Library Movement

[Amit Kumar]

Dr. S.R. Ranganathan devoted his whole life in promoting the Library Movement.  But what happen after his death.  Now, the time has come, when a new library movement should be begun.  In today's scenario, library is playing major role almost in all aspect of human endeavour.  But, what about the library professional.  are they sufficiently paid?  Are their service condition at par with the other professionls?

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Dear Sri Amit Kumar.

Thanks for your post and the issue you have raised. Yes. Indeed a new order in Library movement is necessary. Raqnganathan's days are gone. How long can we afford to exploit the contributions of that great man just to retain our existence as Library professionals? In today's perspective we are (shamefully enough) keeping ourselves away from Rangathan's philosophy of Library Science. Not much of Rangathan are being read in classes as I know. We are extremely busy with Open Access and Digitization (of course, they are, albeit selectively, quite relevant) and try our best to adopt these techniques but we often languish the grammar of Librarianship. Among our young co-professionals I often see highly skillful Technical professionals but unfortunately, their knowledge about very basic issues on Librarianship fall short of expectation. Ranganathan, being a Mathematician turned Librarian, always aimed to set certain theories or laws/postulates to explain his devised philosophy of Librarianship. That is why (and how) we got the great Five Laws of Librarianship and Cannons of Classifications. Now-a-days I see posts in this forum by my young co-professionals to ask for online Class Numbers!!  A few days ago, I was discussing with one young Librarian just working in a school Library, which, as per his description, is extremely unorganized and he is the first professional Librarian in last 20 years. When I asked what is he planning for his Library. He forthwith replied that he wants to make a digital repository and that the secretary of the school has asked him to provide a list of requisitions and he has come to me for specifications of scanners etc. I learnt that they have no schedule for Classification, nor they have any book on cataloguing. Yet, he wants a scanner presumably to show some tricks!!His knowledge on digitization seemed to be sound at least theoretically, but as I observed, his knowledge on basic cataloguing of Periodicals and books published by Corporate Bodies had been quite poor.

If this is the scenario, how long should we elicit Ranganathan for our sustenance?

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta

[Amit Kumar]

Very well said, sir