Dear All, As suggested by Shri. N. V. Satyanarayana Sir, there is an urgent need to initiate a dialogue/ debate with NEP (Draft) Committee Coordinators on the inclusion of 'Libraries" as distinct chapter in the new National Education Policy. It will help us revive the rapidly diminishing image of the libraries and librarians on the academic campuses. The national bodies such as ILA must take a lead on this front. Regards, Anand Dodamani Mumbai On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 12:01 PM wrote:

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Today's Topics:

1. National Education Policy, 2019 (Draft) and Libraries (Sathyanarayana NV)

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Message: 1 Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2019 22:19:25 +0530 From: Sathyanarayana NV To: lis-forum Subject: [LIS-Forum] National Education Policy, 2019 (Draft) and Libraries Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

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|

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