Director of NLAI:
"NLAI services to remain free"
15 Nov 2011 12:16
Director of National Library and Archives of Iran (NLAI) said the organization has no plans to charge its members for the services. In a detailed conversation with IBNA; Ishaq Salahi emphasized on the expansion of the National Library’s online activities since he believes Iranians will have access to the services more fairly.
IBNA: Ishaq Salahi talked about his main plans since his appointment saying the first step in management is to recognize the current situation, so all my efforts was to figure out the current situation and to make a deep understanding of the organization, so that I could take decisions based on the obtained inter-organizational knowledge.
Salahi added: "Thus I had to review the organization’s programs and preferences considering my insight and approach."
Salahi continued: Obviously an organization's programs alter time by time however the long-term goals always remain unchanged. I felt the organization needs a fresh spirit, since during the last two years some sort of barriers halted the center's progress.
Referring to the changes in the National Library he said:" They were really necessary. We started to make the changes and analyzed the demands of staffs in the case of legal obligations. It seemed necessary to implement a new strategy; I mean the different managerial approach of being present in the actual filed of operation rather than giving orders inactively.
On the other hand, the involvement of all the personnel in the decision making process caused the body of the organization help us in order for the decisions to be more logical and to be implemented faster.
Providing resources in the digital environment is closer to justice
Emphasizing on the changes he said: In my opinion the prosperity of the organization is shown by the number of its website visitors, because I believe it is closer to justice. The serves should raise the level of knowledge, culture and reading in a society. Rich and poor, Tehrani and non-Tehrani, professors and students; in general all can have full access to the resources in visual space.
He stated: I think we should raise our efforts in the digital domain, and make more resources available in the virtual environment to be used by the researchers.
Salahi continued: According to Imam Khomeini and the Supreme Leader of Iran; in the modern world and in the civil post modernism era, the Westerns are involved in everyday life and are interested in getting access to the religious and spiritual concepts; and Islamic culture can fill the modern human’s gape and save him from suspicion.
In response to this question that “Will you charge for the services?” he said: I strongly deny it, it is an outright lie! From the past up to now the only money received by the organization has been the charge of membership card.
Night Shift is exclusively assigned to Researchers
He added: Night shifts have freely been available to be used by people; moreover, all the resources are available via cell phones. Beside, we are doing our best to scan the existing manuscripts and put them on the website and run additional websites for children and deaf or blind operation.
Emphasizing that the night shift is for researchers, level three seminary students, PhD students and so on, Salahi noted: these services are for the exclusive use of researchers and investigators. The main point is that some people consider the National Library as a public library across the city incorrectly. While a public library in a city is obligated to register anyone who applies, because it is facilitated for this kind of usage. But here the possibilities have not presented for such a function, here is the National Library and all the works published in Islamic Republic of Iran must be managed here.
Salahi also talked about the modifications made in the organization including changes in administrative positions such as changing the public relation manager and added: If you go to an environment in which your staffs are matched with you in working strategies, approaches and principles then no modifications will be needed. But since the working styles are usually controversial; I try to hear the opinions and reflect them as well; indeed I am patient enough to do so, I've proved it during my academic work that I have good hearing ears.
He emphasized: anyone who can help and serve within the framework, will remain unless, he/she is an organization’s agent whose mission is finished or the one who is unable to work as fast as me. I work from 6 to 9; seven days a week, my assistant must also come ahead of and work faster than me; no matter on Thursday or Friday. But postponement will not be tolerated in my administrative tasks. Meditation and reflection is necessary in the field of cultural work, but not to the extent that disrupts the work process, so the excesses and wastage should be managed.
Salahi also stated: There are more than 50 or 60 administrative positions in the National Library and Archive Organization which have experienced the least modifications and these amounts are also taken place within the system.
In response to the question that” what does he mean by the barriers existing on way of National Library activities” Salahi said: There are two kinds of barriers: internal and external to the organization. In the field of internal one; some of the staffs have been retired yet no new staff has been employed instead. Thus, during the years, the organization has been losing its employees with no replacement.
He added: Going back to 20 years ago, the organization employed a lot of personnel who are to be retired and the organization have to tolerate a heavy output while it has no input instead. On the other hand 60 present of the working staffs are women; who can’t be expected to work overtime. They must have their own specific vacations because saving and looking after their families as a wife and also a mother is their main duties as well. These factors caused the organization to be unable to fully perform its duties.
The head of National Library added: in the aspect of organizational external barriers on the other hand interactions with other governmental institutions are also at issue; the organization’s relationship with all the library and documentation institutes of the country have been weakened and needs to be revised pathologically.
He said: By the same token, we've launched Mahtab Secretariat with the presidency of the organization and it holds a meeting once every two weeks. Mahtab members and we do some works jointly inside and outside of the country.
Referring to the National Library’s activity in the National Content Consortium Salahi said: We tried to be active in the National Content Consortium however; the library institutions couldn’t have sufficient partnership yet. It must be considered that National Library and Achieve Organization is the Mother (Superior) Organization in proposing standards and indicators. Our legal supervision on the external library and documentation complexes suffered from some sort of weaknesses, so we defined some indicators which are submitted to the High-Ranking Council of Documents which after being approved must be observed by all the related organizations.
Approval of New Topics for the field of Library and Information
Salahi also added: interacting with the Ministry of Science and Technology we seek to approve new topics for Library and Information course in order to train with new approach fresh qualified human resources in the universities who can then serve the organization, and it does not continue so that the output of universities will be in contrast with our expectation.
In the rest of his speech he referred to the National Library of interactions with the ECO (Economic Cooperation Organization) and said: The head of the National Library is the library director of ECO countries as well. In the field of documentation, we shoulder the presidency responsibility of “Svarbyka” in West Asia and in Southwest Asian countries. In the field of documentation, there have been done nothing in the Islamic countries and we couldn’t involve in these two fields as their head and as they deserve culturally. We standardized educations and are going to schedule ECO-focused educational programs as well.
He reminded: the National Library and Archives Organization preference is to work with the regional countries with which we have cultural and linguistic unity and had been indeed part of Cultural Persia in the past. So we have no preference in regard to European countries. The second step is to work with Muslim countries and we also hope to take effective steps in this field.
