Research ID of Prof. C.N.R Rao

Open letter to Mr. Rajiv Chandrashekar, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha)

Dear Mr. Rajiv Chandrashekar

When you have acquired (Jupiter Media & Entertainment Ventures) the Kannada Prabha Newspaper and Suvarna News 24x7 in 2011. I was so happy that and hoped that you would give new direction to Kannada media world. Your vociferous support for the Anna and his teams anti corruption movement also created hope in all of us that through this channel as you have put it in your blog you create “awakened, aware, active informed and determined citizens”. But the happenings at the both in the Kannada Prabha and Suvarana News Channel are very disturbing. If you have not aware of these developments, I would like to bring one or two incidents which are very disturbing and a serious threat for ethical journalistic practices.

When the former Lokayauktha of Karnataka and core committee member of Team Anna Justice Santhosh Hegde submitted his illegal mining report on 27^th of July 2008 he named some of the journalists who have go financial benefits from the Reddy brothers of Bellary illegal mining scam. The name of V.Bhat has also featured in the illegal mining report. It was not established that whether the V. Bhat was the same Vishweshwar Bhat of Kannada Prabha or not. However there was a strong speculation across media fraternity that it was indeed Vishweshwar Bhat. Even Justice Santhosh Hegde requested an enquiry to establish the authenticity of the name of the journalists who have named in the illegal mining scam.

I would also bring to your kind notice that when Mr. Vishweshar Bhat has been fired from the Times Group. There was news that Times Group has collected evidence of accumulating huge amount of money by Mr. Vishweshwar Bhat through unknown sources which has been used to construct his house in Bangalore. I don’t know whether are you aware of this news. Let us not give much attention for these sorts of news, which are not proved and just on air as speculations.

But the real disturbing thing is that how the Kannada Prabha and Suvarna news channel has been able tarnish the image of Karnataka Lokayuktha and its former head Justice Santhosh Hegde and help Mr. Yeddyurappa to claim his innocence even though the law of the land has not acquitted him in land de-notification scam through the Suvarna News.

First Kannada Prabha has published an interview given by the Former Superintend of Police of Karnataka Lokayuktha Mr. Madhukar Shetty to elegantly target Karnataka Lokayuktha and its former head Justice Santhosh Hegde who was responsible for unearthing the rampant illegal mining in Ballery which subsequently ousted the Mr. Yeddyurappa from the Chief ministership. After publishing this interview in Kannada Prabha, immediately there was a discussion about the corrupt practices in Karnataka Lokayuktha in Suvarna news channel. After few days three TV news anchors in Survana Channel interviewed former Chief Minister Mr. Yeddyurappa and allowed him to speak against the Lokayuktha and prove his innocence in illegal mining and land de-notification scam. What all these incidents or happenings at the Kannada Prabha and Suvarna News channel indicating his that these are well planned propaganda against Mr. Santhosh Hegde to defame him and divert the attention of people from illegal mining report and de-notification scam in which Mr. Yeddyurappa and other his colleagues are involved.

There are ample prime facie evidences that Mr. Yeddyurappa and other his colleagues are involved in illegal mining and de-notification land scam. Many of the cases as you know are pending in courts. Before the land of the law acquitted him from all these scams, your News paper and TV channel has allowed him to claim the innocence.

One of the news editors in Kannada Prabha always fond of writing against minorities and try to incite communal hatred through his editorials and never spare those who legitimately criticize him. This is not the kind of ethical journalistic practices that I expected from the editor of Kannada Prabha and Suvarana News 24x7. If you have not come across these sorts of intellectual degradation, I kindly request you to observe and see how these people in your news paper and news channel are downgrading the forth pillar of our democracy.

I have to write all these to you just because I have heard and seen in the media your vociferous support for anti-corruption movement and your liberal mind set.

Thank you very much

Respectfully

Vasantha Raju N.

Mysore

World Has Lost a Genius

My tribute to great technological mind of the 21st century

CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF LIBRARY EDUCATION IN INDIA: A PERSPECTIVE

As we all know the year 2011 mark the completion of 100 years of LIS Education in India. Though LIS education was started in 1911, LIS education in India got a huge boost with the Ranganthan’s metamorphic shift to library science from mathematics. Ranganathan’s path breaking efforts have laid a strong foundation for the growth of library movement in India and elsewhere. However the post-Ranganathan era has gone through a tremendous change with advent of information technology and the Internet blurring the space and time constraints. The easy availability of Information in varied formats has put LIS education in a threshold of radical change. But there is not much discuss on how LIS education has to reposition itself in a constant changing information environment. The following points discussed below bring out some of the problems that the LIS education is facing in India.

· LIS Research in India

 Since 1957, India library professionals have significantly contributed for the growth of LIS research in
India. More than 1000 Ph Ds have been awarded across the country (Manjunatha, 2011). The numbers
seems incredible but the quantum of the research has been limited to
largely few areas, mainly Bibliometrics, Library Management and Service, Information Seeking Behavior
or User Studies. Still research in these areas has been taken up by many scholars. This indicated that
India LIS research has not ventured into other areas of research as it should have been.
Many of the areas that mentioned above have been repeated with slight changes.  Many of the studies
have used survey research largely questionnaire method.Other methodological approaches have
not been employed in many research reports.  The lack of strong theoretical approach to
the LIS research has hampered the Indian LIS research at the global map in the post Ranganathan era. 

· Missing S. R. Ranganathan’s legacy

Today we clearly miss the legacy of S. R. Ranganathan. Ranganathan’s contribution to the growth of the LIS profession put India in global LIS domain. But today intellectual caliber and leadership quality of Ranganathan is missing in Indian LIS community. To revive the LIS in India we need people of Ranganathan’s stature, who can bring leadership quality to the LIS community with strong professional bent of mind.

· LIS Education and Changing Information Landscape

Because of changing information landscape, digital information replacing the analog form has resulted in changing LIS curriculum to suit the changing information environment. Even many of the library schools in US and other part of the world have removed the word “library” and have named their LIS schools as “iSchools” (information Schools). But not much discussion has taken place in India on this, although ISiM (International School of Information Management) has started iSchool movement in India in 2005. But, how LIS education is going to serve the net savvy information users and how LIS professionals reposition themselves in a changing information landscape is largely missing in Indian LIS discourse.

· Universities Reluctant to Start LIS Schools

Another impending problem of the LIS is, many of the recently established universities have not keen on starting LIS schools. We have more than 500 plus universities in India, but only 95 universities have found to be offered Ph D program in LIS (Manjunatha, 2011). The reluctancy can be attributed to the changing information environment. Moreover, library education or library profession has never been on par with the teachers. Library profession has been seen as a supporting mechanism rather on par with teaching professions. There is a need to understand and examine why new universities are not keen on opening LIS schools.

· Identity crisis

LIS profession is facing the problem of identity crisis. The library science, information science, knowledge management and other similar nomenclature have been part of the LIS discourse. But we have not been able to identify ourselves in one umbrella. The one set of professionals who are part of traditional (college or university) libraries are part of library profession and other who work in special and corporate libraries are part of information or knowledge management profession. The ambiguity of various nomenclatures associated with library and information profession has created identity crisis in LIS field.

This is appropriate time to discuss some of the issues raised above to herald a new era of Library and Information Science education in India.

UGC's Conundrum: NET, Ph D and M Phil

Since 2008 when UGC has exempted M Phil holders from Ph D and NET to be an Assistant Professor in universities and colleges, it has become a never ending saga for both student and the stakeholders. UGC as an authoritative body in this case has failed to come to a right conclusion. They have again and again formulating new rules and putting job aspirants in trouble.

When UGC has exempted M Phil & Ph D holders from NET, universities, especially in Tamil Nadu have come forward to offer M Phil degree in large numbers without following any of the UGC’s guidelines in offering M Phil degrees. Throughout the year they have admitted students for M Phil degree. This has resulted in large number of M Phil and Ph D holders (1,000 Ph.D degrees have been awarded by Tamil Nadu universities in the last one year, The Hindu). The selection of guides for M Phil degree was done in very hasty manner and anybody having Ph Ds have become guides and have fixed certain amount of money to be guides for the M Phil students. Projects were duplicated and submitted to the most of the Tamil Nadu universities. Without examining the duplication of the project reports and the credibility of the guides, they have literally sold M Phil degrees in market.

By the time UGC realized the degrading quality of the M Phil degrees awarded by the many of the Tamil Nadu universities, large numbers of M Phil holders have awarded degrees and in some universities even Ph Ds were also awarded. UGC came up with new regulation that NET and Ph D to be remained compulsory for appointing assistant professor in universities and colleges (Minimum qualifications for the appointment of teachers and other academic staff in universities and colleges and measures for the maintenance of standards in higher education 2010). But once again UGC’s exempted M Phil holders those who have obtained M Phil degrees on or before July 2009.

This has put NET qualified candidates in trouble. In a recent report published in the Hindu newspaper (2010, October 25), it has been found through Right to Information Act that none of the 54 appointments made in recent years by one of the universities in southern Tamil Nadu possessed NET qualification. Further the report revealed that 1,000 Ph.D degrees have been awarded by Tamil Nadu universities in the last one year. But, only the University of Madras and Bharathiyar University have submitted soft copies of one thesis each for the INFLIBNET depository. To add much to the chagrin, UGC has proposed to exempt all M Phil holders from qualifying NET examination. But the HRD ministry has rejected the proposal (UGC plan to dilute norms for lecturers rejected - The Times of India, 2010, November 10).

This has exposed the UGC’s duality and lack of commitment in formulating rules for appointing teachers in universities and colleges.

Unedited scrible prepared for the presentations-2

Before delve into to the presentation let me thank the organizers of the conference for giving us an opportunity to present this paper. This paper is co-authored. I did this study with Dr. N.S.Harinarayana, Associate Professor, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Mysore, Mysore.

I must confess that this study is not a hardcore scientometrics where in we measure the research productivity of the university or individual.

The title of the article is: Looking at Indian academic library websites: A content analysis approach

The outline of the presentation is followed as ………… showed in the slide.

The quote I have taken from ….. Rainie of PEW Internet and American Life Project. Pew is involving in researching use of Internet among US citizens. You can find serious of studies on how Internet has pervaded or penetrated in US.

Websites have become major means of information sources as well as information communication channel. The digital information has grown exponentially over the years (the IDC 2008 study reported the digital information was 281 exabytes in 2007 and expected to reach 1800 exabytes in 2011 (10 times more that the digital information produced in 2006).

The IDC research shows that the digital universe —

information that is either created, captured, or replicated in

digital form — was 281 exabytesiii in 2007. In 2011, the

amount of digital information produced in the year should

equal nearly 1,800 exabytes, or 10 times that produced in 2006

(see Figure 1). The compound annual growth rate between now

and 2011 is expected to be almost 60%

With such a huge growth of digital information, libraries as a knowledge purveyor have created library websites for delivering information. But not much of the research has done on examining the (available) content of library websites in Indian context (some of the studies have been reported in recent scholarly literature but the studies were limited for small set of data sample for example studies on IIM websites).

In this study we have tried to examining the largest set data corpus of Indian academic library websites using content analysis as a research methodology ( tell why you used content analysis as a research method-discussed in methodological aspects).

The study tried answer the following research questions:

• What content features are made available on the Indian academic library web sites?

• Are there any differences among library websites in terms of content features found in state, deemed, institutes of national importance and central university library websites?

The review literature shows there were good number of scholarly literature is available on the subject. There were few studies on Indian library websites of different types recently. The significance of our study is that we have used content analysis as a methodology for studying the academic library websites. Although the previous studies have used content analysis, have not followed the methodology in systematic way.

Coming to the methodological part of the study, we intitally tried identified web directory of Indian universities, because of lack comprehensive sources, we used print based source: Universities Handbook-31^st edition for data sample. Once we identified the data source, each of the universities were visited for identifying the library web links of the respective universities. While selecting the data sample we have to eliminate some of the universities from the study because of lack of information, library webpage. After eliminating some of the universities library websites, the final data set was reduced 135 library websites. 135 library websites were considered as a final data set.

Next step was to identify the unit of analysis for the study (unit of analysis is a context in which recording/coding units are drawn). We considered entire library website as a unit of analysis for the study.

Data coding sheet development: based on the previous literature we developed a coding sheet for data collection. The coding sheet consisted of 5 categories with 50 variables (library general information, library services, library resources, web 2.0 features and other content related features).

To check the inter coder agreement for the 15% of the library websites (for the extent which independent coders evaluate a characteristics of the message or artifacts and reach the same conclusion). The intercoder agreement was 85.62% which was above the acceptance level. After obtaining the intecoder agreement results remaining data were coded and results were presented using descriptive statistics.

Results-1 deals with general information found across different types of university library websites. We see in slides that features like library services, contact information, opening hours, staff directory and other few features were found in rather good numbers, but like FAQs, comments and feedbacks, floor map information were not found much in any of the library websites.

Results-2 library service features library websites of Institute of National Importance (ILL, new arrival list and ask a librarian were found) library service related features were found less in other types of the university library websites.

Result-3: Library resources, link to e-journal feature was found in more than 70% of the library websites of all types of universities (lack search box/link to search e-journals) link to databases was not found in much of the library websites. OPAC was found in only 31% (42libraries) of the library websites. Of this 28 (20.74%) of the libraries have had WebOPAC.

Results-4: web 2.0 feature implementation was dismal Indian academic context. Only 4 of the 135 library websites have features RSS and one Institute of National Importance (IIT-K) had blog. But the currency of the blog was not much appreciated. Now IIT-B also has a blog for library services. Much importance should be given for providing interactive services rather having static HTML library webpages.

Result-5 deals other content related features.

The overall results show that Indian library websites are still in web 1.0 world (Neanderthals of cyberspace).

Based on the results of the studies, we have come up with some suggestive measures for improving library websites. Following are the suggestive measures.

• Improve the quality of website interface

• Library systems need to look and function more like search engines, i.e., Google and Yahoo, and Web services, i.e., Amazon.com, since these are familiar to users who are comfortable and confident in using them (Digital Information Seekers Report, 2010).

• Developing web design guidelines by ILA (Indian Library Association) or other stakeholders*

• Developing quality indicators for evaluating library websites

• Conducting usability studies for creating users centered websites.

• Training for library professionals longitudinally to keep pace with changing information landscape.

• Providing infrastructure and financial support for creating state of the art facilities.

Limitations of the study/future research

• This study was a snapshot of library websites in a given point of time. Thus some library websites might have changed now

• The study considered library website content features for analysis, design characteristics were not examined in this study

• Future research can be done on both content and design characteristics of the university library websites.

• Longitudinal content analysis of Indian library websites

• Examining the possibilities and implementation of other web genres (web 2.0 features) and mobile technologies for library services in Indian context

Before delve into to the presentation let me thank the organizers of the conference for giving us an opportunity to present this paper. This paper is co-authored. I did this study with Dr. N.S.Harinarayana, Associate Professor, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Mysore, Mysore.

I must confess that this study is not a hardcore scientometrics where in we measure the research productivity of the university or individual.

The title of the article is: Looking at Indian academic library websites: A content analysis approach

The outline of the presentation is followed as ………… showed in the slide.

The quote I have taken from ….. Rainie of PEW Internet and American Life Project. Pew is involving in researching use of Internet among US citizens. You can find series of studies on how Internet has pervaded or penetrated in US.

Websites have become major means of information sources as well as information communication channel. The digital information has grown exponentially over the years (the IDC 2008 study reported the digital information was 281 exabytes in 2007 and expected to reach 1800 exabytes in 2011 (10 times more that the digital information produced in 2006).

The IDC research shows that the digital universe —

information that is either created, captured, or replicated in

digital form — was 281 exabytesiii in 2007. In 2011, the

amount of digital information produced in the year should

equal nearly 1,800 exabytes, or 10 times that produced in 2006

(see Figure 1). The compound annual growth rate between now

and 2011 is expected to be almost 60%

With such a huge growth of digital information, libraries as a knowledge purveyor have created library websites for delivering information. But not much of the research has done on examining the (available) content of library websites in Indian context (some of the studies have been reported in recent scholarly literature but the studies were limited for small set of data sample for example studies on IIM websites).

In this study we have tried to examining the largest set data corpus of Indian academic library websites using content analysis as a research methodology ( tell why you used content analysis as a research method-discussed in methodological aspects).

The study tried answer the following research questions:

• What content features are made available on the Indian academic library web sites?

• Are there any differences among library websites in terms of content features found in state, deemed, institutes of national importance and central university library websites?

The review literature shows there were good number of scholarly literature is available on the subject. There were few studies on Indian library websites of different types recently. The significance of our study is that we have used content analysis as a methodology for studying the academic library websites. Although the previous studies have used content analysis, have not followed the methodology in systematic way.

Coming to the methodological part of the study, we intitally tried identified web directory of Indian universities, because of lack comprehensive sources, we used print based source: Universities Handbook-31^st edition for data sample. Once we identified the data source, each of the universities were visited for identifying the library web links of the respective universities. While selecting the data sample we have to eliminate some of the universities from the study because of lack of information, library webpage. After eliminating some of the universities library websites, the final data set was reduced 135 library websites. 135 library websites were considered as a final data set.

Next step was to identify the unit of analysis for the study (unit of analysis is a context in which recording/coding units are drawn). We considered entire library website as a unit of analysis for the study.

Data coding sheet development: based on the previous literature we developed a coding sheet for data collection. The coding sheet consisted of 5 categories with 50 variables (library general information, library services, library resources, web 2.0 features and other content related features).

To check the inter coder agreement for the 15% of the library websites (for the extent which independent coders evaluate a characteristics of the message or artifacts and reach the same conclusion). The intercoder agreement was 85.62% which was above the acceptance level. After obtaining the intecoder agreement results remaining data were coded and results were presented using descriptive statistics.

Results-1 deals with general information found across different types of university library websites. We see in slides that features like library services, contact information, opening hours, staff directory and other few features were found in rather good numbers, but like FAQs, comments and feedbacks, floor map information were not found much in any of the library websites.

Results-2 library service features library websites of Institute of National Importance (ILL, new arrival list and ask a librarian were found) library service related features were found less in other types of the university library websites.

Result-3: Library resources, link to e-journal feature was found in more than 70% of the library websites of all types of universities (lack search box/link to search e-journals) link to databases was not found in much of the library websites. OPAC was found in only 31% (42libraries) of the library websites. Of this 28 (20.74%) of the libraries have had WebOPAC.

Results-4: web 2.0 feature implementation was dismal Indian academic context. Only 4 of the 135 library websites have features RSS and one Institute of National Importance (IIT-K) had blog. But the currency of the blog was not much appreciated. Now IIT-B also has a blog for library services. Much importance should be given for providing interactive services rather having static HTML library webpages.

Result-5 deals other content related features.

The overall results show that Indian library websites are still in web 1.0 world (Neanderthals of cyberspace).

Based on the results of the studies, we have come up with some suggestive measures for improving library websites. Following are the suggestive measures.

• Improve the quality of website interface

• Library systems need to look and function more like search engines, i.e., Google and Yahoo, and Web services, i.e., Amazon.com, since these are familiar to users who are comfortable and confident in using them (Digital Information Seekers Report, 2010).

• Developing web design guidelines by ILA (Indian Library Association) or other stakeholders*

• Developing quality indicators for evaluating library websites

• Conducting usability studies for creating users centered websites.

• Training for library professionals longitudinally to keep pace with changing information landscape.

• Providing infrastructure and financial support for creating state of the art facilities.

Limitations of the study/future research

• This study was a snapshot of library websites in a given point of time. Thus some library websites might have changed now

• The study considered library website content features for analysis, design characteristics were not examined in this study

• Future research can be done on both content and design characteristics of the university library websites.

• Longitudinal content analysis of Indian library websites

• Examining the possibilities and implementation of other web genres (web 2.0 features) and mobile technologies for library services in Indian context