The National Symposium on The Information Professional in the Electronic Age' was organized by the Madras Library Association (MALA) at Madras on 26 September 1998 part of its 70th anniversary celebration. Inaugurating the symposium by late (?) Bharat Ratna Shri C Subramaniam said that information technology (IT) is not static but dynamic in a big way making many a person computer-illiterate, and thereby hampering his functions and activities unless he is determined to cope with it, through a self-learning process. He advocated specialisation, prefessionalism and professional expertise and one should develop information temper just like scientific temper. He concluded by remarking that ultimately one judges by the results and it is here that information and information professionals have a role to play.
Shri N. Vittal delivered the keynote address and covered the following facts:
• The four dimensions of a human being - Homo sapiens, Homo Fabre, Homo Ludens and Homo Spritualess - and his curiosity which led him to collect and codify data.
• Transition of society from an agricultural economy to an economy based primarily on manufacturing and then to one based predominantly on information and communication technologies. He remarked that India was a land of paradoxes wherein all the societies co-existed.
• Categorisation of society into information generators, information diffusers and information users with their respective roles in the process of information transfer.
• Paradigm shift in information handling operations due to the impact of IT.
Further, he remarked that IT is a meta resource which is all pervasive and felt that in the march of civilization, technology and more specifically IT has an increasing role to play.
The discussion was spread in three sessions. The first session on User's Expectation' was chaired by Prof. M. Anandakrishnan. There were six presentations by Mr. S.M. Muthiah, Dr. S. Ambirajan, Dr. V Balaji, Prof. S. Arunachalam, Mr. R. Sivadas and Dr. S S Murthy. The second session on `Information Professionals — The newer skills and services' was chaired by Prof. S. Swaminathan and there were seven presentations by Dr TB Rajasekar, Ms. Vijaya Sundaram, Dr SV Raghavan, Mr. N Parameswaran. The discussion focussed on: Digital library and its holdings; Retrieval of information electronic resources; LIS education; and interaction between computer/Communication specialists and information professionals.
The concluding session on `Future Directions' was chaired by Dr LJ Haravu and identified the following four paradigm shifts as relevant to information professionals:
i) There is now a need to realise that one has to train onself from self learning software on a continuing basis and unlike in the past, one cannot depend upon outside agencies.
ii) As end users are not only computer literate but also computer proficient, they demand far more flexibility, accuracy when they use information resources. If information professionals, as good content analysts can provide the tool and empower users to make better use of information resources, they earn much respect.
iii) The third shift is from paper to electronic media, which now includes graphics, texts, sound and video-multimedia. The integration of these media, now available in digital from, makes for a paradigm shift.
iv) The fourth paradigm shift is the customer consciousness, increasing demand for accountability and the cost of providing the service.