41 A responsibility which became a real challenge

Adult education programme and computer literacy projects which I took up were comparatively easy as the people with whom I had to deal with were simple. In the first one, our own students with social commitment and local common people who were the beneficiaries only were involved. In the CLASS project, mostly teachers from schools committed to doing their best to their students in the respective schools. I did not have any difficulty in dealing with these except that I was not very good in accounting and must have lost some money at the time of closing the accounts because of my forgetfulness. However, the first extra academic responsibility I was entrusted with after becoming an Assistant Professor was really challenging.

The library in REC then was one of the best technical libraries in the state with large number of books, journals, reference  books and back volumes. Most of the current technical journals in different streams of engineering were being subscribed to. Even now, NITC library is still maintaining the same level, I think. In 1983 when Dr.S.U.Pillai took over as principal , all the vacant posts were filled and I have  mentioned how I got promoted to the post of Assistant professor. I had also mentioned about a case in the high court challenging our appointments which came to nothing ultimately. Along with promotion, additional responsibilities are also given. One such responsibility was that of professor in charge of library. As the earlier  professor in charge  gad left the college a few  months back, I was not able  to find out exactly  what are my responsibilities on this job. It was mostly an advisory job to the librarian to make sure that the user services from the library are good. There was a room on the first floor of the library which was not opened for months together. I got the room cleaned up  and  decided to spend 30 minutes  in the  forenoon session from 12-1230  and an hour  in the evening 4-5PM in this room, without affecting my class work. 

In order to improve the documentation services in the library, steps had been taken by the previous in charge to purchase a photocopying machine. The first step was to procure the machine and set up the   photocopying services. The photocopier purchased was one made in Japan called Minolta and at that time the imported toner  used  for photocopying was expensive and we worked out the cost per copy was roughly 40 paisa. After discussion with the principal, to avoid misuse of this facility we decided  to restrict the number of copies for official  work to be not more than 15 at a time and if someone wanted  to use it for personal work, an amount of  50 paisa  per copy has to be paid. If more than 15 copies were to be taken, cyclostyling had to be resorted to as most of the departments had cyclostyling facility and staff appointed for the same. Many   members of faculty did not like these restrictions and one senior professor close to the principal sent three slips to take 45 copies of a question paper set by him for the class test which was reported to me and was denied.  

Another thing, I wanted to make sure was to enforce library rules as published in the booklet   prepared for the same. When library users get books issued in their names, there was a due date and failure to return these  books on or before the due date will  incur a fine  to be paid on the spot. For the students it was 30 days and for staff members 6 months. Fine was regularly being collected from the students, but many staff members did not return the books even after several years. Each staff member could take 15 books at a time and very often teachers used to get the latest books issued in their names as soon as these are available and these books were never returned to the library. This, I thought was unfair and decided to insist  on the return of the  books after the due date by all, students and staff alike. Defaulters had to pay the fine which, I think, for the staff it was double that of the students. This again   was not popular among the teachers and a few of them asked me whether I am trying to earn money for the college. But there were a few congratulated me on this. Dr M.N.Neelakandan  was one among those who frankly admitted that he lost a book as it was eaten by white ants and had to give a  big amount as it was a foreign edition of a book as fine and double the cost of the book as it could not be replaced. With this new restriction, staff members had to bring the books to the library at least once in 6 months for physical verification and renewal. My intension was to inform the users that the library property was not any body’s private one and books borrowed has to be returned to the library for the use of other users at least once in 6 months. To this end, I was successful and fortunately I careful enough not to pay a fine by not returning the books in time.

A third one was the dust accumulated on the books kept in the racks in the stack room.  Vacuum cleaners were  becoming available at that time and a vacuum cleaner was purchased for the library. I demonstrated the use of the vacuum cleaner  to the library staff and assigned the  attenders to do the dusting of the book once in a week or so.

I observed that a huge amount of money was collected as fine from the students but is not being utilized for any purpose. I suggested to the principal that part of this money can be used to help deserving students by appointing them as library helpers  for an hour or two  after their class work. Such students will be paid Rs.20/ hour with a maximum amount of Rs.300/ per month, which was  not a small amount at that time. We called for applications from students and short listed a few based on their academic merit and financial status of the family. Some of them started working in right earnest but as days passed by, their number decreased as many of them did not continue as some of their friends laughed at them and the inferiority complex associated. In about few months, none of them   used to come. I had heard that in many universities abroad, Indian students used to take up simple jobs like dish washing in restaurants or as baby-sitters in houses receiving 5 -10 dollars per hour which was  helpful to them   as additional pocket money and reduce the burden on their parents at home earning in Indian rupees. Unfortunately, even today, our people fail to understand the dignity of labour, whatever they do.

The most important challenge was none of these. The staff in the library could be categorized into two, the technical staff dealing with books, reference library, classifying and cataloguing books etc and the clerical staff keeping the stock register, passing of bills etc. In fact, the most important among these is the technical staff who takes care of the issue and receipt section and takes care of the books in the stack room. The clerical staff may consist of two or three at the most. The working time of the library at that time was 8AM to 8PM and so the technical staff were deployed in two shifts. Clerical staff were working from 10AM to 5PM like other administrative staff. The ratio of the technical staff to clerical staff has to be sufficiently large to provide better services to the users of the library. But when I analysed the staff position in the library, I found that there were too many clerks whereas the technical staff was inadequate. Many of the technical staff positions were occupied by clerical staff. These clerical staff will not do any work to be done by the technical staff. Moreover, as they were having practically nothing to do, they will be whiling away the time disturbing the others doing their work. The reason for this   large number of clerical staff was a legacy from the previous administration as the employees   from any department who were too bad or creating problems were  transferred  to the library as some form of a punishment transfer against the  positions of technical staff.  Moreover, the librarian and assistant librarian were not on good terms and the employees used to align themselves in two groups one  with the librarian and another  with the assistant librarian. I tried to talk them out of this impasse but they were not ready to bury the hatchet on my request. A cold war was being waged between these two groups which was not good for the proper functioning of the library. Every day, someone used to approach me with some complaint against some others and this was becoming a nuisance. The clerical staff who were not aligned with any group used to fan up the fire raging between the groups.

For example, I had entrusted the use of the vacuum cleaner for removing the dust on the books in the stack room with an attender in the library. I had personally demonstrated the use of the device also to him. He was a simple person coming to the office in perfect white clothes and seems he belonged to a reservation community. He had more than 20 years’ service in the college. I also heard that occasionally while posted in the second shift he used to come to the library after a few drinks. On the same day   on which his duty was given,  he came to me in the evening crying  “Sir,  even after working in this institution for the last 20 years, you have  given me the job of a sweeper”. This was only because  some others instigated him telling that using a vacuum cleaner  is  mean job worse than that of a sweeper.

Many of the clerical staff left the office   by the 340PM  college bus  whereas  they were required to be  present in the office till 5PM. When I asked them, the answer was the earlier professor in charge had permitted them which was obviously a lie. I warned a lady who was regularly leaving the office like this. Staff  members  who were supposed  to be in the library was going to the  canteen and coop stores  during the working time as they pleased either for their own work or for running  some errands for the librarian. The librarian who was supposed to control these erring employees was himself ill disciplined and could not control the staff. To change this order of things, I put some restrictions on the movement of the library staff asking them to write down in a book where they are going at what time and when they returned to the library. I insisted that unless it is an acute emergency leave application has to be given in advance. If someone is regularly coming late, they will loose half day casual leave  if they come late for more than three days et. All these were as per the manual of office procedure.   As they could not oppose these restrictions directly they started creating problems by inciting fight between the two members of the two groups. The victims were the  innocent employees .

Another important thing was that the earlier  librarians who were  not from Kerala were people who really loved books and was very carefully training the library staff in their duties to perform well. They used to take special care of those who were slow learners by giving them light work in the beginning progressively increasing their work load to normal level. However, the new librarian who was another legacy from the earlier administration was a simpleton who was interested in only in bossing as  the  head and making people work for himself rather than the library. It was doubtful whether he liked books except for taking the library magazines home for his wife to read. He was interested only in getting the   incentives while purchasing books and other things for the library. 

All these, I have learnt by observing the working of the library for a few weeks. I spent quite a few nights thinking on how to set things right in the library. One day, while  climbing up the stairs  to my  room in the library, I fell unconscious  over the steps and as I started sweating profusely  I was taken to medical college hospital for a check up on any heart problem. Fortunately there was no serious problem as it was due to my  low blood pressure and sleepless nights.

So, about  6-8 months after taking charge as professor in charge,  I discussed the problems with the principal and suggested a few  things  for improving the user services in the library. As he did not have enough time, he suggested I write down my suggestions and give it to him. The gist of my suggestions was to separate the user services and administrative services and put the library user services under the assistant librarian and the administrative work including overall management under the librarian. I personally typed 3 pages showing my suggestions and gave it to the principal. What I had suggested was essentially a decentralization of work in the library. However, even after one or two weeks, Principal did not call me or tell me anything on my suggestions. I requested him on several occasions but he was not willing to discuss. It seems someone else had interfered and advised him against disturbing the status quo in the library. Finally exasperated I told the principal “ Sir, please  let me know  what is wrong with my suggestions. If you can convince me what is wrong, I shall withdraw the same or else kindly relieve me from this post.” He preferred the latter and I was relieved of the responsibility   soon after.

In this matter, I did not have any personal interest other than improving the user services   in the library. Sometimes, things do not work out as we wish. If someone tries to ‘straighten the tail of a dog’, it will not be possible unless he has the support from the higher up.