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Permalink Reply by JULFIKAR RAHAMAN on July 22, 2013 at 2:59

Agree with you.

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Permalink Reply by Nishad N G on July 22, 2013 at 4:21

Unemployment is a realiti now for LIS students.its due to ignorance of policy makers abt the value of library and the role they playing in higher education system.

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Permalink Reply by cheepurupalli nageswararao on July 22, 2013 at 4:50

you are asking very good question sir,because of there is no unity in our professionals. alot of people are attended the interviews for any post in our profession. they are chosen only those who are coming to join low salary . all the organizations are not same but some organizations selects good candidate's also.
we want to need statewide unity in our professionals.protesting against to our state government for recruitment in schools.

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Permalink Reply by saravanan on July 22, 2013 at 4:53

sir your statement applicable to tamilnadu also...here all v get low salary(with MPhil only Rs.9000)....they prepare all Department even physical education.....but for our course????????????????

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Permalink Reply by Vipin Panday on July 22, 2013 at 6:50

yes there is a lack of unity in our profession so that the businessman who have built the academic institutions for only profit purpose...that businessman can't bother to give better salary...some institutions are giving better salary bt this type of institutions in a small scale...it is moral duty to all the professionals to fix the minimum amount as per other staff (faculty) and nt compromise for the minimum salary.......

mr saravanan ji , i am fully agree with u, it is a problem of nt only a particular region bt of a whole country...........

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Permalink Reply by డా. డి. కోనప్ప on July 22, 2013 at 17:59

we will fight for dissolve Distance Education Courses or limit to admissions in distance education.

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Permalink Reply by Naushaba Perveen on July 22, 2013 at 17:59

yes sir i m also agree with u

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Permalink Reply by Siddhartha Shankar Ray on July 22, 2013 at 18:56

Dear Sri Vipin Pande,

Thanks for your post. As I understand, you have raised a question which had been discussed in this forum more than once but as the issue is extremely vital for sheer sustenance, the importance is  quite alive and as I believe, it will be so for next several years if the present system continues.  I have gone through the six replies to your post and the number of such responses substantiates that it is indeed a burning question!!

As I personally believe, the simple fact is that the number of pass-outs are far more than number of vacancies arising every year. As such, many institutions (even govt. institutions too!) are asking for staff on contract and offering less salary. They are quite sure that since there are so many unemployed people around, people will accept lower salary. This is because of sheer abundance of candidates in the job market. I personally believe that Professional associations have little to do in this respect. For instance, if the associations appeal before the professional not to accept contractual jobs or jobs offering less salary what will happen? Do you think that people will abide by such appeal? We all know that the answer will be "NO".

However, what the Associations can do is ask AICTE & other such bodies to make it mandatory for the institutions to offer requisite salary in requisite pay scales. And honestly speaking, I have no idea whether any of the professional Associations have ever made any such appeal to any such bodies. But I am sure that in case they have not taken any such step, it is a failure from their part.

But I also support the view that choosing this course of study of LIS is one's personal business.So If one feels that since s/he has studied this particular professional course supposedly to get a job (which has been absolutely according to his/her own choice,) it is the duty/responsibility of the professional Associations to provide them requisite pay scale, it is rather an absurd thought.

As I personally feel is that there should be an immediate restriction of pass-outs in LIS profession & if it really happens, the crisis may be solved after next ten years.

I understand that what I have mentioned above may seem quite bitter to many professionals but I am sure if they put their heads over their hearts they will certainly realise the bare truth behind my statement.

Sincerely,

Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Calcutta

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Permalink Reply by Siddhartha Shankar Ray on July 23, 2013 at 0:10

Dear Janab Gulfaiz Ahmad,

Thanks for your comments. Incidentally, I consider myself as one of the SENIORS in the profession because of my tenure of service in this profession. Frankly speaking I feel perturbed when I see young professionals just roaming from pillars to posts for a job but I hardly been able so far to anything worthwhile for them in my individual capacity. The profession is so overcrowded with professionals many of whom are really "able & deserving" that it is practically IMPOSSIBLE to accommodate such a huge number of professionals. Especially with the advent of electronic& cyber technology, the demand for library professionals shrunk to a great extent! many jobs I used to to in the early years of my service (like browsing content pages of journals, identifying articles, making reading list for the Scientists) are no longer required from a professional at present and eventually, the chain of relationship among the Library staff & Users is virtually disappeared. In those days, Scientists/Researchers/Users could easily identify a good Librarian & a bad Librarian and demands were there for good ones. I still fondly cherish my old days when me and several researchers of my old institute used to talk about Research, Articles, Authors and journals long after the closure of the office. We were young and were more energetic and we were often accused of  being victims of what our seniors called "ESD Syndrome" meaning Evening Scientific Discussion Syndrome!!  But they were of great help for me. I get to know who is doing what & where. It helped me a lot to understand the research interest and inspired me to prepare various profiles for readers' use. When papers were accepted in good journals, it used to be a matter of joy for all of us. But a today's professional can hardly imagine such interaction with researchers as most of these are being done by the Scientists themselves!! Even many Scientists may even see this as unnecessary intrusion in their domain!!

Well, coming back to  the seniors' part, I must admit that a section of us are certainly responsible for diminishing the image of library professionals as many of us propelled our energies for sheer personal benefits. As a result, the image of the professionals became gloomy.  We had been extremely interested to get UGC pay scales, Teaching status etc. etc. but in these exercise we languished the ethics of service and there is no denying that this act of ours made the profession crippled to a considerable extent.  The Universities also are responsible to a certain extent. They never bothered for the job market for initiating such Professional Courses. In fact it is quite a complex issue.

Many of us accuse the private institutes for not providing requisite pay scales but just observed from an article by Eldho Mathews et al in Economic & pol. Weekly (July 20, 2013 issue) regarding Narayana Murthy Committee's recommendations on Corporate Participation in Higher Education (pp. 41-47)  that nowadays, the Private institutes (like ISB) are registered as Limited Companies & not as Societies under societies Registration Act like earlier years and in this new capacity, they are free to denounce the government norms!! If such things prevail, the future, especially of this profession seems to be extremely bleak.

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta 

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Permalink Reply by Siddu on July 26, 2013 at 21:42

Obviously, the root cause of this problem is because the supply far greater exceeds the demand for professionals.

First and foremost, I feel the intake should be drastically reduced and stringent quality standards for intake of students as well as for the institutes imparting LIS education should be enforced.  Otherwise, any xyz institute without proper infrastructure will get permission to run the course which leads to deterioration of  quality of education and hence the quality of emerging professionals and hence poorer pay scales.

Secondly, distance education should be restricted for on job professionals only to enhance their qualifications.

Third efforts should be made to create more jobs

Fourth, LIS curriculum should be designed and updated keeping the market needs in mind.

Fifth, Professional bodies should become more active and vibrant.

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Permalink Reply by Siddhartha Shankar Ray on July 27, 2013 at 8:19

Dear Sir Siddu,

Thank you so much for your post and fo calling spade a spade. As I can recall, this matter has been discussed earlier in this forum more than once and every time I have mentioned about the  giant gaps in demand supply issue.My earlier posts will certainly corroborate my statement. I am glad that you too share this view (so also some other members as I saw in this occasion!)

As I mentioned in my previous post in reply to Sri Gulfiaj Ahmed's post, the bondage of relationship among the Library personnel & clienteles have been slacken to a considerable extent with the advent of Cyber technology as our service has become more machine dependent and human touch is gradually becoming extinct. As a result, our new gen people are great IT expert but the academic flavour in our profession is  steadily declining!!

Library profession is basically academic in nature, if the earlier proportion of Academic & Technical activities used to be 70:30, now it is 30: 70 or even 15:85 in some affluent institutions. The more we detach ourselves from the academic persuasions, the more we will be distant from the academic/research community & environment and the more we will loose our importance!

A  couple of weeks ago, I was present in the feed back session of outgoing M.Phil students in an institute and they were discussing about the Research Methodology Courses as they felt that they needed a more intensive course. had it been some 15 years earlier, when we didn't have so strong presence of the Internet & cyber technology, the students' experience would have been quite different as they were more inclined to printed books and Library resources so also to the Library professionals. because as I understand pretty well that there are many resources existing in their Library itself to be unearthed; never-the-less, with not more than 15 minutes discussions with library professionals they could have had their problems solved!!  However, I myself had certain new things to learn! Because, later when I asked some of the Library staff, I was virtually shocked to observe that many of them had very preliminary knowledge about the subject (though they were working in the same organization for not less than 7 years) and very little knowledge about their own resources. It gave me one clear idea that practically they have never gone through those materials at all though some among those staff themselves have successfully completed M. Phil & cleared the NET!! Another more shocking example is from my old institute, I had purchased a few volumes of Essays of an Information Scientist by Gene Garfield from a discounted percentage of a book grant received from and international source (the words discounted percentage  may seem unfamiliar to you; but it so happened that the chairperson denied to purchase 'a single book on Library science' from the fund!! so I negotiated with the funding body and after great persuasions, was able to get 10% discount over the cost of the books & I purchased Some "Library Science" books like Garfield's from that amount!! incidentally, I was the main person behind receipt of the fund!!)

Well,  coming back to context, I had read the articles extensively and so also many researchers. Incidentally, a few years ago, I was on the look out for one article which I had read in that book. By this time all the old people except  one had retired and some new persons were inducted. Ironically, when I asked for the book, I discovered that none of the three-four M.l.i.Sc. qualified staff were aware of even existence of the volumes!! So you see that the new gen people though very well conversant with IT, are extremely poor in theory & basic philosophy of the subjects concerned. It is quite obvious therefore that most of the users' queries will go over their heads and you can well understand what impact will it create among the researchers/ academics?? So I plead that besides requisite updated syllabus, the professionals, especially those in the service MUST acquire at least nodding knowledge   of the subjects they are working with.

I am rather confident that this comment of mine may seem quite unpleasant, uncalled for &  even unnecessary to many of my co-professionals in this forum and outside it, but if we want to share or aspire for same platform with academicians/researchers, it is a MUST.

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta 

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Permalink Reply by V.SENTHUR VELMURUGAN on July 23, 2013 at 0:50

your opnion is very nice
i agree

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