Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore

On the 1st of February, I made a visit to the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) - http://www.isec.ac.in/ - in Bangalore. This institute is a social science centre focused on various Indian development issues. ISEC has a good reputation in India, and awards PhD's in various disciplines. As I have learned during this trip, many institutes in India are where a lot of academic research takes place, and where PhD programs are located. In the Western context, we focus on the research university model - in India, many university professors often do not do much research and are primarily teachers. Scholars at these institutes are mainly responsible for doing research and supervising doctoral students, with a few seminar-style classes that they have to conduct sometimes.

My uncle, Mr. GVK Rao, had a hand in the development of the institute. He was the chief secretary (head administrative officer) in the state of Karnataka many years back, and also held a high administrative position in India's central government at one time.

He was a man of great dignity and integrity, and I have never personally known a person as universally respected as he was. I could spend many paragraphs writing about my uncle and what he meant to all of us, but I will have to save that for another time. He passed away in 2007, and his presence was greatly missed during this trip.

I mention my uncle not only because he was a great man and for his affiliation with this institute - as I will discuss, the case of my uncle also illustrates the power of "name-dropping" and affiliations in India. I visited this institute with one of my cousins who received her PhD at ISEC, and she constantly introduced me to people as "GVK Rao's nephew." In the West, we are often hesitant about name-dropping or using who we know to get us ahead. In India, on the other hand, using all the name-dropping tools and affiliations at your disposal (no matter how spurious) are utilized. Personal connections are key. Everyone is looking for an advantage and sizing people up. Who you know, who your relatives are, etc. are all key indicators of your standing and importance in society. In a society as hierarchical as India's, these connections become even more crucial.

Enough with my anthropological analyses. The reason I wanted to visit ISEC was to begin linking some public library issues in India with greater concerns about good governance, public sector transparency, and promotion of the "public good" in India. If public libraries are about government entities serving communities, then these types of issues should be discussed. From my reading of the public library environment in India, these issues are implicit but are not discussed in great detail in either policy or academic circles.

I met with Dr. Sangita, who does work on e-governance issues in India. He discussed how e-governance is more advanced in Karnataka, with respect to other states in India. Some areas in which e-governance has taken hold in the state include: 1) digitization of land records; 2) property registration and documentation; 3) e-learning; and 4) e-training. He also discussed how complaints for police and local authorities to handle are being managed by e-government tools.

While I mentioned to Dr. Sangita that public libraries can be considered to be part of larger public governance issues, I was not surprised to hear that he had not thought of the issue in these terms. However, he agreed with me that there is a logical connection - I guess it will take more work on my part to make this issue gain greater traction.

He also told me something that I found quite interesting in terms of good governance. Good governance in general, according to him (and others for that matter), involves a balanced relationship between the state, civil society, and markets. Libraries and community technology projects will not be effective without a proper relationship between these factors, as we discussed. This discussion made me think about potential partnerships between state and non-state actors in the development of India's public libraries, and the challenges that this would entail.

Dr. Sangita also mentioned to me some work that is happening with information kiosks in Karnataka. Certain "e-Seva Kendras" are being managed by the government for information dissemination, and there is a plan to develop more of these types of kiosks at the village level. How the kiosk model might be incorporated in the public library movement is a question of increasing importance to me as I continue doing this research. Since libraries also provide information, can libraries adapt to take on types of kiosk service models, or vice versa?