Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 17:41:46 +0530 From: Anita Pujari Dear professional colleagues, I have been following with interest the exchange of opinions on Corporate Librarianship - the status, the training needs etc. In my opinion the problems that LIS professionals face in the Corporate Sector is that of being little understood. Atanu Garai has elucidated with examples the poor understanding of HR/Corporate recruiters of the professional/academic requirements to handle the role of Information Management or Knowledge Management. At best they would think of a LIS professional for a "Library" with a view of a physical collection - typically Books, Magazines, Newspapers or Multimedia such as CDs, DVDs, Tapes and so on as per the business the company engages in. Basically Storehouse/Collection management. However it is not always so - there are many exceptions. I have been lucky to have worked in both kinds of Corporate Libraries. My experience of the past 14 years with Media Libraries has been particularly challenging. Fighting mindsets & managing perceptions plays a big part. We as LIS professionals have to work on marketing ourselves and creating our role and place in the company. As you all know Knowledge Management is the big buzz word in the Corporate sector now. At the recently held CII KM India 2008 Knowledge Summit in Mumbai there were about 150 delegates from a spectrum of companies. Amongst all those knowledge practitioners barely 6-7 of us were from the LIS profession. Every other profession, with IT & MBAs in the lead have staked claim to playing the Knowledge Manager role in almost all companies be it Infosys, WIPRO, Satyam, Reliance, MindTree, Eureka Forbes, Airtel� long list. ILFS, Mumbai is an exception I know of and there maybe(hopefully) a couple more. But we are hopelessly outnumbered in this upcoming profession and Job role that we as LIS professionals can so easily play. Anita Pujari ------------------------------------------ General Manager DNA - Research, Archives & Syndication Diligent Media Corporation Ltd. Oasis Complex, Kamala Mills Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013 Phone: +91 22 39888888 Extn 451 Fax: +91 22 39801000 www.dnaindia.com http://www.dnaindia.com/ http://epaper.dnaindia.com http://epaper.dnaindia.com/ www.3dsyndication.com http://www.3dsyndication.com/ ----Original Message---------- From: Mailing List Admin Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] Training for corporate librarianship To: lis-forum@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 10:53 AM Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 20:17:49 +0530 From: atanu garai Dear Professors, I am very glad to interact with you all again, as I always look for opportunities to ask questions to teachers. Let me be very honest here. I will of course agree to what is said regarding the imminent need for improving the quality of intake and output of LIS incumbents. There is no doubt about it. But, this is just one side of the