16 February 2004	Monday	24 Zilhaj 1424

KARACHI, Feb 15: The government has not released funds to college libraries in the city for the last eight years. The Sindh Council of College Librarians Association's Secretary, Najma S. Syed, told Dawn on Monday that college libraries had not received any fund from government since 1995. She said that the paucity of funds prevented most college libraries from purchasing new books.

"No college library in the city has a computerized database. Colleges have been provided with computers, but, mostly principals do not think that libraries are important enough to be given computers," she observed.

Ms Syed, who works as librarian at the Government Degree College for Women in North Nazimababd, Block-M, explained that the college libraries were allowed to make purchases on a provisional basis with "students' funds for the library."

Prof Iftikhar Azami, who teaches at Government Degree College in Buffer Zone, told Dawn that quite a few colleges in the city did not even have librarians.

"Adamjee is very prestigious college in the city. It does not have a librarian. There are only two government colleges in Orangi Town and neither of them has a librarian," he said.

Mr Azami, who is an office-bearer of the Sindh Professors Lecturers Association, said that at least 22 new colleges had no libraries. EDO Education Mohammad Rais Alvi said the reason why new colleges did not have libraries was that schedule of new expenditure had not been released by the government so far.

"There is no library development culture in the country. Few people read books and fewer collect books. The college libraries receive a very small grant from the government," he conceded.

Mr Alvi recalled that the city government had failed to release funds to college libraries the previous year, because the accountant general office had not released the amount by June 30.

The librarian of the National College, Mohammad Islam Shah, said the budgetary allocation for his college library was not enough to meet various expenses.

"The library at the National College has over 25,000 books. The paucity of funds has not allowed us to employ Library Automation and Management Programme - a computer software used to keep records," he said.

Mr Shah suggested that the inspection committees of colleges, which were affiliated either with the University of Karachi or with the Board of Intermediate Education, should visit libraries on a regular basis.

He pointed out that in most colleges, libraries were run by cataloguers or other low-ranking officials in the evening. Najma Syed told Dawn that college librarians, who were appointed in Grade 17, retired in the same grade even if they worked for a number of years.

"There is a four-tier system for teachers: lecturers (Grade 17), assistant professors (Grade 18), associate professors (Grade 19) and professors (Grade 20). But, librarians work in the same grade from the day of their appointment to their eventual retirement," she explained.

She pointed out that college libraries were also short- staffed. "Ideally, a librarian should have an assistant librarian, a cataloguer and two peons. But, in most college libraries, there is only one librarian who manages everything."

Ms Syed said that in many of the 24 colleges, where library science was taught, librarians also worked as teachers. She added that they were paid no allowance for teaching library science.

Raees Samdani, who has been working as librarian in various colleges for the last 31 years, said the government paid only lip service to college libraries. "In 1991, at least 25 per cent librarians were promoted to Grade 18 on a one-time basis. There has been no promotion of librarians since then," he said.