Universities, Libraries and No Librarians

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Like registrar is the custodian of administrative record base of the university, a librarian is the custodian of its academic knowledge base. Ideally the first senior position after the vice chancellor that should be appointed in a university is its librarian. The report of University Grants Commission (UGC) Pay Review Committee (PRC) which suggested for granting the post of librarian through CAS from the post of deputy librarian finds no implementation so far. There is no doubt about the learner driven supplemental role libraries have in learning, teaching and research in a university as classroom learning is mostly done out of teacher's knowledge in the topic often hindered by interruptions from students. There is also an element of passivity in classroom learning as students are just passive receptors of whatever is provided by the active teacher. Whereas, a student has to be an active recipient in the case of taking advantage of resources of interest available in library. The data collected from the Universities Handbook, 2010 shows 69% of central universities, 62% of state universities, 63% of deemed universities and 60% of institutes of national importance are functioning with the librarian post kept vacant. When the post is vacant, normally it is being looked after by a teacher or junior officer of the library which both has academic and administrative shortcomings. The high experience prescribed for the post of librarian unlike similar academic and administrative positions in the university is making it impossible to fill the post through direct recruitment as evident from the recruitment results from many universities. The paper makes a plea for realistic reduction in the experience prescribed along with implementation of UGC PRC's recommendation of granting career advancement for deputy librarians of universities to provide librarians to these universities.