EDITORIALS

VASHISHTH (C.P) Editorial. 25,1;2000;i-iii

EDITORIAL

It is a matter of great pride and joy for all of us in the Department of Library and Information Science, University of Delhi that the JLIS which was started in 1976 is entering its Silver Jubilee Year. It will complete 25 years of its fruitful service to library and information community by the close preset millennium.

During the last 24 years of its existence many a library and information specialists of repute from India and abroad have contributed to the pages of JLIS. The contents have widely been acclaimed and enjoyed the patronage and support of large base of users from throughout the globe. I and on behalf of JLIS family and my own behalf take this opportunity to express our most sincere thanks to one and all for their appreciation, support and constructive suggestion.

The issue in hand of JLIS comprises 7 papers. The lead article by Mr. Girja Kumar foresees Knowledge Society and Libraries in India of 2010 AD. According to him, new librarianship in the days to come will be an altogether new profession. Digitalizing the information will be the major task before library professions. The great potential of IT application in day-to-day library operations is bound to change the mindset of LIS professions. These developments have a great bearing of LIS education and training which needs to be looked into afresh and the courses recast/revised/updated without any further delay so as to be meaningful to the players of knowledge society of tomorrow. He proposes establishment of autonomous commission on libraries, national school of libraries, government continuing education for librarians; downsizing of libraries of technology, agriculture, medicine, management and law institutes for simultaneous upgrading; collaboration between dot com management and library organizations; and nexus between industry and libraries.

Dr. S.P. Singh in her paper on Internet and the Role of Libraries discuss various aspects of the Internet and opines that “LIS professionals have much to gin from Internet that offers unimaginable potential for information service. “Internet have helped to diminish all geographical distances between user and resources” she continues. With so vast potential, LIS professions cannot afford to be silent spectators or observers of this phenomental source of information which is an unimaginable tool in their hands to serve their clientele more efficiently and effectively. There is no other go for librarians but to develop their skills to cope up with the changing scenario.

Mr. Tariq Ashraf in his paper on Dizial Paradigm: A Challenge to Librarianship, in the light of paradigm shift in librarianship, asks “what will happen to the traditional functions of librarians? Will they be preserved, reformed, or destroyed?” If individuals who need information can gain access to it via a home computer and a modem, they will not have to come to the Library at all. “For librarianship this will be most unsettling.” We find that large scale databases are being added frequently. Users need more help now than ever. In order to survive “librarians must insert themselves in the process of creating, organizing and introducing databases” to the users. For equipping the librarians to undertake this now role the “library schools have special responsibility to rise occasion and to meet the challenge of e-librarianship.”

Mr. Yogesh Suman and Dr, Banwari Lal in their paper on Network and Internetwork Security discuss the basic building blocks of internetwork security. They suggest measures for supervising the network. They talk of fencing the network and discuss recent developments in the field needing the attention of those who deal with the areas of data security.

Dr. Usha Mujoo-Munshi in her paper on Infrastructure for Information Processing and Disseminating Work discusses about the development in information and technological products and their subsequent application in processing and disseminating information easily and interactively. She talks about the development in H/W and S/W. The advent of multimedia computing, networks and information super-highway places the onus on to information keepers to explore ways of making the information in their custody available electronically” she asserts. The developments in LICs' inhouses, routines, information retrieval systems and accessibility, telecommunications and internet are bringing a sea change in the styles of functioning of libraries.” While west in already in the pipeline and intone with the state-of-art of IT infrastructure and its subsequent use for the information work, we have to gearup ourselves and lot of catch up needs to be close, lest we become history” she warns.

Messrs. Prakash Chand and Darmendra Singh Sengar present a Bibliometric study of solar Energy Research in India based on the papers contributed during the period 1992-97 and included in ISA and INSPEC reports of various Indian R&D organizations. The authors discuss the impact factors of journals, citation profile of institutions, ranking of institutions and the thrust areas of solar energy research. They find that overall ratio of papers published in Indian and foreign journals during the period of sudy comes to 1:9. The gap is wide and it needs to be improved to a respectable level.

Messrs. P.G. Tadasad and Veranna B. Kalamadragi make an interesting study of the Newspaper Reading Habits of Post-Grauate Students of Gulbarga University. The study was conducted during the later half of January 2000. The findings are based on 206 returns out of 250 questionnaires distributed. The results of the study are presented under the following 8 headings: newspaper reading habit; extent of reading; mode of reading; preference of language; purpose of reading, regularly read news columns; and the corelist of newspapers. The authors fed that awareness needs to be created amongst the students about the availability of newspapers on Internet and the importance of various news columns as supplementary in their pursuit of mastering knowledge.