Two pre-conference tutorials on (I) DSpace and (II) E-publishing are being organized for the benefit of the participants. The pre-conference tutorial will be held on 27^lh January 2005. The participant fee is Rs. 1000/ per tutorial, which will be in addition to the Conference Registration. Fee for joining both the tutorials is Rs. 1500/. The interested persons must send their nominations in advance to the Organizing Secretary.

Registration Fee

Registration Fee includes Kit, Conference volume and Food. It does not include accommodation.

Accommodation

The participants have to book accommodation in advance by making a payment. Arrangements are being made to accommodate delegates in private Guest Houses with adequate amenities. The participants needing accommodation may send Rs. 600.00 in advance.

 Dates To Remember

Address    for    Correspondence/Registration/ Accommodation 

Visit http://sis-india.netfirms.com/sis2005.htm

The Society for  Information Science (SIS)awards SIS fellowships every year in recognition of the outstanding contributions made by the SIS members in the areas of information sciences and information technology. Nominations are hereby invited for the award of these SIS Fellowships for the year 2004.

Nominations may be sent by individuals, Head of institutions, and university departments SIS Fellows, Life Members of SIS, etc along with complete biodata of the nominee, including his/her main contributions to the field and should reach the Secretary, Society for information Science (SIS)c/o National Institute of Science, Technology     and     Development     Studies(NISTADS), Dr. K. S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi-110012 by 30 November, 2004. Self-nominations or nominations without bio-data etc will not be considered.

The Young Information Scientist Award was instituted in 1989 in memory of Late Shri A. S Raizada who was the prominent information scientist and the founder Secretary of SIS, Nominations are invited for this award for the year 2004.

Nominations may be forwarded to the Secretary, SIS by 30 November 2004 by individuals Professors, Head of Departments institutional Heads SIS Fellows, Life members of SIS Head of libraries librarians library officers etc along with complete biodata of the nominee including his contributions to the fields

Self Nominations or nominations without biodata will not accepted

The age of the nominee should not be more than 35 years on 30 November, 2004

Please send the biodata to the secretary Society for information Sciences (SIS) C/O National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS), Dr. K.S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi-110012 by 30 November, 2004.

Notice is given to all the members (individual and official representatives of the institutional members) that the Annual General Body Meeting of the Society for Information Science will be held at Andhra University, Visakhapatnam on 27 January 2005 at 6 PM. The agenda of meeting will be as follows:

Welcome by President SIS

Confirmation of proceedings of the AGM held on 21 January 2004 at IIT, Madras

Secretary's report of the activities of SIS

Presentation of Auditor's Report

Any other matter with the permission of the chair.

You are requested to attend the meeting.

Sd/- Dr. Ramesh Kundra

Secretary SIS

Dr. R. A, Mashelkar, Director General, CSIR, dedicated the Digital Information Resource Centre (DIRC) at the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune, to the nation on 23 April 2004. This Centre will play a key role in making NCL a leader in R&D through the strategic use of information and Communications Technologies (ICT.)

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Mashelkar said, "Information technology should go in a big way to tap the available resources and make the information easily accessible for research & development and I am happy that NCL is making it possible." NCL has a state of the art campus-wide local area network with about 700 computers hooked on to it. 2 MBps internet connectivity serves as a gateway between this network and the rest of the world.

NCL's information Division has taken up several strategic and timely initiatives in the field of ICT to contribute to NCL's success as a leader in R&D by bridging knowledge tools and systems so that decisions are informed and research is relevant and effective.

v      Additionally, DIRC provides :

v      A centralized support for the information infrastructure.

v      User room with a range of computers for easy and common access to digital information resources, productivity and other office tools, computing resources, visualization and modeling facility and access to special devices such as scanners, CD writers, etc.

v      State-of-the-art classroom facility with PCs or workstations on each desk for human resources development and capacity building

v      training.

v      Server room with high performance servers managing centralized I.CT services and information resources.

v      Computer laboratory to set up experimental systems and test/evaluation platforms, softwares and applications.

NCL subscribes to around 250 journals and provides access to a range of digital resources including databases like Chemical Abstracts, Current Contents, SCIF1NDER Access, Patent Databases (DELPHION), Chemical Business News base on the NCL intranet and online access to a number of electronic journals from leading publishers like Elsevier Science, American Chemical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry and Wiley Interscience (including back volumes).

Two workshops on open access and institutional archives were organized by Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, during 2-4 and 6-8 May 2004, with a view to develop a cadre of open access experts in Indian higher educational and research institutions. The primary purpose of the workshops was to provide Indian scientists and librarians with (a) a thorough understanding of the global scientific and scholarly communication issues that Open Access addresses, (b) the technical knowledge of how to set up and maintain an Open Access institutional archive, and (c) an awareness of the local institutional policy and organizational requirements for a successful sustainable Open Access institutional archive.

In all, 48 participants attended the two workshops. The faculty comprised of Leslie Chan of the University of Toronto, Leslie Carr of the University of Southampton, D.K. Sahu of MedKow Publications, Mumbai, and T.B. Rajashekar of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, the Eminent agricultural scientist and Prof. P. Balaram. Editor, Current Science, gave guest lectures.

A lecture on "Challenges of library management in the era of information explosion: A Users perspective" was delivered by Dr N Raghuram, School of Biotechnology, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Kashmere Gate, Delhi - 110006. at the auditorium of Pragati Maidan on 22 Aug. 2004. The lecture was arranged under the auspices of Ranganathan Research Circle, New Delhi. Dr Raghuram explained the consequences of explosion of information and dealt them, under the following points: i) content explosion and seamless ness ii) different forms of information such as books, films, CDs, Videos, databases,

WWW iii) Presentation which can be static, dynamic, interactive and mixed: iv) Technology -information and communication technology, publishing revolution and convergence v) library and information science converges with other sciences and technologies vi) users demand explosion; illiterates to highly knowledgeable users vii) infotainment and internet explosion dumping effect raises expectation ix) paradigm shift from reading to browsing, surfing and learning xix) contrary info trends: scattering/ divergence vs concentration/ convergence and x) contrary access trends: democratization vs monopolization

In the expanding and converging roles, Dr. Raghuram said that i) Librarian is not the only one who needs to be an information supplier; ii) editors, publishers, directors, scientists, teachers, two workshops artists, ICT providers/ users, media, students, cable guys, call centers and lay people are other information providers iii) There is information beyond libraries and libraries beyond buildings iv) Now libraries have less staff, less money, more roles, more work, more complaints/frustration; v) Librarian is considered as a superman: expanding info awareness raises expectation vi) librarian as a living fossil who are losing hegemony on the readers and the library.

Dr. Raghuram listed the following points from the Users perspective, i) libraries/ librarians should reach out to users and involve them in management ii) consistent funding of libraries iii) optimal use of technology, space, time, materials and manpower iv) guard libraries from dumping old editions of books and other materials v) cataloguing to be up to date so as to locate the books easily vi) consistent and inclusive subscription policy for journals vii) consortia for journals; viii) ominous portents: such as merger of NISCOM and INSDOC ix) bibliometrics: powerful tool which should be used with caution x) Indian journals and databases: improve the content and not just packing.

After the lecture, glowing tributes were paid to Dr S Ranganathan on his 112 th birth anniversary. His contributions to library and information science such as i) Five laws of library science ii) Prolegomena to library classification iii) Classified Catalogue Code iv) Chain Procedure for deriving subject index entries v) theory of book classification vi) Long range reference service vii) theory of library management viii) Library system development ix) Standards for library buildings and library furniture and x) Library science professional education and research were recalled.

 Dr. Ranganathan's Birth Anniversary Celebrations

On the occasion of his 112^th birth anniversary, glowing tributes were paid by the team at Gyanodaya Library - the Learning Resource Centre at MM Lucknow to Padamshree Dr. S.R. Ranganathan for his multifarious contributions to the world of librarianship as well as to the discipline of Library and Information Science.

Spering in this Occasion Dr. R.L. Raina, Profess or-1 n-Charge, Gyanodaya, while highlighting some of the key contributions of Dr. Ranganathan, exhorted all his team members to put in their utmost in the best interest of the profession and, ultimately, the end user.

Every team member, present on the occasion, mainly Mr. M.K. Singh, Mr. Sanjay Degloorkar, Mr. Taps K. Raut, Mr. Ravindra Kumar Mr. Dharmendra Singh, while paying rich tributes to the 'Pitamah' of the profession narrated their experiences in terms of what messages of Dr. Ranganathan in particular, did inspire them to take up to this profession.

All members of the Gyanodaya team, in one voice, opined that real tribute to Dr. Ranganathan would be to internalize learnings from his teachings and do all that they could to follow them in letter and spirit.

Dr. M. Masoom Raza (Principal Investigator and Shri Monawwer Eqbal (Project Fellow), DLIS, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh have developed a web based gateway under the site www.lisgateway.com as a part of UGC major research project. Lisgateway.com provides searchable and browsable catalogue of Internet based resources related to LIS. The data pages establishes links mainly to site, which have produced e-joumals, e-books, dictionaries, ency­clopedias, LIS Thesis, LIS Departments, Association Organizations, OPAC, Library Network, Scholarships, Fellowships, Digital Resources, and LIS jobs etc.

Are we drowning in an overdose of information? According to some observers there is a real danger of this happening soon. Not only is there an overdose of information, much of it is being produced without any purpose. The Moving force behind the technological advances in the Information age seems to be the desire to transmit more information and transmit it faster. It is being alleged by a group of activists calling themselves "Information environmentalists" that like the pollution of our physical environment caused by the byproducts of various material technologies, our mental environment is also being polluted by the byproducts of modern information and telecommunication technologies. Pollution by digital effluents may not be a far­fetched idea if we consider our experience with the noise pollution.

But what exactly is information pollution? The information environmentalists define information pollution as "the contamination of a culture or of a person's life caused by exposure to excessive amounts of information or data". According to one of the leading lights of this new movement, Jacob Nielson, "Our lives are littered with extraneous details that smother salient information with the result that we assume most information to be equally useless and tune it out." In the process, we thus miss important information that might be sometimes embedded in the mess.

As to the source of information pollutants, the "Information environmentalists" point an accusing finger at the unprecedented growth of cell phones, personal digital assistants, instant messaging, e-mail and various cable TV channels, inundated as these are with huge sales bytes. People are becoming e-mail addicts—e. mailing just for the fun of it and not for exchanging any real information. Indeed, Internet is the worst polluter with spam or junk e-mail popping up from every nook and corner. Spam has been rightly termed as an "attention theft".

Unfortunately, the search engines of the Internet have become the information gatekeepers controlling access to cyberspace. This gives a decisive say on the type of information being made available to companies that own the search engines and their advertisers. This means seekers of information may not get what they really want, but only superficial information packaged with a multiplicity of advertising links. Also, the mechanical gatekeepers of information, unlike their predecessors, the editors and librarians, are unable to analyze the usefulness of information or the efficacy of the language of communication. These mechanical gatekeepers are only guided by the proximity of one word with another; any interpretation and authenticity check are beyond them. Many complain that in the "information age", information does not mean what it once did.

Thus the vast pool of information, the cyberspace, is highly polluted. Apart from the byproducts of IT, at a deeper level, there are other causes of information pollution. Large hierarchies have a tendency to distort information. Decision makers often do not allow dissent and in turn get polluted information, that is, information distorted to suit their likings. Propagation of half-truths pollutes the information environment. It is another matter that the hierarchies may ultimately suffer because of their own information pollution.

What are the possible measures for controlling the information pollution? The only solution is self-discipline by the producers of information till such time as the search engines become more capable gatekeepers of information and are able to sieve or treat information. One has to seriously question the belief that more information is always better. On the other hand, specific efforts are needed to avert information overload by strictly avoiding out of context information and providing logical linking to the facts being presented. To quote Nielsen again, "Studies of content usability find that removing half of a website's words will double the amount of information that users actually get". Indeed, somebody has jocularly remarked that for cleaning up the pollution of information, taxation of digital effluents should be introduced like that for material effluents.

(Reproduced from Science Reporter, June. 2004)

BCS

Lorna M. Hughes. Facet Publishing, London, 2004, 327p

This book presents information managers with all the strategic and practical issues to consider when making the decision to digitise their collections. It covers digitization process step by step, outlines the different techniques available to deal with a wide range of library resources, and explores the opportunities offered by a collaborative approach to digitization. Examples of digitization projects carried out in various types of libraries around the world, and an extensive list of sources of further information are included. Divided into two main sections, 'Strategic Decision Making' and 'Digitizing Collections', the chapters include:

Why digitize? The costs and benefits of digitization

Selecting materials for digitization

Intellectual property, copyright and other legal issues

Institutional framework

Importance of collaboration

Project planning and funding

Managing a digitization project *

Digitization of rare and fragile materials

Digitization of audio and moving image collections

Digitization of text and images.

It will be a useful reading for managers in heritage institutions such as museums, galleries and local archives, and for students of information science.

(Reproduced from DBIT - Desidoc bulletin of Information Technology Vol 24, July 2004, No.4 P.39)

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

Theme:Planner-2004 Content creation, access and Management in Networked environment

Organizer :  INFLIBNET and Universities of North and East India

Dates        : 4-5 November. 2004

Details at :  http://www.inflibnet.ac.in

Theme      : Asian     Library    and     Information Conference (ALIC 2004)

Organizer  : Thai Library Association and Asia Library

Supported by : Unesco and IFLA

Dates        : 21-24 November, 2004

Details at :  http://www.alic2004.org

Theme      : 7th International Conference of Asian Digital Libraries (7thlCADL) on Digital Libraries - International Collaboration and Cross Fertilization Organizers : Shanghai Jiao  Tong  University  and Shanghai Library in Shanghai, China

Dates         :  13-17 December, 2004

Details at; http://icadl2004.sit.edu.cn