Library visit to chennai 2014

LIBRARY VISIT TO CHENNAI FROM 25^th TO 27^th AUGUST 2014

A group of 18 students and three staff members of  PG Department of library & Information science have been to Chennai to visit various libraries from 25^th to 27^th August 2014 ( Monday – Wednesday).

DAY 1 : 25-9-2014 (Monday)  

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Chennai

The central library of IIT, Chennai was one of the leading library situated in a separate building was reached by the students at 9 A.M Dr.Mahendra.N. Jadav, Deputy librarian has given a warm welcome to us and as made a power point presentation on “Best Practices in IIT library”. Then he has directed the trainees to take the students to various sections of library starting with circulation section which is a fully automated system with RFID ( Radio Frequency Identification Detector) Technology using which 5 books can be issued in 5 seconds was really an wonderful system which saves the time of user. The OPAC media resource center, Digital Knowledge Center, Children Library Corner, Cataloguing section and Binding section were various others section witnessed by us. The campus is Wi-Fi enabled and the students are allowed to bring their laptops to library for self-study.

SRM Central and Medical College Library

In the afternoon the students were taken to SRM group Of Institutions at Kattamkulathur Chennai. First we have been to medical college library there we have got hands on experience in a medical database SCOPUS. Later we have visited the central library which situated in the center of the campus and these are beautiful infrastructure which has attracted many user towards library. The unique feature of this library I s lending of laptops to the students on demand.

Anna Centenary Library (ACL)

In the evening we went to one of Asia’s biggest library Anna Centenary it has a beautiful infrastructure with 8 storey’s and is certified as green building and has two wings A wing and B wing.  The main attraction of these library is the Braille section( for visually challenged user) and own book reading section. It has an open auditorium with good natural lighting facilities in each section the most attractive section is the children section which has a natural atmosphere.

     Day 2: 26-9-2014 (Tuesday)

In a morning we have been to the knowledge resource center of CSIR-SERC it was a fully automated library with a auto lib library software. The main service of this library is reference service with intranet facilities the users have online access to library resources anywhere in the campus. Online project research profile service (OPRPS) interactive personalize service (IPS), auto alert service(ASS), auto issue alert (AIA) and auto overdue remainder service are some of the features of this library. Micro fiche reader and Railing rack system were the other notable things of this library.

Next

Rojah Muthaiyah Research Library (RMRL)

Next we have visited the RMRL which is a special research library exclusive for Tamil literature. The major attraction of this library is preservation of old documents using advanced microfilm making equipment's, microfiche and imported scanners. Both print and audio collections(available in gramophone plates) were preserved using sound forge and wave pad software's. The digitization of resources is the ongoing process there and the resource are quite useful for Tamil researchers. CDS/ISIS and MARC 21 used for cataloging in Tamil books.

Indian Express Library

Later we have visited Indian express library before visiting the library we have visited the process of printing which was wonderful experience. The major work of the library is indexing we have witnessed the caption writing for photos and indexing the same using the softwares. It gave lot of inputs to gain practical knowledge of indexing and abstracting.

Day 3:  27-9-2014 (Wednesday)

Connemara Public Library

One of the oldest library in Chennai Connemara was visited by us on the third day of our trip it has more number of user for periodical section  it has more number of users exclusively for periodical section with the richest collection of 3500 journals with almost all the Indian language were Koha library software is used for automation. The library receives the book and periodical according to Delivery of Book Act. Then we were taken to old library which was donated by Lord Connemara which has a very beautiful infrastructure with beautifully carved wooden racks and Belgium glass paintings. The government gazetteers, documents etc are the unique sources of this library.

Next we have been to a media library at vikatan publications. It has a vast collection of their publication since 1926 and has been laminated and filed.

Thus the library visit was very useful for the students to gain more k about technology software sand specialized services provide in different libraries in different manner.

On 27^th August 2014 afternoon we boarded the train and were back to our place.