Regarding advertisement of Chief Library Officer in IIT Bombay

[DR. ANIL SINGH]

Dear friends,

In India, more than hundred library associations have been formed at national, state and regional level. And most of these associations are busy only in organizing seminar, conferences and workshops. Most of these conferences are organized on similar themes like Digital Libraries, E-libraries, E-books, E-journals, Open Sources Software, ETDs, and trends in ICT applications in Libraries etc. A new trend has been started to give best paper awards for paper presented in conferences and seminars and awards for best library professionals for leadership quality. Many times questions have been raised on the criteria for giving these awards because they are given on give and take policy. It doesn’t matter whether the paper has any novelty or the person has the real contribution in the field.

The purposes of these associations are not only limited to organizing the seminars and conferences and giving awards but they should also raise the various issues of the profession. Most burning issues in LIS profession are Filling the vacant posts, accreditation of various library courses, uniform recruitment rules, time bound recruitment policy, promotion policy for Group ‘B’ and ‘C’ category staff and downgrading the librarians post in various academic institutions.

IITs, IIMs and many other educational institutions are being running without Librarian since so many years and also these are recognized as Institution of National Importance (INI). Recently, IIT Bombay has downgraded its Librarian post which was earlier in PB4 + 10,000/- AGP scale (Professor Grade). Now they advertised the post of Chief Library Officer in PB 3 + GP 7600/- which is below the level of Deputy Librarian of University.

It is a big question that how these institutions without regular librarians recognized as INI and no single library association is raising above issues?

[Devendrappa T M]

Dear Anil Singh.

I wish to thank you for arising the right question, at right time,

At least Now all the National Level Library associations should start write to UGC & MHRD to frame the uniform hierarchy for filling all the posts at Institution of National Importance (INI). across the country. Again there should be uniform designation, Pay Scale status for library professionals irrespective of institute. 

Its our kind request to all Library association across the India should think seriously for this profession.

regards

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Devendrappa T M

[ajit kumar]

Dear Sir,

Thanks for arising this issue. There is numerous irregularities in status and pay scale of Library Professionals in central and state government libraries.There is no uniformity in post status and pay scale even in central government libraries. In state government the condition is worst. In Bihar government medical colleges the Librarian post is in scale 9300 + GP 4200/-, while in KVS schools Librarian is in scale 9300 + GP 4600/-. We must take initiative in this regard.

[Satya P Shetty]

Very well said and aptly written. This is one of most important and burning issues in Library field now. High time people recognize library as a core source of knowledge and learning. 

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Dear Dr. Singh,

Thanks for your post.

I too was really surprised to see the advt. recently.

It is a pity that the mainstream academia take librarians as sort of "Para Teachers"

This culture had long been nurtured by many National Laboratories like ICMR CSIR, etc. Research bodies like ICSSR & higher academic institutes like IIM etc. (You can never see the same pay scales for the chief of the Libraries of any of these establishments!!) Fortunately at least IITs were free from such anomalies so far and the recent advt. was a really shock for all the Library professionals. It may not unlikely that Central Universities and gradually the State Universities will follow suit.

In my young age, I had many heated discussions with the authority and once I was told that it was because of a very simple fallacy: "...Bigger institutes have larger number of books and more staff and more budget and naturally their libraries had higher post...."  I instantly retorted "...In that same fallacy bigger institutes should have higher posts for their Directors but the picture is against your fallacy..." And I was replied by the visibly distressed individual that it will be discussed LATER!!

So you see, there is no definite validity and justification but for IITs, as I knew, they had a written norm for the 5 IITs (ND, Mumbai, Madras, Kanpur & KGP) that the pay scales of chief of the Libraries will be at par with the University Librarians (while each of the IIMs have.different sets of rules exactly like the institutes under ICSSR except for the faculty and it is immaterial whether such people are Real Assets or Non Performing Assets!!  In Scientific disciplines too it is a very known fact that there exits two groups of of people: one who are really Research Scientists and the others are Symposium Scientists!!)

There is no denying however that many Libraries too are cramped by such non-performing assets/Symposium Scientists as well!!)  I personally feel that in earlier days when things were done manually, people had opportunities to exhibit their knowledge & effiiciencies and it was easier to distinguish Ables from Unables but with the advent of machines (Computers I mean) when a large part of work are observed to be performed by the machines, the toils behind them remains invisible to the users and authorities and naturally they feel that the do not need to pay such high salaries to those people as machines actually do the work!!

This is silly thing but really speaking, it a bare fact.and one can say it is an irony of technological advancement. That's all!

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray

[DR. ANIL SINGH]

Dear Mr. Ray

Thanks for in-depth analysis on this issue.

I always read your observations and comments posted on LIS-Link and I found them very heart touching. Your every post is logically presented. You have rightly raised the issue of various research bodies including ICSSR. 

ICSSR recently advertised the post of Director (Documentation), Deputy Director (Documentation) and Documentation Officer on deputation basis. All these posts are in PB3+GP of 7600, 6600, 5400.

After going through the qualifications and experiences required for these posts, it seems that ICSSR is not interested in filling the right candidates for these posts.

The scale of Director (Documentation) is below the level of Dy. Librarian of any University. It seems ICSSR has not upgraded the pay scales since very long time otherwise the Director of NASSDOC was equivalent to Professor in 4th pay commission. In 5th pay commission it was one step downgraded followed by one more step in 6th pay commission. Same is case with other posts too.

If such type of anomalies will not be resolved, than how these National Level Documentation Centres will survive?

 

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Thanks Dr. Singh for your reply. I became quite perturbed to know about your experience about ICSSR/NASSDOC.

Unfortunately, there exists a pathetically shortage of transparency in ICSSR.

Way back in 2001 Dr. Partha S. Ghosh, a Director of ICSSR opened the Pandora's box!! He openly criticised the functioning of ICSSR through an article entitles ICSSR & SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH published in EPW Vol. 36, Issue No. 07, 17 Feb, 2001. He commented in that article that the number of Court cases were more than the number of staff in ICSSR H.Q!! In fact in our Country there lies a big gap between Autonomy and accountability. Autonomous institutions were established with the ideology to function without the shackles of bureaucracy but the authority unfortunately embarked on functioning without giving any thoughts to accountability and by and large (barring a few exceptions) all the autonomous organizations more or less opted this ideology!!

Anyway, coming to the issue of IIT, ND, I am afraid that ths trend may engulf all the other IITs and other Higher Academic Institutions. It is just not that the library professionals are deprived of higher pay scales but I am more concerned about the moral degradation of the profession. There is no denying that there are plenty of Library professionals and it is also a fact that there is no dearth of academic professionals as well. I am absolutely confident that if IIT ND downgrade the Professor & Associate Professors' post & advertise for "Senior Academic Instructors" or "Academic Instructors" with GP Rs.8700/- of Rs.7600/- they will get response from more than 100 COMPETENT individuals for each post. But since the administration is dominated by the so called Academic Community, they will never dare to do this experiment.

I was discussing about this issue among some of my professional friends about the roles our associations should take. But what came out as inference is really shocking!! majority opined that "Majority of the senior members of Our professional Associations are by and large jealous about the prospects and other whereabouts of the IIT (& similar Organizations)Librarians because they were unable to achieve their feat.They enjoy great budget and infrastructure and institutional glamour; as such, they will slyly enjoy the issue!!"

I was stunned because all these friends of mine are pretty senior and most of them have retired from service and most interestingly (& pathetically, as well)all of them are members of several All India professional Associations!!

I have taken a few days before replying to your post as I intended to do this small "peer survey"

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray

[M. Koteswara Rao]

Dear Dr Anil Singh,

Every word you said about the apathy in LIS profession is absolutely true and correct. In fact, I have raised this issue many times in other forums, but there was no credible response from our colleagues. In my opinion  many of our Library Associations except ILA and a couple of others, are only 'self-serving agencies' rather than raising their voice against the burning issues mentioned in your post. I am really shocked to see the IIT Bombay advertisement for library Officer, and the advertisement for Library Manager for IIT Indore today in The Hindu. If it continues like this the day is not far when LIS professional will be  'outsourced'. It is time that all of us should unite, sign a petition and send it to the PM and the President.

Dr. M. Koteswara Rao

Former Librarian, UoH     

[DR. ANIL SINGH]

Sir,

Thanks for your response. In IIT Indore they have changed the nomenclature of Assistant Librarian to Library Information Officer and as you rightly said SLIA post is changed to Manager (Library).

In IIT Delhi, Library Information Officer is below Assistant Librarian. It means IIT indore has downgraded the post. In autonomous bodies whether it may be IITs, IIMs or any educational institutes, rules are changed according to the wishes of Heads of the organisation. On the grab of autonomy, institutions are being destroyed by selfish people.

[Suresh kumar.N]

ILA/ISLIC has to do some thing urgently

[nutan joshi]

I am also agree with you Dr Anil sir. This is one of most important and burning issues in Library field now. One more issues is that There is vacancy for Manager (Library) and they said Preference is given to the candidates who already working at IITs, IIMs,Central Universities etc.
So what happen to those candidates who are working at the Private Sector?
Can they get even Govt Jobs?

[KAMBIAKMUAN GUITE]

Exactly, madam.