Page 114 - DLIS101_LIBRARY_AND_INFORMATION_SOCIETY

Unit 10: Library Legislation—I

(iii) The library profession is one of the needed professions in a modern social organiza- Notes
tion and a wise policy will aim at building up such a profession. To do this, it is
necessary to offer suitable inducements to potential candidates, with chances of
making a satisfactory career for those who are industrious and intelligent.
(b) Three questions are important in considering the nature of library authority. What should
be the pattern of its organization? Should libraries have their own separate department
in the government, or should they belong to one of the existing departments, and if so,
which department? What should be the constitution and functions of the various organs
of the library authority.
The simplest pattern would be to entrust the work relating to public libraries to an existing
department in the government. But public library organization has a tradition of
autonomy, or at least the appearance of it, and this tradition deserves to be respected. It
is, therefore, only proper that the government department dealing with libraries or the
directorate of libraries, as we may start calling it–should seek to find its support in a
library council where the suppliers of library service and the representatives of various
categories of consumers of the service pool their ideas to knit them into workable schemes
and plans.
The question arises whether the library council should be only an advisory body or should
have full executive powers as well. It is a difficult question. If the council has to be
representative of all interests concerned with public libraries, it will be a large body and
a large body is seldom fit for executive work. And yet if we take away executive powers
and reduce it to a merely advisory body, we take away with the right hand what we give
with the left.
From the bureaucratic point of view, the library council should merely advise and not
interfere in the administration of libraries. But those who have worked in libraries have
so often witnessed the sad spectacle of library interests being abandoned when priorities
are established, that they have no choice but to insist that the executive body must be
other than the directorate.
The solution appears to be in creating a smaller and a more compact body out of the
council, which will be its executive arm. The pattern of library authority as suggested
here will thus be composed of three organs-The advisory library council and the executive
board with full powers to direct the work of the third organ, which will be the directorate
of libraries.
As regards the link between the directorate and the government, it would be ideal if
there were a separate department of libraries in the government. However, the directorate
is usually attached to one of the existing departments, often the education department. If
reason and logic could influence the decision, the department of culture would be the
natural home for the directorate of libraries along with some type of adult educational
activities.
The advisory library council should be headed, most appropriately, by the minister in
whose department the directorate lies, and would have on it representatives of other
departments interested in public libraries, such as the department of community
development, the senior officials administering the services, the universities, the lower –
rank library units, the legislatures and of course a few persons known for their interest
and devotion to libraries. The executive board, which, according to the present thesis,
should be the supreme source of library policy, should, as far as possible, reflect this
composition in itself. The directorate, which would serve as the secretariat of the board,
should be headed by a professional librarian with some years of library experience, and
should be given sufficient powers to administer the service.

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