Career opportunities in Library and Information Science
[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ibrary and information science (LIS) is an interdisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information resources, and the political economy of information. The libraries being the repositories of knowledge and information, their importance has increased. In this situation, the librarianship has attained the status of a separate discipline. Librarians are the custodians of libraries and they organize, maintain, and store books in the libraries. They help people to fine information and use it effectively in their personal and professional lives. The traditional libraries which contained only books but now journals micro-films, audio-videos, cassettes and slides for various purposes such as education, research, reference and pleasure. Library is a store house of knowledge, and the books are for uses, information is to be disseminated to the right person at the right time.According to one report, Library and information science has been ranked as one of the “Best Careers of 2008”. As India is moving towards a knowledge society with proliferation of learning and research institutes the demand and importance of library science is growing rapidly. Consequently, job opportunities for librarians are on the upswing in our country, (India) especially in NAGALAND. Nevertheless, with the advent of information technology and computers the traditions concept of its being redesigned to include not only books and other printed materials but also new tools of information like CD-ROM, internet, virtual libraries, digital libraries etc. There is a lot of scope for a career in library science and the person in this field can find employment easily in the following areas.
1, Public/Govt Libraries
2, Universities/collages/schools and other academic institutions
3, News agencies and organisations
4, Special Libraries (Hospital /Industries /banks/insurance companies Libraries etc)
5, Private organisations
6, Foreign embassies
7, Information centres/documentation centers
8, Companies and galleries, which have reading rooms and research facilities
9, Companies and organisations with large information handing requirements
10, Law library etc.
Some of the career options in LIS
1, Library Attendant
2, Library Assistant
3, Researcher/Scientists/Application specialist
4, junior Information Analyst
5, Senior information Analyst
6, Semi-Professional Assistant
7, Senior professional Assistant
8, senior Library Information Assistant
9, Junior Librarian / Professional Assistant
10, Information Scientist
11, Assistant Librarian
12, Documentation Officer
13, Deputy Librarian
14, Librarian/Chief Librarian
15, Consultant/Reference Librarian
16, Director/Head of Information Centre
LIS Professionals can also aspire to get job in private publishing houses and other private companies having with voluminous information.
We are unfortunate that no institute /college/ university has been offering this course in our state of Nagaland, so there are so many unqualified, untrained librarians are working in many libraries. On seeing with the lack of qualifies librarianship and demand of B.Lib Sc / M.Lib Sc in our state, Nagaland. Here the golden opportunity has lay by ICFAI University Nagaland by offering BA (H) in Library Information Science on the Faculty of Library Information Science in the academic year 2014-15 for upliftment of education scenarios and better future.
Paramjinang Moita
Assistant Librarian
ICFAI University Nagaland
