The term 'Profession' stands for an occupation which requires some specialised study and training, and the purpose of which is generally to provide skilled services and guidance in lieu of a definite fee or remuneration. A profession is a calling and implies acquisition of a fond of knowledge, range skills and their application in service of humanity. They services rendered by a professional may be direct as will the case of teachers and doctors or indirect as is in the case of teacher educators i.e. teacher of a teacher.
This service might be rendered for limited segment of the population or for a limited period of time or phase of life. This service is not rendered to the entire student population which gets graduation or post-graduation, but, it is rendered to those who have aptitude for the profession. Any professional provides professional service for a limited period of time when his/her clientele are in an institution or within the institutional framework. A profession can be practiced independently or within an institution or both.
The following are the common characteristics of a profession:
- (i) It demands possession of a body of specialised knowledge and extended practical training.
- (ii) It renders an essential social service.
- (iii) It demands continuous in service training of its members.
- (iv) It has a clearly defined membership of a particular group with a view to safe- guarding the interests of the profession.
- (v) It involves a code of ethics.
- (vi) It sets up its own professional organization.
- (vii) It assures its members a professional career.
- (viii) It has a truth and loyalty.
- (ix) It has a transparency of work.
- (x) It gives instantaneous results.
The field of library and information science is filled with professionals passionate about making a positive change in the world around them. They share a deep satisfaction with what they do: in one recent survey, over 85 percent of respondents said they would choose a career in the information professions again.
‘Management’ has suddenly become a magic word in librarianship. But what is library management that has not hitherto been taken for granted by senior librarians as their essential role as administrators of their libraries? Have senior librarians not in effect been ‘managers’ since time immemorial, for what is librarianship other than managing collections so that they may be exploited to maximum effect by those requiring recourse to them? No part of librarianship can be divorced from the concept of management - not even the more recondite aspects of professional activity such as palaeography or the bibliography of early printed books, for these, too, are concerned with the efficient control of such materials to make them readily accessible to readers. Every librarian – certainly every senior librarian - has always been ipso facto a manager, even if he has not descended, as he might well say, to thinking of his duties in such mundane terms. In recent years, however, attention has increasingly been given to the need to analyze the ways in which a librarian can more effectively carry out his role of making his resources available to his readers.
This is not merely a question of the bibliographic control of the material itself, but also that of ensuring that the library staff are better equipped to ensure that this aim is achieved and that consequently readers are provided with the best possible service. In other words, the emphasis on management is now concerned particularly with methods of improving the efficiency of libraries. New factors have arisen which require a librarian to take cognizance of matters which are more demanding of administrative acumen than was previously the case. One primary factor is, of course, the introduction of computer-based procedures to facilitate practical bibliographical work and thereby improve the technical efficiency of a library. Another important factor is the recent evolution of industrial relations practices which require a librarian to become familiar with the legislation concerning staff relationships which dominates the contemporary scene to an extent not hitherto envisaged – though it is to be hoped that librarians never failed to recognize the need for satisfactory relationships with their staffs in the interest of making their libraries happy places in which to work and therefore effective in providing the human and physical environment in which their resources could be exploited. One must take account also of the adoption of new methodologies such as the introduction of feasibility studies to determine the best methods of achieving particular aims and of surveys designed to measure the success of individual programmes in fulfilling their purposes.
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