Replies to This Forum

Permalink Reply by Dr. Badan Barman on September 12, 2014 at 14:07

Fully agreed.

Though at present I dont treat myself as a Senior Professionals but if you send a direct mail to my email id and if the matter is not a serious, I dont used to send a reply. Actually its not possible on my part to give a reply to each and every email. However, I used to read them all and dont delete an email without going through it.

Firstly, let me say a few words about me. I represent a University Library where I am the single person in my library (at present), so, I have lots of work to do that are very essential.

Secondly, I used to check our official email id of the University and at present we have more than 1 lakh students, so you can easily understand the volume of email we used to receive daily. We need to go through their feedback, questions every day. It is a huge task. In our official email, if you send an email, an automatic reply will be sent to you as because it is configured that way.

Thirdly, I am responsible for maintaining fifteen websites (including institute, professional and personal). A few websites need to be updated daily. It is a time consuming task.

Fourthly, as a professional dealing with social media, I used to receive more than 100 email in a day. It is absolutely not possible to give a reply to each and every email if it is not very much important. I agree that the importance of a subject depend on person to person. However if you post a general query, whose answer you can easily get by searching over Google or other, then we used to skip that email. In case of LIS Links, we used to delete any posting that in our opinion is not suitable for our reader, post that are duplicate, post that are not well formated and so on. I do agree if your post is rejected, we should send a reply stating the reason why it was not accepted, but we are unable to do so due to lack of time. Lack of time is not an excuse here, but its the fact.

So, same may be the case with other persons.

Believe me Achuthan, we are really working hard in our end, cutting our family time, skipping our meal. I dont know if there is a better way to do the things, but as per our knowledge goes we are doing everything that is possible on our part.

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Permalink Reply by Abilash Achuthan on September 15, 2014 at 18:00

Dear Dr. Badan,

I appreciate your dedication and service, the things you do for (the professional, the Institute, and our group) do not go unnoticed.

Thank you for taking the initiative and getting it done....

Thank you!

Abilash A.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Bhakti Gala on September 12, 2014 at 15:49

I totally agree with you Abhilash A. For even the smallest and simplest of queries you get an instant reply. In India I have personally gone through many instances of Associations representatives choosing to ignore your queries.

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Permalink Reply by Neiketu Siam on September 12, 2014 at 19:24

sorry to say this but i really dont know whether ILA  is still active or defunct. had sent my membership form along with necessary attachments like D.D etc long  long time back giving even my contact details, email add though they didnt ask for it nor is there provision for it in the form. But stoic silence from their end.

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Permalink Reply by JASMER SINGH on September 12, 2014 at 23:09

mr.badan Barmen great work done by u

Sir i m school  Librarian  i m assest for my school .Each and every work related to ICT is responsibility of me to perform that in a better way .Each and every project of students will not completed with out my direct and indirect way .all of the sttaff members and students fully dempend on my library for thier personal and professional work.

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Permalink Reply by Siddhartha Shankar Ray on September 14, 2014 at 7:39

Dear Sri Abhilash Achuthan,

I have gone through your post. All I can do as a senior professional (as far as working years are concerned) is just to beg unconditional apology.

What you have questioned about is basically a question of ethical morality or ethical responsibility. It is bitter yet true that many of us do not give much importance to such issues!! At the same time it is also true that many of us often send stray mails as well! But still, admittedly, there IS a moral responsibility to patronize young minds & fresh and novel ideas. On the other hand the issue highlighted by Dr. Barman is also quite true. when one routinely receives many mails or is supposed to do multi-task jobs, it often happens to Prioritize the items to handle. Like, say, on an average I receive around 100 mails from various publishers, booksellers and agents every week. most of those, as you can understand, are rather  "promotional mails"  (just like the promotional SMSs & calls we receive everyday in our mobile phones). Naturally, I attend only those which are related to my job and treat others as junk mails. However, a co-professional's mail informing about a new feat or seeking a comment/guidance are not just junks I admit it openhearted!! It however differs from person to person. But it is a bare fact that our Professional Associations or the people associated with them have rather Luke warm approach. This is because in our professional workplace many among us have such mindsets. We are more involved in issues which are of our personal concern like increase of DA or setting up of Pay Commission, why the Govt. is not paying the interim relief etc. etc.A large section of us irrespective of any profession are basically self-centered and we do not want to take up others' burden. We have gown up seeing these attitudes among our seniors and as we became senior, we find ourselves casted on the same dice!! Of course there are few exceptionals but exceptionals are always exceptionals. Unfortunately, the work culture and the working atmosphere in our country are rather gloomy and that is why, the young minds are suffering. I only pray to the God almighty that let not the atmosphere & culture be overtaken the good sense of young minds as they grow to be seniors; that's all!!

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta

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Permalink Reply by Abilash Achuthan on September 17, 2014 at 18:25

Yes Sir, because of our work culture so many young minds are suffering

Here I will give you the example

It is tough diffucult to implement any idea suggested by a library trainee, project trainee, or any temp staff in our work culture.

If a trainee or temp staff send a email with all grammatical mistakes to any higher manager then they are ready to correct the mistakes, and tell us how to write it and they discuss the same in a group meeting, or sharing the topic with others and discussing it from time to time, for this those managers find more time.

At the same time if a trainee or temp staff want to apply for a post and needs some help to review his/her application that time those managers wont find time to educate.

Whereas if a trainee send a mail with good writing skills, Example a C1 level, for that you wont get a reply.

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Permalink Reply by Siddhartha Shankar Ray on September 17, 2014 at 20:25

Dear Sri Abilash Achuthan,

I have gone through reply. What you have mentioned is quite natural!! You see, when we enter service life, our intentions become DEFINED; to establish ourselves, to get success in life and with such ambitions, we gradually become greedy and aspire to get more than what we really deserve; sometimes we become egoistic too. We start to pose & try to establish ourselves to be the best!! and when more capable persons enter into service in close contact to our own jobs, we often feel that our existence get threatened!!

One  has to accept it whether s/he likes it or not. There is a very simple reason.

HOW LONG CAN YOU AFFORD TO BEAR A BRIGHT LIGHT ILLUMINATING BEFORE YOUR EYES??

I believe that many among us have had enough experience in my professional life working with such sort of NON PERFORMING ASSETS !!

This is the character of most of the people we work with and ironically enough, when we become "boss" many among us often repeat the same behavior with their juniors!!

Unfortunately many of us often forget the extremely popular serial title SAAS VI KABHI BAHU THIHI !! 

The best way is to ignore it till you have a very solid Ground and as you have established your supremacy, just boycott the individual quite politely!!

And most importantly, make it a Philosophy of your life to abstain from such behaviour all through!!

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta

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Permalink Reply by Subeesh A C on September 14, 2014 at 17:04

Dear Mr Abhilash,

First of all I really like what you propose as a new method of color coding system for the document identification. Since you put it in a forum for discussion there will be a lot of ‘virtual Nos’ to kill your idea. Be careful about that.

When you proposed it, I thought about its application in our Library. Ours is a special library, so I think it will suite us better. Instantly two things came to my mind was the colour printing cost and the software to pop out the color according to the call number input. But when compared to the manual rectification

work I am doing, I discarded those points. As compared to the Libraries I have seen in my state, the library where I am working is very soft in rules. Whether users following the rules or library staff implementing it, everybody is concerned about the timely need and how to fulfill it at that particular time. Even after repeated instructions, if users are shuffling the books in one hand; the cleaning labour is following his/her unknown classification system to arrange the books. In between I am there with my ‘God’s Hand’ to rectify it as far as possible. In such a scenario, if it is not for the whole collection, your post had its value for me and our Special Library (UDC). I suppose atleast those colors will bring back some spark in the brain bulbs of those shufflers (with full respect).

Then again about your idea and where to go with it, Abhilash, as you know Indians are just growing to a stage, where they value ideas more than anything. In case of European and American Societies, they have gone through a lot of World Wars and Agriculture, Industrial and Technology Revolutions and because of all that they always want their country to be very competitive among others (added with good patriotic values through education). In such a society, they will always recognize and groom talents and their ideas even if it is coming from a different land.

I am not blaming Indians, it may be because of inexperience with product formation stages, personality traits or may be because we are still an under developed country with priorities fixed at basic needs. But India as a country is very complex to understand and label by anyone, so there is always a hope for any talents.

I respect Badan Sir for his hard work and how he manages to empower people like me to put a post in this forum. But I differ from his defense points for ILA, Since being a higher authority in LIS field ILA should respect the talents, at least the ideas. It feels very sad that one fellow professional is asking for the direction with some creative thoughts and ILA is not responding. It is not just a message to discard, it is an idea, ILA should consider the pain he took to think and extract the idea and it is not everyone’s cup of tea. Abhilash may not be a Newton, but at least he tried. Sometimes those one good reply from such higher organizations will work wonders for such minds. It also builds self-confidence, spirit and more enthuciasm to work and solve problems. But our Higher Organizations are more interested in theoretical aspects, they prefer conducting conferences and seminars on Innovative 22 Century Services, Use of ICT, Research Methodology…etc. The fact they are forgot to think is that why we are Conferencing or Unconferencing, it is only for such ideas isn’t it? Again why we are doing research, only for an academic post or a degree? We are conferencing and researching on one way and on the other way somebody with natural talent are coming out with some fresh ideas, and the same community is reluctant to accept him, even after knowing that the ultimate purpose of what they are doing is the same thing what the fellow is tabling. Surprising isn’t it? Yes of course.

As a fellow professional I salute him not only for the pain he went through to get it but also for the quality of his ideas. And I wish more professionals choose his path in their own capacity and empower to call themselves the real scientists.

If any of my words hurt any of my fellow professionals, I hereby ask them to forgive me. My intention is pure for my profession and nothing else.

For a better world.

Subeesh A C

Pune.

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Permalink Reply by Abilash Achuthan on September 18, 2014 at 18:19

 

Dear Mr Subeesh

Thanks for your reply and motivating the talents.

Here, in this colour coding concept we don’t need any software to pop out the colour everything is available in the market, Only we have to add  the colour lables with traditional call no lables.

The same concept can also be used in different ways

Example: OPAC, Library card (based on category) Shelf, Shelf Bay, Book End and Book Marker.  

Example Using in a library card:- If a student is from Architecture Department then  if we fix the colour code concept  in his/her library card which ensure the preliminary journey is smooth to his/her subject area.

Just adding the concepts to “save the time of a reader”

 

Thank You

Abilash  A

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Permalink Reply by RAGHAVENDRA K R HEAD LIBRARIAN on September 14, 2014 at 19:34

Sir,
It is alright,we understand your student strength is around 1 lac and you will be receiving huge number of mails and you have to answer them,as a librarian it is very very good,most of the time these queries are of stereotype in nature for which one may definitely device FAQs and will be made answered self.You have written a lengthy letter by spending a lot of your valuable time to justify why you have not responded to Mr.Achuthan and you said apart from your Library profession you are taking care of website maintenance other websites which is an IT profession and at the cost of your huge time,really appreciated.I wonder one thing , is there any chance, the way we take up the other profession voluntarily with love and dedication of lot of our time and energy over our profession, of vice versa by the IT professionals or others.Let us kindly keep ourselves open to contribute something to our profession to make it to be truly identified as society dependable profession,no doubt we work very hard,but work is a part of our profession which should be made recognized by the society with due acknowledgement for having a cutting edged knowledge of our own professional skill in library and information services.Mr.Achutan,appears to be sincere with his opinion, really no excuse to respond to fellow colleagues mail and get exchanged the opinions and supporting each other in the true interest of the growth of the profession.

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