Library and Information Science Education in East and North-East India: Retrospect and Prospects

Due to information explosion library and information centres have important role to play in the information society. Only well-trained manpower can handle this situation efficiently and effectively. Meeting the need of development of manpower requires a systematic education for library professionals. This paper deals with the LIS Education in east and North-eastern India covering eight states of North-eastern India, Orissa, and West Bengal. Identifies that in this region LIS education was started in West Bengal and spread over other neighbouring states. This glorious history is mentioned here. The paper identifies that undergraduate courses were started in many colleges, but most of these have been stopped due to many reasons whereas a few of these still exist. At present, there are different levels of courses, viz., CLIS, BLIS, MLIS, MLIS in DL, PGDLAN, MPhil, PhD, DLit, etc. of various durations. Need of standardisation of these courses is essential. Data related to admission requirements, course content, course material delivery: teaching methods have been collected through questionnaire, interviews, and from respective websites. The data present status of today's LIS education in this region.