Librarians' Status According to the 12th Plan of the UGC

[MITALI BHATTACHARYA]

Everybody admits that the Librarianship is a noble profession- still there are some people who wants to humiliate the said professionals even in this "ERA OF INFORMATION". We do not know how the UGC has taken this astonishing  decision so that college /University librarians - the practicing Library professionals are not being permitted to undertake any type of research project either it is Minor or Major from the UGC 12th Five Year Plan. On the contrary , other professionals i.e Doctors or Engineers are the most suitable person to  undertake research  on their  subject  because they are much aware about  the present trends of their professional field  than that of the  hardcore teacher's of the Engineering and Medicine . Only in the case of the Library and Information field practicing Librarians are being neglected. Application research  is the most required  one for the betterment of the service. And librarians are more acquainted with the application of LIS theory than the teacher's of LIS. I think all decision makers in the UGC are given more importance to Physiologists than Doctors in the question of their treatment at the hour of need.

[Dr. Vinod Kumar]

I really agree with U. It can be seen in the field of Management and Engineering where actually successful Managers / CEOs and Scientists / Engineers became teachers in the respective field. The Technological Institute of Textile & Sciences, Bhiwani (A renowned Research Institute in the field of textile and A Birla Concern) provides hands on training in the attached TIT&S Mill. The best example is of medical colleges where doctors teach in the classrooms and look OPD alongwith the students for hands on training. The problem is that the teaching departments are running separately.

The University Libraries should run the departments and library should be the lab  for the students where they can be trained actually rather than the fictitious cataloging and classification. Students can be made familiar with each and every activity of a modern library by  working in the university libraries. It happens in advanced countries. Students thus trained shall meet the market requirement for librarian. However, there are some issues that must be addressed, but it can solve all the problems of the librarians including the academic status