Libraries, Profession and Users Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The order is (iv), (iii), (i), (ii): INSDOC, DRTC, NASSDOC, RRRLF.

1. INSDOC, the Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre: 1952.
2. DRTC, the Documentation Research and Training Centre, Bangalore, founded by Ranganathan: 1962.
3. NASSDOC, the social science documentation centre of the Indian Council of Social Science Research: about 1970.
4. RRRLF, the Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation: 1972.

The other options start with NASSDOC or RRRLF, the two youngest bodies, so they cannot be right.

Answer: C

Karnataka enacted its Public Library Act in 1965.

The Karnataka (then Mysore) Public Libraries Act was passed in 1965, making it one of the early state library laws in India, after Madras (1948) and Andhra Pradesh (1960) and before Maharashtra (1967).

1962, 1963 and 1968 are not the year of the Karnataka Act.

Answer: B

The primary goal is Evaluating user satisfaction.

A usability study observes real users performing tasks with a website, catalogue or product to judge how easily, efficiently and satisfactorily they can use it. Its aim is to evaluate the user's experience and find what gets in the way.

Collecting demographic information, analysing competitors and finding software bugs are tasks of market research and software testing, not the goal of a usability study, even if bugs sometimes turn up along the way.

Answer: C

A key focus area is Information and communication technologies.

UNESCO's work on user education and information literacy (under its Information for All Programme and its media and information literacy work) concentrates on helping people find, evaluate and use information, which today means teaching the use of ICTs and digital resources.

Agriculture, space exploration and automotive engineering are subject fields, not the focus of a user education programme.

Answer: B

The answer is (i) and (ii) are correct: the American Library Association and the Public Library Association.

The Public Library Association is the division of the ALA devoted to public libraries, and together they carry out advocacy for public libraries in the United States, through committees, campaigns and lobbying.

The Library of Congress is a federal research library and the national library, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services is a federal grant-making agency; neither is an advocacy body of this kind.

Answer: D

The answer is (i) and (ii) are correct: intellectual freedom and patron privacy.

Library codes of ethics, such as those of the ALA and IFLA, centre on the right of users to seek and receive information without censorship (intellectual freedom) and on protecting the confidentiality of what users read and ask (privacy).

Weeding is a routine collection-management task, and marketing is a management activity; neither is an ethical principle in itself.

Answer: C

The answer is (A) is false but (R) is true.

The assertion is false: online availability has changed what libraries do but has not made them obsolete; libraries provide licensed resources, physical collections, spaces and expert help that free online material does not.

The reason is true: librarians teach information literacy, helping people search effectively, judge the credibility of sources and think critically about what they find, a role that has grown with the volume of online information.

Answer: C

The answer is (i), (ii) and (iv) are correct.

Scientists need experimental information (data and results from experiments), know-why information (the theory and principles that explain phenomena) and know-how information (methods, techniques and procedures).

'User information' is information about users, which matters to librarians studying their clientele rather than to scientists in their own work, so the codes that include (iii) are wrong.

Answer: D

The Calcutta Public Library was founded largely at the initiative of J.H. Stocqueler.

The Calcutta Public Library opened in 1836, and the journalist J.H. Stocqueler was its chief promoter. In 1903 Lord Curzon merged it with the Imperial Secretariat Library to form the Imperial Library, now the National Library of India.

Curzon founded the Imperial Library, not the Calcutta Public Library; K.M. Asadullah was the first Indian librarian of the Imperial Library; neither he nor F.P. Strong founded the Calcutta Public Library.

Answer: B

The crucial ethical consideration is Having informed consent.

Any study involving human participants, including library user surveys, interviews and observation, must tell participants what the study is, what will be done with their data and that they may withdraw, and must obtain their voluntary agreement before collecting data.

The other options describe bad practice: research ethics require more transparency, not less; excluding diverse participants biases the sample; and ignoring participant feedback defeats the purpose of a user study.