Page 176 - DLIS001_FOUNDATION_OF_LIBRARY_AND_INFORMATION_SCIENCE

Unit 9: National Libraries

Notes
Singh, Prime Minister of India declared the formation of National Knowledge Commission
at the CII Partnership Summit, 2005 at the National Library campus on 12th January 2005.
He emphasised that the National Knowledge Commission would be a catalyst in setting
ambitious knowledge targets and enabling agencies to attain them. The first of the five
specific agenda items he stressed was, to increase access to knowledge for public benefit.
It is nearly three years since the Chairman of NKC submitted a set of ten specific
recommendations to the Prime Minister on 7th December 2006, to act upon for the
up- gradation of library and information services. On 8th October 2004. Bhasa Bhavan was
declared open to the public by the then Minister of Culture. This additional space of over
40,000 sq. meters is surely of great help to the Library to widen its activities by providing
more shelf space to house its valuable reading materials and some additional reading
space for the users, in a more comfortable air-conditioned environment. But over the last
few years all its developmental and modernization activities have come to a standstill due
to critical shortage of staff at every level. About 50% of the posts are lying vacant due to
superannuation and other reasons, but there is no new move by the government to fill up
these vacancies. The post of Director is not filled up for over a year now. An acting
Director is dealing with the routine matters by sharing his time between his parent
organization and the National Library. This critical staff situation of the National Library
is not known to many people in rest of India. There were of course a few protest marches
with banners and loudspeakers on roads of Kolkata, a few editorial comments in a few
locally published library professional journals which failed to create any ripple within
the Ministry of Culture.
National print and electronic media, have little time and space to cover the activities of
this cultural centre of both historical and national importance. Indian cinema and television,
both documentary and entertainment channels have totally neglected the world of books
and libraries. It is also perhaps right to point a finger at the library and information
professional organizations whose primarole is to act as a watch dog but consistently
failed to take up these national issues seriously with the bureaucratic and political decision
making process at the national level. One must also bring out the present crisis faced by
another library – the Central Secretariat Library, New Delhi (CSL), the second largest
library under the direct control of the same Ministry. CSL is also over 100 years old that
holds another valuable collection of research materials. This library has lost nearly half of
its sanctioned professional staff over the last ten years. No attempt has been made so far to
fill up these vacancies and the library is being asked to ‘carry on’ by hiring a few
short-term trainees with fresh LIS background, at regular interval. Now with the recently
introduced strict security regulations, CSL has lost most of the regular readers and research
scholars who are ‘not central government employees’.
The Ministry has to seriously consider moving this Library out of the Shastri Bhavan
complex. Perhaps it would be better still, if this library is merged with another local
reference library whose collection and users group would ideally complement each other.
The recently published volume containing papers presented at the NACONAL 2006 by the
National Library, listed a few papers worth serious follow up actions particularly by the
Library management and professional organizations. There is however, some move by
the Ministry of Culture by organizing a meeting of the stakeholders on 8th February 2009
with the purpose of setting up the National Mission for Libraries (NML), as recommended
by NKC. The minutes of the meeting are yet to be made public.
By organizing NACONAL, 2006, the Library attempted to obtain different viewpoints and
suggestions, on its future course, from a large section of library professionals in the
country, and to have close interactions with them, is surely a positive move. To supplement

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