No abstract

Purpose ‐ Reports on the INFLIBNET sponsored conference on the Promotion of Library Automation and Networking (PLANNER) in North Eastern Region of India. Design/methodology/approach ‐ Provides a brief report of the conference held in November 2004. Findings ‐ Those professionals and participants at this conference were able to update their knowledge and experiences. More than 150 professionals from Manipur and other states in the region and also from neighboring Bangladesh took part. There was also diversity among the authors of the papers with more than half being women. Originality/value ‐ Outlines the main points of a conference of interest to information management professionals.

Reports on a training programme – KVS ‐ INFLIBNET ‐ an in‐service training programme for school librarians on library automation, networking and e‐resources management. The course was of three weeks duration designed for kendriya vidyalaya school library professionals and held in mid 2004.

Present study is aimed to assess the effectiveness of diagnosis-based remediation programme in improving the proportionate of students mastering each competency (percentage of competency mastered) by the group of V standard students in the selected (experimental) schools of Shimoga District. A total of 100 students of 4 government primary schools from Shimoga district constituted the sample for the study, of which 50 were boys and remaining 50 were girls. They were selected from both urban and rural areas of Shimoga district. This is an experimental study with pre and post test design. Among the selected100 non-mastered students, 50 were non masters and they formed control group and remaining 50 constituted the experimental group. After 2 months of intervention for the experimental group, the investigator conducted post test for both controlled and experimental groups. The controlled group students were attending regular classes whereas students from experimental group were attending the intervention class outside the class room which was taken by the investigator himself. MLL based test developed by Kashinath (2005) was adapted and used for assessing selected MLL competencies, which had 7 competencies was administered on the students selected 4 government primary schools of Shimoga district. The results showed that experimental group had gained significantly higher competencies in total scores than the control group. Further, male students of experimental group had substantial gain compared to all other groups.

The chapter discusses library support services in a distance education system and their value and importance in the overall development of a learner in general and a distance learner in particular. The chapter also traces how emerging digital technologies allow libraries to offer efficient support services to distance learners. This case of Distance Library Services at a university in India describes the evolution, experiences and challenges of offering distance library services through the university. The chapter focuses on information literacy and use of social networking tools. Development of information literacy is critical for distance learners, and social networking tools based on Web 2.0 technologies may provide library services and impart information literacy to distance learners. The chapter concludes with some suggestions pertaining to opportunities and future propositions.