Dear Friends, While Dr Rath wishes to differ with me but I fully agree with him that fundamental research is needed for the future of LIS. In fact no discipline or practice can stand of its on without having a core of theories and organized supporting science. I have been suggesting my following model for LIS Education and Practice. It consists of three encapsulating cores. 1 - CORE - having the essential LIS philosophy, theory, Tools and Best Practices. 2 - MIDDLE CORE - comprising of Information Technologies (All ICE Technologies) that boosts the effectiveness of the CORE (1). 3 - INTERFACE CORE - This is the face that is perceived by Prospective Employers. It takes the feedback from the job market, adjusts the MIDDLE Core to satisfy the Employers' requirements. Dr. Rath would find that Innermost CORE consists of theory and philosophy of LIS. This is where fundamental research in LIS is a must. --Sukhdev Singh, NIC. On Nov 26, 2007 11:39 AM, Prabhash N. Rath wrote:

Dear Dr Sukhdev Singh

While I see merit in your reaction to Mr Rajesh Rangappa's posting, I beg to differ little on certain issues. It is true that foreign universities impart such type of training that any LIS professional can work in any type of library, simultaneously I feel that some research is needed for conventional library science topics also. This helps in maintaining the academic flavour of the subject. You must have noticed that very good qualitative articles on such topics regularly appear in journals like Library Quarterly, Libraries and the Cultural Record, Knowledge Organisation etc.

The problem with most of the LIS researchers here is that they don't do any research rigorously. Even on convetional topics, good research can be made and in a social science subject topic, we can't say that some thing is outdated. For example, many of us don't know 'whys' of many event happened in the past. Recently, while submitting a paper to Libraries and the Cultural Record, I was asked some interesting questions by their editor like what made to the enactment of Press and Registration of Books Act 1867 (with documentary evidence), and why INB provides both DDC and CC in its entries etc. So I feel, while recruiting teachers, we need to identify specialisation on which we require teachers. In India, except specialisation in IT, I have never seen any advertisement giving any other specialisation.

With regards Prabhash N. Rath

----- Original Message ----- From: "Sukhdev Singh" To: "Rajesh Rangappa" Cc: Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 1:00 PM Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] topics for development of LIS professionals

...

I fully endorse the feeling of Rajesh.

While interacting with young professionals, I am observing an increasing level of frustration. Perhaps they expect much more from senior professionals.

While comparing with foreign universities we may remember one thing - they compete with other to attract better students. They cost much more. The same does not apply to Indian Universities. Competition, if any, among Indian Universities is yet to start.

--Sukhdev Singh, NIC.

On Nov 22, 2007 4:51 PM, Rajesh Rangappa wrote:

...

...

Dear Professional,

Don't we feel the syllabus of MLISc, and even the topics on which your privileged Universities are undertaking research in LIS are so old and outdated. Except few topics which are to be integral part of Library professional's, ( like classification and cataloguing). Others are of very less use,

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

_______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum

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