Webinar by CRL Kolkata organized in Guwahati

GUWAHATI: A national webinar on COVID-19 Pandemic: Impact and Strategies for Library Services in North East India (Panel Discussion) has been successfully organized by Central Reference Library (CRL) Kolkata under the Union Ministry of Culture, in association with the Department of Library and Information Science, Gauhati University and Assam College Librarians' Association (ACLA) on July 4 on Zoom platform. It was attended by more than 700 participants from different corners of India.

The panel discussion started with the inaugural speech by Dr KK Kochukoshy, Librarian of CRL and Librarian in-charge of National Library Kolkata. Dr Koshukoshy highlighted the services of CRL and stressed the impact and strategies for library services in NE India.

The senior-most panelists from the north-eastern region Professor AS Chandel, Librarian of Sikkim University Gangtok and former Professor and Head, DLIS, NEHU Shillong discussed on e-learning and role of libraries during pandemic in detail highlighting planning and strategies for adapting this to a new environment by collectively working together with a group of libraries of the region. Prof S N Singh, Professor and Head, DLIS, Mizoram University Aizwal discussed the libraries of North Eastern States in lockdown period highlighting the libraries of Mizoram and gave an overview of NEI.

Dr Prasanta Kumar Deka, the general secretary of ACLA and Librarian of K C Das Commerce College, Guwahati discussed the major activities and contribution of ACLA during the pandemic time. He pointed out that this webinar is 61st of the webinar in this series and till date about 15,000 participants from different corners of India and a few countries of the world viz the USA, Philipines, Australia, Canada, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, etc. have attended and actively participated.

Prof Bikika Laloo, Head, DLIS, NEHU Shillong discussed the transforming academic libraries during COVID-19. She talked on proper long-term plan and to think on a policy matter for how to reach unreached. Dr RK Mahapatra, the founder Head of the Department of Library & Information Science, Tripura University lamented the social distancing and rural library services in the State of Tripura in the lockdown period, where he has emphasized the public libraries and other libraries of Tripura. Prof Sanjay Kumar Singh, Head, DLIS and Librarian in-charge of K K Handiqui Library, Gauhati University talked on the various types of demands for the resources from academic staff and research scholars in the north-eastern states during COVID-19 pandemic. Prof Singh stressed the availability of online e-Resources by remote login through EZ Proxy Server and also stressed the mushroom growth of webinars organized by the different publishing houses of national and international repute highlighting the offering of the free trial version of online e-Resources for 15 days to one month.

The entire programme was hosted and moderated by Dr Birender Pal Convener of ICT Cell of ACLA and Librarian of Kaliabor College.

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