Dear Sir, May I request you to circulate the below invitation to LIS community. Prakash Roja Muthiah Research Library *____________* *P. Sankaralingam Memorial Endowment Lecture Series* *Inaugural lecture by Prof. K. S. Raghavan* *on* *‘Education for Information Manpower: Challenges and Trends’* *Date *- 16 November 2018 *Time* - 5.30 pm *Venue* Roja Muthiah Research Library 3rd Cross Road CPT Campus, Taramani Chennai 600113 *Tea will be served at 5 pm* *About the speaker* Dr. K. S. Raghavan obtained Master's degree in Library Science from the University of Delhi and Ph.D. from the University of Mysore. He was a Senior Fulbright scholar at UCLA, USA in 1987. Dr. Raghavan served the University of Mysore for 6 years from 1971 and moved to the University of Madras in 1977; He retired from the University of Madras as its Dean (Academic) in 2005 and joined DRTC, Indian Statistical Institute as a professor. Since 2013 he is working as a Visiting Scientist at the Centre for Knowledge Analytics. He was also a visting scientist Ontological Engineering (KAnOE) in PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore from 2013-16. In 2015 he served as a visiting professor at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and taught a course on Knowledge Representation and Ontology. He also served as a visiting professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil in 2003. He is serving as secretary of Ranganathan Centre for Information Studies and Member-Secretary of Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science. He has authored a book, edited about 18 volumes and published over 75papers. He is the Editor of the SRELS Journal of Information Management and on the editorial boards of Knowledge organization (ISKO, Germany) and Libres (NTU). *About the talk* Nations, societies and institutions of all kinds are in a state of flux because of developments in ICTs and globalization. Today’s world is more networked than ever before and countries and communities are much more interdependent on each other. The far-reaching developments brought about by technology in the past two decades have transformed the workplace, which is very different from what it was before the advent of this technology. This is true of practically every kind of institution – manufacturing industries, banks, schools, hotels, airlines, shops, governments, libraries, etc. Given this, there is naturally a growing concern of a possible mismatch between professional education programmes and the requirements of the job market. Therefore, critical attention is being paid to all aspects of higher education with a view to generate manpower with knowledge and skills required for and relevant to the emerging situation. The industry, which is the principal employer of products of professional education programmes, has, in recent years, pointed out that India’s undergraduate and graduate education programmes are too theoretical and are devoid of practical experience necessary for absorption into the industry’s workforce. Planning professional education programmes for the future require that we have an idea, even if it is not a very clear picture, of the emerging future. What makes this particularly difficult in the information and library arena is that the technologies that are driving the changes in the information arena are disruptive technologies. Education programmes need to realize the enormous and fundamental changes that have taken place in the way libraries function that impacts the nature of manpower needed to manage modern libraries in terms of knowledge and skills required. Today there are environments and workplaces outside the conventional library requiring manpower with knowledge and skills in information work and service. Planners also need to take cognizance of the broadened information environment, identify the knowledge and skills required to work in such environments and workplaces and build appropriate components into education programmes designed to train information professionals. In this lecture, the speaker proposes to briefly examine some of these issues. *About P. Sankaralingam* PS, as his colleagues and students would call him (P. Sankaralingam) was a visionary librarian and gifted teacher who was central in the creation of the Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL). Sankaralingam was the first Director of the Roja Muthiah Research Library in Chennai, a position he held since September 1993, when the institution was founded. Prior to that appointment he was instrumental in bringing together the forces necessary in India to ensure that the collection of the late Roja Muthiah would be acquired and preserved for the use of scholars. The University of Madras generously gave Sankaralingam a leave of absence to accept the Directorship of RMRL. From 1976 he had been a faculty member in the University's Department of Library and Information Science. From 1968 through 1976, he was Assistant Librarian at the Tirunelveli Medical College, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu. His M.Lib.Sc http://m.lib.sc/. degree was from the University of Mysore in 1975. The "New Library Movement in India" is the name Sankaralingam gave to loosely confederated activities aimed at improving services and access to collections for readers. He was a central figure shaping the movement in south India. RMRL was workbench for framing and testing new approaches, approaches that already have had a dramatic impact on the visibility and organization of Tamil publications, from classical texts through less well recognized modern literature. Sankaralingam has published twenty-three papers and was involved in preparing indexes for eight books. From 1985-1991, he was joint managing editor of the land-mark Kriyavin tarkalat Tamil akarati [A Tamil - Tamil - English dictionary of contemporary Tamil] published by Cre-A: in 1992. He was also a joint editor of the 1992 publication, Cognitive paradigms in knowledge organization. His translation into Tamil of David Werner's Where there is no doctor appeared in 1984 as Taktar illata itattil and still remains a best seller. Many of Sankaralingam's students have gone on to positions of library leadership throughout India. He was revered by his students as a gifted and demanding teacher who gave special attention especially to the needs of students in financial need. Other major projects and activities in which Sankaralingam was involved, include: a project for developing a machine-readable multi-script bibliographic database of the holdings of the Dept. of Indology, French Institute of Pondicherry; a project to develop an information storage and retrieval system for the audio and video recordings available in the Archives of All India Radio and Doordarshan; and development of a morphological analyzer for Tamil. He was a founding trustee of MOZHI, a public Trust for Resource Development in Language and Culture, and held that position until becoming Director of RMRL. The RMRL Trust has instituted the "P. Sankaralingam Memorial Lecture Series" in honour of this great visionary. -- R. Prakash 9444031245