Library professionals association & Bhaikaka library organises I-Koal 2019 at SPU

VADODARA: A two days international conference on Knowledge Organisation in Academic Libraries (I-Koal 2019) under the theme of 'building smart libraries: challenges and discovery tools' was jointly organised by the Library Professionals Association and Bhaikaka Library at Vallabh Vidyanagar-based Sardar Patel University (SPU) in Anand district.
More than 275 registered participants from 25 states participated in I-KOAL-2019 which was held on Thursday and Friday at SPU.
The participating states included Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram, New Delhi, Punjab, Bihar and Rajasthan among others.
SPU vice-chancellor professor Shirish Kulkarni delivered a speech on smart libraries, emerging and innovative technology application in libraries and improving the reading habit among students.
He suggested that anti-plagiarism software should be available for Indian languages including Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Hindi among others.
In his speech, he suggested that informational professional should be known as knowledge professionals.
"There should be a national level repository and depository for vernacular languages, by which any researcher and student can list their research work," he suggested.
The conference proceedings included conferring awards. While life time achievement awards were conferred upon senior library professionals including professor R G Parashar, professor B K Chaudhury, Dr R K Chaddha and Dharmveer, the best university librarian awards were conferred upon Dr Ravi Kumar, professor Sampath, Dr Atul Bhatt.
Best public library award was conferred to Dr Neeza Singh and best college librarian award was conferred to Dr Shalini Wasasn.