on education for library development and support initiatives and mandate the same at the institutional level. *Local Heritage* 8. Encourage libraries to identify and develop local cultural and heritage collection and preserve through digitization to support digital India initiative. *Information Literacy* 9. Engage libraries in developing and spreading information literacy skill sets for effectively navigating in the Information Age. *Continuing Education* 10. Supporting continuing education and life-long self-learning are the core strengths of libraries. Hence, empower the libraries to play an engaging role in this area. *Reading Habit* 11. As reading habit is formed in the formative stage of human development, every school should necessarily have a library developed on modern lines supported by ICT. *Open Access & Institutional Repositories* 12. Knowledge and information generated out of State funded research initiatives should be made available to all for unrestricted open access. To facilitate this, libraries in higher education and research should be designated with the definite role of collecting, curating and disseminating all internally generated knowledge by their respective institutions. *Public Access to Resources in University Libraries* 13. Collectively, libraries in our educational institutions have vast knowledge resources. Encourage consolidated digital curating of metadata for these resources to provide for nation wide access to this resource and facilitation of public access to State funded University Libraries. Regards *|**N. V. Sathyanarayana**|* *|*Chairman & Managing Director*|*Informatics India Ltd.*|*Bangalore 560004 *|*INDIA*|* *|**www.informaticsglobal.com* https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.informaticsglobal.com_&d=DgMFaQ&c=uw6TLu4hwhHdiGJOgwcWD4AjKQx6zvFcGEsbfiY9-EI&r=Gb2Ku_c32P4eAbAD4GZLNyg9mercIMfIjB7nKNB4JHc&m=asZ4c_zhrX9bIEpLtv7722t-60EGCsvbfKFj9_MGq4E&s=EmZnQludv6InWr8DYXbvMnvpZt6o0vBEBNUM5l2wtWw&e= *|**Ph.*+91-80-40387777*|**M. *+91-98455-16010*|* On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 1:13 PM Ishwar Goudar wrote:

Dear Professionals, Mr Sathyanaraya has read the draft copy of National Education Policy (NEP) - 2019 completely and has made some important observations. Unlike earlier report, this draft mentions the word 'Library' 30 times. The advantages and disadvantages of "setting up a mechanism to enable the Government to be the single buyer for online access to journals for all public institutions to replace the present practice of funding premier institutions for subscriptions to journals" are to be discussed. One way this is good unless they restrict important resources access to only premier institutions. Yes, our professional bodies like ILA, IASLIC and State level Associations should discuss the matter at length and come out with draft to be included in NEP.

In the mean time I request Mr Sathyanarayana, to release the list of those 13 recommendations by the Committee of few librarians set up by NAAC and sent to concerned to be included in NEP. We can discuss the same over Lis-Forum and arrive at good list and further take appropriate steps by Associations. In the mean time we can continue to debate on the issues raised by NV.

Regards,

Dr I.R.N. Goudar

"Access E-Resources for Academic and Research Excellence"

*- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -* Dr. I.R.N. Goudar - Adjunct Professor, Mangalore University - Ex. Visiting Professor Cum Library Adviser Bangalore University Library, BANGALORE - 560056 - Ex. Visiting Professor Cum Library Adviser, UoM, Mysore - Ex. Scientist 'G' and Head, ICAST, NAL, Bangalore - Ex. Dy Librarian, IITM, Chennai - Ex. Scientist (Information), IICT, Hyderabad - Fulbright Scholar, Univ. of Michigan and Columbia Univ, USA (1995-96) - British Council Scholar (1982-83) E-mail: goudarishwar@gmail.com Mob: 91+9611165781

On Thu, Jun 20, 2019 at 10:39 PM Sathyanarayana NV < sathya@informaticsglobal.com> wrote:

...

Dear friends of LIS Profession

The Ministry of Human Resources Development released the National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 (final draft) early this month inviting public opinion and feedback from all stakeholders. The good news is, unlike in the earlier draft report of NEP released in 2016 as an input to the policy which mentioned the word library just in one place coming as part of a quote, NEP 2019 mentions library in more than 30 instances, in its 480 page report, spread over 23 chapters. But the disappointment is, library is just mentioned in a few contexts as part of various infrastructure support. As policy guideline, there are only two statements on libraries:

- “Expansion of school and public libraries and building a culture of reading and communication” (p68)’

- “Enhancing access to libraries and online journals” (p241) – This policy statement in particular suggests setting up a mechanism to enable the Government to be the single buyer for online access to journals for all public institutions to replace the present practice of funding premier institutions for subscriptions to journals.

The treatment given to library is more of a “such as” facility.

In October 2017, the committee set up for developing the new NEP 2019 had arranged a meeting of a few librarians in NAAC, Bangalore. This group of librarians had given a set of thirteen policy recommendations. None of these recommendations is found as specific policy statement in the NEP 2019 draft report which is surprising.

I consider it important that the LIS groups initiate quick debate on NEP 2019 (draft) and its implications on the future of libraries in the country if accepted without according adequate and appropriate focus on library as an integral part of and yet distinct role player in education. It is highly desirable that LIS groups and in particular the professional associations like ILA, IASLIC and others initiate quick debate to evolve a national library policy document and submit to the NEP 2019 (draft) committee for inclusion as a distinct chapter in the report.

|N. V. Sathyanarayana| |Chairman & Managing Director|Informatics India Ltd.|Bangalore 560004|INDIA| |www.informaticsglobal.com|+91-80-40387777|

-- *Confidentiality Notice: *T*his electronic message transmission, including any attachment(s), may contain confidential, proprietary, or privileged information from Informatics Publishing Limited. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any dissemination, copying, distribution, printing or use of the contents of the information contained in this electronic message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this electronic message by error, please destroy all copies of the message and contact the sender immediately by either replying to this message or calling 91-80-40387777.*

-- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

Dear LISFraternity,   I am goingthrough the discussion on draft  NEP andits discontented importance about the libraries in education.  The informal group of library  professionals prepared a good dossierforwarded the same to the concerned authorities. Prof. M.K. Sridhar, the formerMember-Secretary of Karnataka Knowledge Commission initiated  to prepare a draft note to be sent  to the concerned .   I present my views here on the state ofhappening in the LIS profession for which entire fraternity is concerned but nosolution have come forth These  are my personal views being still very active in the professional development and with a  background of  experience of  more than 50  years in LIS profession   in different capacities. 1.      Over the years the profession hasbeen loosing its identity; the  fact that  a)  The decline is visible throughthe  successive education  commission reports since 1920 starting  with Sadler committee Report (CalcuttaUniversity Commission)   b ) The New  Education Policy, 1986and revised in 2001 has not taken recourse to the recommendations   on the importance and provisions  of library facilities in education  in  particular from school to university  education - the named  reports are Mudliar commission on secondary commission,  Radhakrishnan and Kothar i   Commission Reports of  1948-49  and 1964-65. c)  The   two UGC Reports  under the Chairmanshipof  Dr. Ranganathan were the firstand  the last Reports  on LIS  Education  and Academic Libraries  After the  demise of Dr.Ranganathan  there was no force to  reckon with to push  the library  cause  and we fought only on status and salary  scales, that bestow ed with  political leaders But  the case of good library  facility in  general has taken a back  seat.   d)Hardly no new appointments are made in the libraries;whether Public, College or Universities. The condition of school libraries isbetter not to mention. e) The profession gets its identity with men holding keypositions and almost all universities in the state and most (Except Govt)college libraries are without professional staff. We thought that by adoptingtechnology we would give a facelift to the profession but it has marred theprofession, as the library organisation has been least concerned function in libraries. f)The profession grows, develops and gets an imated  only when there is good organisationalset-up. Where do we find a model  organisation that we can teach and implement. Wepresent good images only in Papers presented in the conferences. g) We have borrowed many  ideas, concepts and tools from west. Take for example the OSS onLibrary  Automation, we spend  to the tune of Rs. 20-50 lakhs on RFIDtechnology. But we have not made any cost - benefit analysis on their implementation and it is worth to go forsuch hard technology. h)What does our organisations and associations aredoing?  Visualising the serious dearth ofworking professional manpower in  thelibraries; contrary we are producing enough from our library schools; noassociation has made any representation to the Governments to look into thisissue. The Governments think on the other hand the libraries can be managedwithout adequate people. There are many one man libraries. i)The heads of our Associations are more or less satisfiedbecause they  can become members of oneor other committees in the Government or  gain some benefits to attend the conference abroad by virtue being ahead of the national body. j)  So no imagebuilding efforts have been on the anvil of our associations and more or lessthey have lost the National identity and have been functioning as just regionalassociations  for the last severaldecades throughout, without country wide representation and activities..   2.      Library Science Education andResearch is at a very low ebb.   a)      We have almost forgotten Ranganathancontributions and their importance in LIS education and research  and in  library  organisation, whereas thewesterners are  serious in reinventinghim and doing research on him.  This isone on the serious gaps also in our research studies. b)      No theoretical  research is being undertaken. 99% of researchstudies are  on survey based (Onlyquestionnaire data)  No testing of samplesize on its adequacy. Where does all data is applied? If sample size is smallboost it up arbitrarily   (double  the  responses) c)      Compare the research papers publishedin Indian and Foreign Journals on library science d)      We have failed to identify new areasof application of library techniques other than the bibliographic data. Thereis need for total diversification and India is the only country which has thatpotential, in the background of its history, culture and traditional knowledge. e)      If we had done some multidisciplinaryresearch and we would have gained  dentityand image from other disciplines. f)       Look at the western librarianship.Apart from Library professionals more than 100 scholarly individuals havecontributed to the problems and issues of information management, handling,search and transmission. J.C.Licklider, a professor of Computer Science, at MITauthored a book on Libraries of the Futurein 1960s. HP Luhn, Prof. J.D.Bernal,Eric de Solla Price,  Gerald Salton, LeoEgghe, Vannever Bush, Fred Kilgour, Alister Macleish,  F.B. Rogers, Donker Duyvis, to name a few have contributed to  the LIS profession who were not LIS people. g)      The entire British LIS fraternity hasdigested Ranganathan's ideas and even today he is admired and studied in  that country. The Royal School ofLibrary  and Information Science,Copenhagen, Denmark has prescriptions on  SRR ideas on Indexing and Chain Indexing  wascompared to Yahoo search engine. Did any school explore this and also that anURL can  represent PMEST and their  manifestations of rounds and levels.   h)      There is a total  lack of library culture in our country  which has to be nurtured from  school level and we need good schoollibraries. To quote an example the school children are introduced Dewey byusing the Mickey Mouse cartoon caricatures to present the first summary of DDC. 3.       We have seen the fate of National KnowledgeCommission recommendations of Library Working group.  If I  had been a  member of that working group, I would havesuggested only one subject  to thecommission  “ Prepare a National Libraryand information Policy” which would have taken care of the total librarydevelopment and efforts to implement it. Where does the National Commission onLibraries stand now? When would the National Institute of Library andInformation Science be established. On this account I made a paper in 1990sthat a Council of Library and Information Science Education and Research beconstituted with broad structure, on the  lines of ICSSR and other Councils of research. 4.      I think now it is high time tolook  towards image building and gainingidentity to the profession and our efforts should be towards that end. Even ifthe NEP accepts our recommendations, the fate of our profession is not going tochange if our efforts are not concerned with the issues I have  raises. We have to do an introspection andconsider the discontent attitude of NEP as a blessing in disguise and our allefforts  should focus on image buildingand gaining identity. I have spelt some points above and hope they would beconsidered in this regard. Sincerely  yours Prof.A.Y.Asundi FormerProfessor and Chairman Departmentof Library and Information Science, Officerin Charge, IT  Centre BangaloreUniversity, Bangalore ashokasundi@rediffmail.com 9980815468         On Wednesday, 26 June, 2019, 5:24:09 pm IST, GANAGANUR MANJUNATH wrote: Thanks to Mr.Satyanarayana for sharing his observations about the draft NEP, May I request some one to please share the  set of thirteen policy recommendations made by the librarians to NEP in a meeting held at NAAC ? thanks, G.K.Manjunath Director of Libraries Ahmedabad University Ahmedabad. On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 22:39, Sathyanarayana NV < sathya@informaticsglobal.com> wrote:

Dear friends of LIS Profession

The Ministry of Human Resources Development  released the National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 (final draft)  early this month inviting public opinion and feedback from all stakeholders.  The good news is, unlike in the earlier draft report of NEP released in 2016 as an input to the policy which mentioned the word library just in one place coming as part of a quote, NEP 2019 mentions library in more than 30 instances, in its 480 page report, spread over 23 chapters.  But the disappointment is, library is just mentioned in a few contexts as  part of  various infrastructure support.  As policy guideline, there are only two statements on libraries:

- “Expansion of school and public libraries and building a culture of reading and communication” (p68)’

- “Enhancing access to libraries and online journals” (p241) – This policy statement in particular suggests setting up a mechanism to enable the Government to be the  single buyer for online access to journals for all public institutions to replace the present practice of funding premier institutions for subscriptions to journals.

The treatment given to library is more of a “such as” facility.

In October 2017, the committee  set up for developing the new NEP 2019 had arranged a meeting of a few librarians in NAAC, Bangalore.  This group of librarians had given a  set of thirteen policy recommendations. None of these recommendations is found as specific policy statement in the NEP 2019 draft report which is surprising.

I consider it important that the LIS groups initiate quick debate on NEP 2019 (draft)  and its implications on the future of libraries in the country if accepted without according adequate and appropriate focus on   library as an integral part of and yet distinct role player in education. It is highly desirable that  LIS  groups and in particular the professional associations like ILA, IASLIC and others initiate quick debate to evolve a national library policy document and submit to the NEP 2019 (draft) committee for inclusion as a distinct chapter in the report.

|N. V. Sathyanarayana| |Chairman & Managing Director|Informatics India Ltd.|Bangalore 560004|INDIA| |www.informaticsglobal.com|+91-80-40387777|

-- *Confidentiality Notice: *T*his electronic message transmission, including any attachment(s), may contain confidential, proprietary, or privileged information from Informatics Publishing Limited. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any dissemination, copying, distribution, printing or use of the contents of the information contained in this electronic message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this electronic message by error, please destroy all copies of the message and contact the sender immediately by either replying to this message or calling 91-80-40387777.*

-- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

Please correct me if I am wrong. Looks like we are repeatedly saying the same thing again and again over decades. Everything seems to be in writing and doesn't seem to come up. Based on earlier recommendations, please let me know the implementation process of the same. Pardon me for my ignorance if at all. Regards Jagadish On Sat, Jun 29, 2019, 17:29 Koteswara Rao Mamidi wrote:

Dear LIS-forum members,

Perhaps this may not be the right time for us to talk about the falling standards of LIS profession, when we are confronted with an urgent task of explaining the importance of libraries in education to the Union Government; but we should certainly give a serious thought to what Dr. Asundi had said with pain and anguish.

Earlier, there were many discussions in this forum on the falling standards of LIS profession, and the people or groups responsible for this downfall; but nothing happened except a dim silence. I am glad that Dr. Asundi has clearly explained how our LIS profession has failed to 'deliver' its promises; the disregard for LIS profession by the Government; and how we are unable to influence the Government on policy matters. (Incidentally, he forgot to mention the mushrooming of LIS departments/centres, when there is an severe unemployment in the LIS profession due to substandard education).

In my opinion, either collectively or individually, we did not show any resentment or learnt any lessons from the past mistakes, but kept on going without any action to bring some change in the profession. It is high time for us to seriously do some thing to regain our lost professional identity and contribute to the National Education Policy through a good set of recommendations. I thank and wish all my senior colleagues involved in this task Best Wishes. The opinion expressed here are my own and personal.

Dr. M Koteswara Rao former Librarian University of Hyderabad

________________________________ From: LIS-Forum on behalf of Ashok Asundi Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2019 11:24 AM To: GANAGANUR MANJUNATH Cc: lis-forum Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] National Education Policy, 2019 (Draft) and Libraries

Dear LISFraternity,

I am goingthrough the discussion on draft NEP andits discontented importance about the libraries in education. The informal group of library professionals prepared a good dossierforwarded the same to the concerned authorities. Prof. M.K. Sridhar, the formerMember-Secretary of Karnataka Knowledge Commission initiated to prepare a draft note to be sent to the concerned .

I present my views here on the state ofhappening in the LIS profession for which entire fraternity is concerned but nosolution have come forth These are my personal views being still very active in the professional development and with a background of experience of more than 50 years in LIS profession in different capacities.

1. Over the years the profession hasbeen loosing its identity; the fact that

a) The decline is visible throughthe successive education commission reports since 1920 starting with Sadler committee Report (CalcuttaUniversity Commission)

b ) The New Education Policy, 1986and revised in 2001 has not taken recourse to the recommendations on the importance and provisions of library facilities in education in particular from school to university education - the named reports are Mudliar commission on secondary commission, Radhakrishnan and Kothar i Commission Reports of 1948-49 and 1964-65.

c) The two UGC Reports under the Chairmanshipof Dr. Ranganathan were the firstand the last Reports on LIS Education and Academic Libraries After the demise of Dr.Ranganathan there was no force to reckon with to push the library cause and we fought only on status and salary scales, that bestow ed with political leaders But the case of good library facility in general has taken a back seat.

d)Hardly no new appointments are made in the libraries;whether Public, College or Universities. The condition of school libraries isbetter not to mention.

e) The profession gets its identity with men holding keypositions and almost all universities in the state and most (Except Govt)college libraries are without professional staff. We thought that by adoptingtechnology we would give a facelift to the profession but it has marred theprofession, as the library organisation has been least concerned function in libraries.

f)The profession grows, develops and gets an imated only when there is good organisationalset-up. Where do we find a model organisation that we can teach and implement. Wepresent good images only in Papers presented in the conferences.

g) We have borrowed many ideas, concepts and tools from west. Take for example the OSS onLibrary Automation, we spend to the tune of Rs. 20-50 lakhs on RFIDtechnology. But we have not made any cost - benefit analysis on their implementation and it is worth to go forsuch hard technology.

h)What does our organisations and associations aredoing? Visualising the serious dearth ofworking professional manpower in thelibraries; contrary we are producing enough from our library schools; noassociation has made any representation to the Governments to look into thisissue. The Governments think on the other hand the libraries can be managedwithout adequate people. There are many one man libraries.

i)The heads of our Associations are more or less satisfiedbecause they can become members of oneor other committees in the Government or gain some benefits to attend the conference abroad by virtue being ahead of the national body.

j) So no imagebuilding efforts have been on the anvil of our associations and more or lessthey have lost the National identity and have been functioning as just regionalassociations for the last severaldecades throughout, without country wide representation and activities..

2. Library Science Education andResearch is at a very low ebb.

a) We have almost forgotten Ranganathancontributions and their importance in LIS education and research and in library organisation, whereas thewesterners are serious in reinventinghim and doing research on him. This isone on the serious gaps also in our research studies.

b) No theoretical research is being undertaken. 99% of researchstudies are on survey based (Onlyquestionnaire data) No testing of samplesize on its adequacy. Where does all data is applied? If sample size is smallboost it up arbitrarily (double the responses)

c) Compare the research papers publishedin Indian and Foreign Journals on library science

d) We have failed to identify new areasof application of library techniques other than the bibliographic data. Thereis need for total diversification and India is the only country which has thatpotential, in the background of its history, culture and traditional knowledge.

e) If we had done some multidisciplinaryresearch and we would have gained dentityand image from other disciplines.

f) Look at the western librarianship.Apart from Library professionals more than 100 scholarly individuals havecontributed to the problems and issues of information management, handling,search and transmission. J.C.Licklider, a professor of Computer Science, at MITauthored a book on Libraries of the Futurein 1960s. HP Luhn, Prof. J.D.Bernal,Eric de Solla Price, Gerald Salton, LeoEgghe, Vannever Bush, Fred Kilgour, Alister Macleish, F.B. Rogers, Donker Duyvis, to name a few have contributed to the LIS profession who were not LIS people.

g) The entire British LIS fraternity hasdigested Ranganathan's ideas and even today he is admired and studied in that country. The Royal School ofLibrary and Information Science,Copenhagen, Denmark has prescriptions on SRR ideas on Indexing and Chain Indexing wascompared to Yahoo search engine. Did any school explore this and also that anURL can represent PMEST and their manifestations of rounds and levels.

h) There is a total lack of library culture in our country which has to be nurtured from school level and we need good schoollibraries. To quote an example the school children are introduced Dewey byusing the Mickey Mouse cartoon caricatures to present the first summary of DDC.

3. We have seen the fate of National KnowledgeCommission recommendations of Library Working group. If I had been a member of that working group, I would havesuggested only one subject to thecommission “ Prepare a National Libraryand information Policy” which would have taken care of the total librarydevelopment and efforts to implement it. Where does the National Commission onLibraries stand now? When would the National Institute of Library andInformation Science be established. On this account I made a paper in 1990sthat a Council of Library and Information Science Education and Research beconstituted with broad structure, on the lines of ICSSR and other Councils of research.

4. I think now it is high time tolook towards image building and gainingidentity to the profession and our efforts should be towards that end. Even ifthe NEP accepts our recommendations, the fate of our profession is not going tochange if our efforts are not concerned with the issues I have raises. We have to do an introspection andconsider the discontent attitude of NEP as a blessing in disguise and our allefforts should focus on image buildingand gaining identity. I have spelt some points above and hope they would beconsidered in this regard.

Sincerely yours

Prof.A.Y.Asundi

FormerProfessor and Chairman

Departmentof Library and Information Science,

Officerin Charge, IT Centre

BangaloreUniversity, Bangalore

ashokasundi@rediffmail.com

9980815468

On Wednesday, 26 June, 2019, 5:24:09 pm IST, GANAGANUR MANJUNATH < gkmbom@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks to Mr.Satyanarayana for sharing his observations about the draft NEP,

May I request some one to please share the set of thirteen policy recommendations made by the librarians to NEP in a meeting held at NAAC ? thanks, G.K.Manjunath Director of Libraries Ahmedabad University Ahmedabad.

On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 22:39, Sathyanarayana NV < sathya@informaticsglobal.com> wrote:

...

Dear friends of LIS Profession

The Ministry of Human Resources Development released the National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 (final draft) early this month inviting public opinion and feedback from all stakeholders. The good news is, unlike in the earlier draft report of NEP released in 2016 as an input to the policy which mentioned the word library just in one place coming as part of a quote, NEP 2019 mentions library in more than 30 instances, in its 480 page report, spread over 23 chapters. But the disappointment is, library is just mentioned in a few contexts as part of various infrastructure support. As policy guideline, there are only two statements on libraries:

- “Expansion of school and public libraries and building a culture of reading and communication” (p68)’

- “Enhancing access to libraries and online journals” (p241) – This policy statement in particular suggests setting up a mechanism to enable the Government to be the single buyer for online access to journals for all public institutions to replace the present practice of funding premier institutions for subscriptions to journals.

The treatment given to library is more of a “such as” facility.

In October 2017, the committee set up for developing the new NEP 2019 had arranged a meeting of a few librarians in NAAC, Bangalore. This group of librarians had given a set of thirteen policy recommendations. None of these recommendations is found as specific policy statement in the NEP 2019 draft report which is surprising.

I consider it important that the LIS groups initiate quick debate on NEP 2019 (draft) and its implications on the future of libraries in the country if accepted without according adequate and appropriate focus on library as an integral part of and yet distinct role player in education. It is highly desirable that LIS groups and in particular the professional associations like ILA, IASLIC and others initiate quick debate to evolve a national library policy document and submit to the NEP 2019 (draft) committee for inclusion as a distinct chapter in the report.

|N. V. Sathyanarayana| |Chairman & Managing Director|Informatics India Ltd.|Bangalore 560004|INDIA| |www.informaticsglobal.com|+91-80-40387777|

-- *Confidentiality Notice: *T*his electronic message transmission, including any attachment(s), may contain confidential, proprietary, or privileged information from Informatics Publishing Limited. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any dissemination, copying, distribution, printing or use of the contents of the information contained in this electronic message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this electronic message by error, please destroy all copies of the message and contact the sender immediately by either replying to this message or calling 91-80-40387777.*

-- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.