Hey Librarians (or at least Library and Information Science degree holders), you are not professionals!!!
Who said that?
Yeah, I am saying, because I've been told like that by a Librarian himself (that too, by one of the India's prestigious institution's, but I don't know whether he is equally respectable).
The Library is one of the biggest in the country, especially in the field of Science and Technology. The library collection exceeds 490916 documents, Staff include 28 lucky people (I mean they are permanent) and 12 donkeys who do the work of the former 28, means they are trainees. Library budget for the year 2006-07 was Rs. 973.5 lakhs (97.35 million INR). The library has 3680 users. (All the statistics from the official website of Library). Although the head of the Library is supposed to be the Librarian, here the Library is governed by the unquestionable, so called "Supervisor". The reason is obvious, Librarian will never be on his seat. Don't ask me where he's going. I don't know :-) (And one more reason which I feel is, even the Librarian is under the feet of the SUPER "VICER"). Originally only entitled to look after the clerical jobs of the Library, the Supervisor is the Landlord here.
Now the context,
The salary for the employees and stipend and scholarships for the students in the institution was increased by almost 30 percentage or more. As the hike was effected from the previous year, many of them got thousands of bucks as arrears. The trainees in the library thought the authorities, might have forgotten their matter. When they enquired in other departments, the trainees who have engineering degrees like B.E. or B.Tech., told them they also got the hike. So they decided to go to their boss, the Librarian.
They put forward their issue infront of him. The immediate response was a cascade of questions, "Who told you? Who told others payment has increased? etc. etc." Then the poor guys told him that their counterparts in other departments are getting the hike. "You know", the Librarian's reply, "Earlier the people who used to come here as trainees, were doing free service in this library. We never paid them and comparing with them, you are lucky atleast you are getting this much. (The Librarian with too much of experience, dont know that experience only wont give bread for the hungry stomach. Remember, institutions which have much lesser annual budget than this institution, in the same city, are offering decent five digit stipend. And you must realise the fact that this particular institution's annual budget exceeds over a whooping one billion INR (yes, nine zeros after a ONE)!!!). You are getting much experience. (When you see experience, read here as sleepless late night shifts and other tasks which the permanent staff refuse to do through ages. It may not be surprising that about 90 percent of the permanent staff in this library, (I dont know about others) dont know where is the "enter/return" key in a keyboard. So you can imagine the whole of the work of this automated library is done by this unlucky donkeys only.) And regarding the trainees in other departments, they are holding engineering degrees, they are PROFESSIONALS, so they are entitled to get it. Who are you to claim the same? " I think there is no need of explaining the rest.
So what does it mean? The answer is very clear. "Library and Information Science", it is not a professional degree at all. And you Librarians, you are not professionals.
Tailpiece:
"Library and Information Science, My goodness, such a course is there on the earth?", "You need to do a course to become a Librarian?", "I thought it was just "taking and giving" books", etc. etc. These are some of the questions which I encountered when I said I am pursuing a course in Library and Information Science.
Yes, this is the so called INFORMATION SOCIETY!!!
