Reading & The Institutional Library
The
institutional library thrives in India, enveloping learners, scholars and
teachers in its democratic embrace, writes NAHLA NAINAR for The Hindu, Metro
Plus!
Excerpts -
The world may never see the libraries in
Alexandria, Nalanda and Baghdad again, because they were all burned down by
invaders. The pillaging of repositories of knowledge — thought policing at its
crudest — continues to this day.
In the recent past, to pick just a few
examples, Sri Lanka’s Jaffna Public Library (1980s), Iraq’s major libraries
(2003-04) and Cairo’s Egyptian Scientific Institute (2011-12), have lost their
volumes to looting by random forces.
Doomsday prophets may argue that we are
metaphorically burning our libraries by abandoning the printed book in favour
of electronic learning. But, it would be wrong to dismiss the library as a
relic of an unwanted past, say professional archivists, who have been seeing
the world of knowledge harvesting change with the society that shapes it.
As India celebrated National Librarian’s
Day this week (August 12) in commemoration of the Father of Library Science, S.
R. Ranganathan, MetroPlus found that the institutional library thrives,
enveloping generations of learners, scholars and teachers into its democratic
embrace.
Ranganathan formulated five laws of
library science: books are for use, every reader his book, every book its
reader, save the time of the reader, and library is a growing organism. How effectively
are they being followed?
“‘The book shall die a natural death
shortly,’ is a permanent forecast,” says A. Srimurugan, former university
librarian and head, Department of Library and Information Science, Madurai
Kamaraj University (MKU). “But the aesthetic pleasure of printed material, in
feeling the paper and reading without any technological assistance, cannot be
totally erased.”
Srimurugan cites the example of the
University of Toronto’s ‘Demand a Print’ service that allows users to pay the
library to print a single copy of a book instantly, as proof that the
traditional perusal of print publications will retain its appeal.
With 40 years of experience in the field
of informatics, Srimurugan says that while India’s academic libraries have
adapted well to the information boom, the decision by the University Grants
Commission (UGC) to limit the use of its UGC-INFONET on campuses has hampered
wider and collaborative study, especially among women researchers.
“Indian scholars need support, not only
from the State and Central Governments, but also more from the Library and
Information Science (LIS) professionals, a majority of whom lack thorough
knowledge of the digital environment they handle,” he says.
Few people are willing to study Library
and Information Science, and those who do, fail to equip themselves with the
required technical and professional skills, feels A. Amudhavalli, professor and
head, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Madras.
“Digital technology is only a medium, and
not an end in itself. This is why I am confident that though the functional
role of librarians may have changed, the paper media will continue to exist,”
she says. But the decline of the reading habit among school and college
students despite vast advancements in technology in India needs attention, she
adds. “It is lamentable that there is no focus on libraries in all the talk
about education reform by government agencies,” she says. “In Tamil Nadu, there
is still no sanctioned post for librarians in Government schools. The
authorities need to realise that critical thinking and communication skills are
missing among students today, because the library is missing from their
education.”
The days of libraries being monolithic
institutions are long gone, says Jesudoss Manalan, librarian of Bishop Heber
College in Tiruchi. “Libraries have to allow others to access their documents
because of the diversified nature of users. And, computerising operations has
helped speed up the transfer of information. Earlier, when a lecturer would
recommend a text book, students would rush to the library to borrow the same
volume. Today, we expect user needs to be more diversified because of the
Internet,” he says.
But relying on non-linear and non-indexed
pools of data provided by the Internet is problematic too, Manalan says.
“Librarians are trained to look for accurate information, with key words and
Boolean methods, so that specific data can be fetched out immediately — which
is why students should approach them for assistance.”
At the Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College
(SRC) in Tiruchi, a vast majority of students are first-generation learners,
who may be newcomers to the library experience too. Making use of the library
for at least two hours in a week is compulsory at the college, and tracked
through attendance. There are 75,000 books at SRC, spread out among departments
and a dedicated library premises with a computer centre.
“From the time e-resources have come, few
students read for knowledge,” says R. Sathyabama, SRC library in-charge, whose
doctoral thesis examined the reading habits of pupils.
“Nowadays, only those who like reading
maintain it as a hobby. Whether you watch 10 movies, or surf the net, you
cannot condense the content into one narrative. But when you read a book, you
can get diverse information at one go,” she adds.
Libraries can optimise their services by
introducing fee-based services, feels Srimurugan of MKU. “Scholars are willing
to pay for accurate information, especially when it involves getting an
authoritative citation. Our libraries are sitting on vast reserves of documents
that are not easily available to other institutions.”
Why don’t students consider Library and
Information Science as a path to a rewarding career? “A formed opinion is that
with an LIS degree, one can become a librarian either in a college or a public
library. But its potential in the media, corporate sector or the IT industries
is rarely talked about,” adds Srimurugan.
Scientific indexing
India celebrates August 12 as Librarian’s
Day in honour of S.R. Ranganathan, whose contribution to the field has earned
him the epithet of ‘Father of Library Science.’
Born in 1892 to Ramamrita Ayyar and
Seethalakshmi at Shiyali (now known as Sirkazhi), Ranganathan was a lecturer in
Mathematics and Physics at the constituent colleges of Madras University, when
a chance turn of events led him to accept an appointment as the university’s
very first librarian in 1924.
In order to equip himself for the job,
Ranganathan travelled to University College London, which, at that time, housed
the only graduate degree programme in library science in Britain. His
background in mathematics inspired him to rejig the classification of books,
which was then being taught by rote.
Ranganathan’s colon classification system
has helped index books more accurately and in a scientific manner.
Upon his return to Madras University in
1925, he worked to overhaul the library and also started the institution’s
Library Science Department in 1931. At his behest, Madras became the first
state in India to enact the Madras Public Libraries Act (1948). He persuaded
the UNESCO to establish the Documentation Centre in New Delhi.
With a long career in Library Science in
different universities throughout India, Ranganathan founded the Documentation
Research and Training Centre in Bangalore in 1962.
Ranganathan wrote more than 2,000
research papers and 60 books, besides founding and editing five periodical
publications in his lifetime. His ‘Five Laws of Library Science’ (1931) is
widely accepted as a definitive statement of the ideal of library service.
He passed away on September 27, 1972.
This
feature on the state of libraries and reading, is excerpted from The Hindu
MetroPlus, 12 August 2016
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