The State of Andhra Pradesh had a long history of library system prior to Indian independence when it was part of Madras Presidency. Over the time significant changes occurred in the library and information system. The present study is an attempt to overview the growth and functioning of academic, public and special library and information systems in the State of Andhra Pradesh. The study has been taken up with six parameters–budget, professional staff, collection, automation, ICT infrastructure and services. The analysis is based on data gathered through questionnaire, phone calls and information available on institutions’ Website. The findings indicate lopsided functioning of all types of libraries.

Keywords:   Academic libraries  public libraries  special libraries  Andhra Pradesh libraries

Andhra Pradesh is one of the 29 states of India. The state has a total of 13 districts, the Anantapur district is the largest and Srikakulam district is the smallest district. The districts are divided into two regions of the state, i.e., Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema. Coastal Andhra comprises the 9 districts: Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam, Sri Potti Sri Ramulu Nellore. Rayalaseema comprises the 4 districts: Kurnool, Chittoor, YSR Kadapa, and Anantapur.

Libraries as community centres and part of educational institutions have a long history, in the State and considered as ‘SaraswathiNilayams’. Librarianship, as a special skilled work was recognised in the State 95 years ago in 1920, when the first training course in librarianship was started under the auspices of Andhra Desa Library Association. The Andhra University, Visakhapatnam was the pioneer to introduce (LIS) course in 1935 with the initiation of the then University Librarian, M.O. Thomas, who was the first President of Indian Library Association. It was offered as a summer course at certificate level at irregular periods. Later, it was switched over to one year Diploma in 1937. Thus the libraries have been managed by professionally qualified persons and the libraries got their own identity as service organisations. Over the years, libraries have marched a long way and reached a state of relative maturity as knowledge management centres and reaching out to the users with a blend of traditional and modern services.

The study presents an overview of academic, public, and special library and information systems in the State of Andhra Pradesh (A.P.). An attempt has been made for a demographic display of libraries under the traditional three categories, though the list is not exhaustive.

Survey method was adopted with questionnaire as a tool to gather data but very few responses were received in the expected time span. Hence, most of the data is gathered from the websites of the organisations/institutions. The support of concerned library staff was taken through phone calls to fill in the gaps especially budget and staff strength. However, there are gaps owing to non-availability or no response from the library professionals.

The study has taken into consideration six parameters and studied with basic data. Owing to the quantum of libraries to be studied and the time constraint, in-depth data were not gathered hence, analysis presents only an overview of the conditions and not a critical analysis. The study was conducted on the following parameters.

(a) Budget—The functioning of a library depends on the availability of adequate financial resources. The budgetary position of libraries in A.P. is presented.

(b) Professional staff—The strength of professional staff is an essential factor in delivering information services to the respective users in an institution. The study displays the staff position in the libraries of A.P.

(c) Collection—Now the print and electronic Collection play an equal role in storing and disseminating knowledge. Hence an attempt has been made to ascertain the strength of the collection among the libraries of the State.

(d) Automation—The UGC, RRRLF, State Governments are supporting the libraries with financial grants for computerisation of library activities. Hence the status of automation activities have been studied.

(e) ICT Infrastructure—The computer and communication technologies have metamorphosed the library environment as digital/virtual information system. However, it is a fact that all libraries are not fortunate to possess the required ICT infrastructure. Therefore an attempt was made to find out the realities of infrastructure facilities.

(f) Services—There are well established practices like reference, bibliographic, alerting, analysis and consolidation and review type of services besides support services like document delivery, translation, etc. With advent of web-based services, the users are being reached through online services. How the libraries are able to blend traditional and web-based services and achieve the expected target services has been studied.

Academic libraries include school, college, university libraries. However, school libraries are not included in the study and the scope of academic libraries is confined to university, college and junior college or plus two level. Though the goal of all these types of academic libraries is to cater to the needs of academic community for supplementing the study and research they differ enormously in the value and content from one another.

The higher education in the State of Andhra Pradesh is offered through:

(i) University colleges

(ii) Government colleges

(iii) Government-aided private colleges and

(iv) Private-unaided colleges.

The Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) (came into existence w.e.f. 20.05.1988 through Act 16 of 1988) oversees the matters relating to higher education in the State and advices the Government in matters ‘connected therewith and incidental thereto’¹.

The university libraries form a distinct lot among the academic libraries as they have been regarded as central to the activities of higher learning, i.e., teaching, learning and research. A well-established library with an all-round and up to date collection suitable for learning and research is a necessity for higher education system since they proved to be significant partners in the development of scholarship. There are 10 conventional, 13 special and 5 deemed universities in the State. The data of these universities regarding budget, professional staff strength, and collection are presented in Table 1 and status of automation, ICT infrastructure, services are presented in Table 2.

The conspicuous observation with regard to budget is that conventional state university libraries and the well established old universities have good funding crossing one crore per annum while university libraries established recently from 2006 onwards are in a poor condition as there are no regular budgetary sanctions except adhoc grants. As far as financial resources are concerned the deemed universities are competing with UGC and State supported conventional university libraries. Some of the specialised universities/institutions are also spending good amount like 36 lakhs (Dravidian), 45 lakhs (S.V. Veterinary), 1.3 crore (SVIMS) that function with the support of Government. Other institutions have grants sanctioned for planned period that are releasedadhoc by the institution management. This creates hurdle for the autonomy of library to build collection regularly as per the needs of the users.

The condition of professional staff strength is pathetic as only one (Acharya Nagarjuna University) among the 10 conventional universities have a full-time University Librarian and others are managed by In-Charge librarians either professional or non-professional. The recently established (2006-2009) state universities’ library staff is miserably inadequate as they are managed by contract personnel who don’t have either decision making or execution powers except manning the routines. The position of specialised universities is also not encouraging as many of the personnel positions are filled with professionals on contract basis. The scenario of staff strength in deemed universities seems to be good though the study did not include data regarding their pay structure as per the designation.

The collections of the libraries grow with age, hence, well-established conventional, special and deemed universities have adequate information sources at least in terms of quantity as they range from 1 lakh to 5 lakh. However, the newly established universities that have emerged in digital environment ought to have more collections in electronic form than print. It is astonishing to find that the six universities established by the state government after 2006 do not have e-media in their collection. The finding indicates lopsided growth of university libraries in the State with reference to collection of information resources. The reason may be lack of qualified professionals to build and disseminate information resources.

The collection of specialised university libraries is confined to specific subjects, hence, may be in thousands compared to lakhs of books in conventional universities. Deemed universities data indicates sound collection of information resources both books and journals, in print and e-formats. An encouraging observation is that well-established universities are subscribing to consortia like UGC Infonet, INDEST, DELENET, CeRA, etc., and proving access to thousands of e-documents. Another significant feature is that professionals in all university libraries in the State are organising the knowledge resources using classification scheme (DDC) in spite of inadequate professionals and majority of them provide access to resources through OPAC and few through traditional catalogue format.

Except the six state university libraries established from 2006–2009, out of 28 university libraries in the State all other 22 libraries, i.e., 71.4 % have made attempts for automation of library activities. However a point of concern is only 5 Deemed Universities, 4 specialised universities have completed automation activities that include circulation also. Others have partial implementation of automation activity.

Twenty three (72 %) libraries have ICT infrastructure and provide internet access. The quantum and quality of infrastructure varies as some libraries have more than two servers, Wi-Fi with high speed broad-band, RFID and other latest technologies while others have just internet connectivity.

Traditional services are predominant in all libraries under study though GITAM University extends SMS/e-mail alerts and JNTU-K librarian developed blog-based interaction with users. It is evident that LIS professionals in these libraries are not practicing Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 services like Web-based services, RSS feeds, interacting through social networking.

The undergraduate Colleges in A.P. are categorised into three types-Government Degree Colleges (GDC) controlled by Commissionarate of College Education, Private-aided Colleges (PAC), partly funded by Government though in private sector and private degree colleges that are solely under private management. All colleges are affiliated to respective universities of that region. The number of private colleges are more than GDCs and PACs put together. Some of these colleges offer PG courses and some are accorded with ‘autonomous college’ status by the UGC. The autonomous colleges have PG and research programmes. The number of colleges in Government and private management are shown in Table 3.

The Government college libraries primary source of income for collection development is UGC grants. The UGC provides assistance to the college libraries only when college is enlisted under the Section 2(f) and 12 (b) of UGC Act. Other sources of income are State grants for salaries of staff who are drawing UGC recommended pay scales. The other source is student fee which is meagre and insufficient to meet the recurring expenses of the library. Therefore, only those college libraries managed by Government and private-aided receiving financial support from UGC are in a better position financially. However, the UGC grants are for plan period and released at irregular intervals.

A study by Moly⁷ revealed that though there are recommendations by Committees and Commissions for per capita budgetary allocation for libraries out of total budget of total institutional budget, in reality, ‘the situation seems to be different. In majority of colleges management is allocating one or two per cent of the total college budget. Same is the case with both Government and autonomous colleges. It was also observed that the allocation of amount to the private-aided and autonomous colleges (range between Rs 35000-50000) seems to be better that Government degree college libraries (range between Rs 5000-25000).

Better management and reaching out the users with customised services is possible when professionally-trained personnel are at the helm of the library. The observation reveals that almost all Government, aided and autonomous colleges have a qualified librarian. Assistant librarians are appointed in autonomous colleges and very few Government colleges. It is also observed that the plight of private colleges that are in hundreds is deplorable as there is library for name sake to get affiliation from University or approval of AICTE or NBA. They are employing librarians on contract basis with consolidated pay and there is no focus to develop a knowledge environment. Many a times the nature of work is semiprofessional and there is no opportunity to display professional expertise.

The collections of colleges range depending on the age of the library. The older colleges have collection of 50,000 and above while new colleges have below 5000 documents. For example, the collection of Andhra Loyola College Library (autonomous) (1953), Vijayawada is 1,08,000, Dr V.S. Krishna Govt. Degree College Library, Visakhapatnam (1968) is 12800; Govt. Women’s Degree College Library, Sri Kalahasthi (1988) is 7150. Some colleges are offering P.G. programmes. Government, private-aided and autonomous colleges are maintaining periodical collections. The study by Moly⁷ reveals that out of 40 Government and autonomous colleges under study, 65 % are subscribing to 1-50 print periodicals. Majority have membership in N-LIST programme of UGC INFLIBNET and subscribing to e-journals. In total nearly 100 (exact 93) colleges from the 13 districts of A.P. have membership in N-LIST (Source: http://nlist.inflibnet.ac.in/members.php) and thus accessing the electronic resources. The situation of private colleges is not encouraging in terms of quality and quantity of their periodical subscriptions, though they offer Post Graduate courses. The vital issues are non-availability of regular budgetary grants and qualified library professional to manage the collection building and technical processing.

The face of college libraries is changing with the impact of technologies. How best the college libraries can support the users with a blend of traditional and technology based services? In majority of college libraries, general and professional, the traditional services of lending, reference, career guidance, orientation and information literacy are given priority in all types of colleges. Web based services is a rare feature.

Well established college libraries have initiated automation activities long back with CDS/ISIS and presently the Government and aided colleges implementing computerisation of library activities use SOUL, Koha, NewGenLib (Open source) etc. The State Government approved the SOUL Software hence Government colleges opt for automation using SOUL software of INFLIBNET. However, the data reveals that automation activity is partial in majority of college libraries-both general and professional.

Internet access is available in all Government, aided and autonomous colleges.

Note: Majority of private colleges do not have either a good library accommodation or professional librarian; hence the observations given here are in general with reference to Government, aided and autonomous colleges.

The Board of Intermediate Education regulates and supervises the system of intermediate education. There are 1,687 junior colleges functioning in the State of A.P Among them, junior colleges under the Government management-375, Social Welfare Dept.- 70, Tribal Welfare Department-19, A.P. Residential Education Institutions Society (Government of AP)-09 and aided-private colleges-264 and others function under private management. There are libraries functioning in almost all junior colleges except private colleges. The professional librarians are drawing salaries at par with junior lecturers and are gazetted officers in rank. Though there is library the collection is limited to text books. Owing to their location in rural, remote and tribal areas they do not possess internet connectivity or automation activities, hence, serving the users with traditional services. However, some Government and aided junior colleges in urban environment have computers and internet facility.

An interaction with working librarians revealed that there is not much demand for library books and less percent of students are motivated to make use of library facility. The reason is that Government supplies text books to students under different categories. The students are tuned to prepare for common entrance test (EAMCET) to get admission to professional courses and don’t have interest or time to spend in the library. Less to talk about private junior colleges as their aim is to achieve ranks than cultivating learning skills and knowledge acquiring habits. Thus junior college libraries (JCLs) are a distinct lot among academic libraries serving huge population of students in their budding stages of knowledge acquisition. Unfortunately, they are under-developed compared to their counterparts in higher education. The management and the profession have not paid the required attention on this category of academic libraries.

Public library movement in A.P. started along with the freedom movement and dates back to late 19^th century. They formed the dais for discussions on freedom and social issues. The political status of the State was changing from time to time along with changes in the Library Act and libraries. At present, A.P. Library Act 1960 is in vogue.

The organisational structure of public library system is as follows:

• The Department of public libraries is the administrative head of public library system in the State that was administered under Public Library Act 1960.
• A.P. Grandhalaya Parishad is the policy formulation body. The Parishad shall function under the general supervision and control of the Government. It promotes library services in the State. A separate Directorate is created for administering the libraries in the State. The goal is to establish, equip, maintain, and develop an integrated comprehensive and efficient library service to the readers in the State.
• Different categories of libraries:
  • State Central Library (Yet to be established)
  • Regional Libraries-5
  • District Central Libraries (Zilla Grandhalaya Samstha)-13
  • Branch libraries–940 (approx.)
  • Village libraries
  • Mobile libraries (Defunct except few)
  • Book Deposit Centres (110×13)-1430

In addition, there are private libraries in each district ranging between 10-30, working with dedication and commitment to serve the community.

Cess is the major source of income that is collected from house tax and property tax at the rate of 8 paisa per rupee. Cess varies from one district to another depending on the area and size of tax payers. For example Vizianagaram Zilla Grandhalaya Samstha (ZGS) has 1,15,000; Visakhapatnam-1,20,00000, while Krishna-6,00,00000. However, the major issue is with deposition by Municipal Corporation. For example, the ZGS are next to Municipal Corporations every year to deposit library cess, and with great difficulty realise part of it. Same is the case in majority of districts. The cess amount is utilised for book collection. Staff salaries and pensions are borne by the State government.

The staff pattern is Secretary ZGS/Librarian District Central Library; Deputy Librarian; Assistant Librarian. Then there is semi professional and non–professional staff. There are vacancies in Deputy Librarian and Assistant Librarian grades in majority districts, hence, the libraries have inadequate manpower. The branch libraries are manned by semiprofessionals and part-time staff. Therefore, the major issue is inadequacy of staff.

The book selection and purchase is centralised and is taken care of by Book Selection Committee at the behest of Department of Public Libraries. To get ‘on demand’ books within 15-20 days of user’s request approximately 10 % of budget is sanctioned to ZGS. However, the grants from RRRLF for purchase of books is totally spent by the Department of Public Libraries. Therefore, there is no autonomy for ZGS/Branch libraries in collection building. In general books are classified according to DDC and catalogues are maintained.

E-Grandhalaya software is available in all district central libraries. Automation activities are at snail pace due to inadequate professional staff, hence, few of them are getting the work done through-sourcing.

All district central libraries have internet connectivity with adequate systems. They provide access to readers.

The district central libraries and branch libraries offer lending, reference, and career guidance as priority services. Web-based services are not available in any of the public libraries. In addition, there is provision to establish ‘book deposit centre’ in schools with more than 200 student strength to provide them reading beyond curriculum.

The observations of Velaga Venkatappaiah, while proposing Andhra Pradesh Publlic Library Bill 2014, for the new State of Andhra Pradesh with 13 districts reveals the real situation of public library system in A.P. He observed the following inadequacies that have a direct impact on functioning of public libraries in the State:

(i) Library cess is being collected from all house and property tax payers but library service is offered to less than 20 % of tax payers. Library cess is quite inadequate to maintain public libraries. Library cess collection system is a total failure. Linking of the growth of libraries with the library cess is a great curse.

(ii) There is demand from all quarters of tax payers in the districts for establishing public libraries as they are paying library cess.

(iii) Collection of library cess at one place and spending it in another place is not at all desirable. Library cess collected for a specific purpose in the cities like Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, etc. should not be spent in villages in the district.

(iv) Due to centralisation of book selection, books needed to the readers are not being purchased on time and users are put to great inconvenience.

(v) The existing staff never received salaries in time during the past six decades. (Now things are better than a couple of years ago)

(vi) Corporate status of the Act was not implemented so far. In practice, it is centralised.

(vii) Annual Administrative Reports of the Department of Public Libraries are not being published regularly and they are not accessible to public.

The conditions of public libraries in A.P. are not compatible to the premise of NKC (2007), i.e., promotion of ICT applications in public libraries. There are wide range of expectations on public libraries as centres of scholastic excellence but in reality they are in the backward state and significant infrastructural and attitudinal changes are required to bring out development of public library system. There is a need to revamp the libraries in terms budget, collections, staff, services, and infrastructure.

Special libraries in A.P. can be categorised as those functioning in scientific/research institutions and industrial organisations (Table 5).

National Institute of Oceanography, Visakhapatnam is credited with many research projects on ocean science research on Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean. The institution has a small collection books and access to CSIR-Consortium for e-journals. There is no separate library, hence, other parameters of the study have no validity.

It is evident from Table 5 that the research institutes under ICAR for Tobacco and Oil Palm research are maintaining libraries with one qualified Senior Technical Assistant. They have regular grants (sanctioned for plan period) that support to have collections in the specialised area of research. The libraries offer all types of traditional information services like current awareness alerts; reprography, document delivery, reference, etc. Internet access is available in the CTRI library.

The Technical Information Centre, ICAR-CMFRI does not have a library separately, hence, data was not available. The reason may be it is a regional centre hence, services may be obtained from HQrs library.

Technical Information Resource Centre, Naval Scientific and Technological Laboratory (NSTL), DRDO has regular budgetary grants that supports collection building. Further staff strength of four professionals have made it possible to implement effective services in LAN environment and library is linked to NKN. Library is operational in complete automated environment including circulation. It is evident from the analysis of TIRC, NSTL that regular budget and qualified professional librarians are the essential factors to serve scientific/research organisation and support its R&D activities.

The Technical Information Centre, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota is having a well-established library that is functioning under completely automated environment using LibSys software. However, it is difficult to get data from TIC–SDSC owing to data security reasons of the organisation.

There are eight Public Sector Undertakings in the State¹ for different industrial products. Visakhapatnam is the nerve centre for most of them as it is an industrial city. Besides there are 44 Public Sector Undertakings in A.P. managed by the Dept. of Public Enterprises, General Administration, A.P. They may be having a specialised collection of books and journals and access to the internet (Table 6).

The public sector undertakings do have libraries with collections in their specified field of work, but they are not managed by professional librarians (Table 7). In fact Bharat Heavy Plates and Vessels (BHPV, now acquired by BHEL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd., Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Rajahmundry had very good libraries with quality collection of current periodicals, standards, specifications, etc. and qualified professional librarians used to deliver high quality services that supported research and development of the organisation/industry. After retirement of the professional staff new recruitments are not initiated leading to closure of these libraries. Central Library, Training and Development Centre, RINL once had full-fledged qualified professionals with Manager rank head for the library, now functioning with single lower-cadre professional. The Hindustan Shipyard, Visakhapatnam Port Trust, National Mineral Development Corporation, Visakhapatnam did not have any librarian and the websites have not made a mention of library in the organisation.

There are a number of private-public undertakings such as IP AP Paper Mills, Rajahmundry, Coromandel Fertilizers, Visakhapatnam and there are innumerable industries in the state in the areas of steel, cement, mining, Zinc, Pharmacetical but do not library facility to the employees. The probable reason may be majority of them are production units with less focus on R&D. In the absence of library and or professional librarian, the analysis of these libraries cannot be undertaken.

Therefore, it can be construed that among special libraries, the information centres functioning under scientific organisations have libraries managed by professional librarians while the industrial libraries, with few exceptions like RINL did not establish libraries. Those that used to have good libraries are also defunct at present.

The State of Andhra Pradesh has a network of academic, public and special libraries. There are a number of factors, both external and internal that affect the operation of libraries in the State. In contemporary times their operations are encountered with external factors like rapid changes in information environment, impact of emerging technologies, changing policies and internals factors like diminishing budgetary provisions, inadequate professional staff and lack of support from the management. The study reveals that academic libraries having professional librarians have changed the work culture keeping pace with emerging digital environment; made their activities automated; procure electronic documents; provide online access to information resources. The public libraries are also moving with set goal of catching up with the developments inspite of limited finances and professionally qualified staff. However, they have to walk a long way to reach expectations of the community. Unfortunately, the special library scenario is not encouraging except in those libraries where professional staff are employed. The organisations are expected to start or revive libraries in industries as R&D activities paralyses without technical information centres.

1. Andhra Pradesh State Higher Education Council: Profile. http://www.apsche.org/profiles.html (accessed on 10 February 2015).

2. Andhra Pradesh. A.P. state portal. http://www.ap.gov.in/ (accessed on 10 February 2015).

3. CSIR – National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Visakhapatnam. http://www.nio.org/index/option/com_vacvizag/task/show/title/Visakhapatnam/tid/6/sid/28/thid/67 (accessed on 3 February 2015).

4. Department of Public Libraries, Andhra Pradesh. 2014. http://publiclibraries.ap.nic.in/zgs.aspx (accessed on 3 February 2015).

5. Govt. of Andhra Pradesh. Public Enterprises Department. List of public sector undertakings in Andhra Pradesh. 2015. http://www.ped.ap.gov.in/ (accessed on 12 February 2015).

6. ICAR Central Marine Research Institute, Regional Centre, Visakhapatnam. http://www.cmfri.org.in/about-library.html (accessed on 3 February 2015).

7. Moly, T.M. Role of college libraries in career guidance: A study of Government and autonomous colleges affiliated to Andhra University. Andhra University, April 2007. PhD Thesis.

8. Preedip Balaji & Vinit Kumar. Use of web technology in providing information services by south Indian technological universities as displayed on library web sites. Library High Tech, 2011, 29(3). www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/07378831111174431 (accessed on 27 January 2015)

9. Technical Information Centre, ICAR Indian Institute of Oil Palm Research, PedaVegi. http://www.dopr.gov.in/ (accessed on 3 February 2015)

10. Technical Information Centre, ICAR Central Tobacco Research Institute, Rajahmundry. http://www.ctri.org.in/ (accessed on 3 February 2015)

11. Wikipedia. List of public sector undertakings in India. 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_sector_undertakings_in_India (accessed on 5 February 2015)

Dr R.S.R. Varalakshmi had worked as Librarian for 11 years and as teacher for 27 years. She has published more than 100 papers in national and international journals and conference proceedings. Her research activities include: UGC-Major Research Project and guidance to 9 PhDs and 5 MPhils. Presently, she is involved in creating courseware for digital libraries using Moodle software.