INFORMATION & CHANGE-an interactive session

Under the umbrella of Friday talk series, MULISSA organized a novel program of interactive session between LISC and Journalism and Mass Communication, on 16th November 2007. The theme of discussion was “Information & Change”. Dr. Niranjana, Reader and Chairperson, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication was the guest of honor. He also played the role of moderator along with Dr. Mallinath Kumbar.
The programme started by offering prayers to the almighty by Mr.Mahadev Murthy, LISc. Mr.Poornachandra Naika, LISc extended welcome to the Chief guest, Dr.Niranjana and Dr.Mallinath Kumbar, Reader and Chairperson of LISc Department.
Dr. Niranjana lauded the efforts made by MULISSA for making this kind of session, which was a new experience for all the participants. Also he emphasized how there is a communication gap between students and faculty members and students from different department and such kind of program would help reducing the gap.
He green-flagged the discussion by highlighting the role of Journalism & Libraries in a society. He said that LISc domain deals with scientific aspects of information where as journalism is interested to know not the mechanism but the art. LISC and Journalism are hardware and software of information and a society needs both to grow and prosper. Dr. Mallinath Kumar seconded him by stating that these two disciplines go hand in hand. LISc is an interdisciplinary discipline and Journalism is part of it. –this fact was the inspiration behind conducting such kind of interactive session.
Two participants from Journalism and LISc briefed the group about their respective discipline- how change has impact on society and the role of media in change in information. How media acts as catalyst to propel the change. Similarly how library plays a role in shaping up the society, how IT has brought changes in operations and services of library.
However to make the discussion more interesting ,Dr. Niranjana questioned the value of library in cases where the user number has plummeted. Another remark by one of the participants that libraries shape up a society resulted in a heated yet spirited discussion and each side tried to justify role of their domain in shaping a society.Dr.Niranjana cooled the environment by pointing out to the fact that Journalism and LISc are not the competitors but they compliment each other.
Another key issue discussed during this session was the advent of Internet. It began with a statement by one of the participant who questioned the use of library when abundant information is available on Internet. Answering this, one of the participants argued that Internet is playing an important role in information retrieval but it can’t be considered as a library in itself, which was justified on the basis of ALA’s report. Another participant explained how we are shifting from traditional library to Digital library and the differences between the two. They discussed interesting issues like "Content Vs. Container", "Access Vs Ownership", "Myths of digital libraries", "Knowledge commission and libraries" etc.
The sweet and sour side of change brought by technology in both the domains was presented in the discussion. Information technology is seeping into all the domains but sometimes it poses issues as not many people in India can use computer or know how to retrieve information from Internet. One participant from Journalism explained how emergence of e-paper and how resources like place for office, staff are mere requirements to carry on the process.
Dr. Mallinath noted how the society had transformed from the conventional to the current knowledge revolution which is required to bring out social change however it cannot substitute the traditional library or media.
Dr. Niranjana concluded the session by emphasizing on the fact that both the disciplines are information centric. He pointed that the disciplines depend on each other- Library seeks media’s help to disseminate knowledge to users and media requires a library for proper functioning. Succinctly it can be stated that both work towards one goal – that is – dissemination of information to society.
Ms. Ashwini, , compeered the programme and Mr. Satheesha H., proposed the vote of thanks. Dr. M. Chandrashekara and Dr. N.S. Harinarayana also participated in the discussion.

Report Prepared by Mrs. Moninca Sharma, Research Scholar, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Mysore, Mysore