Winners of India’s first and only library awards announced!

Wiley Library Awards 2017 received 145 nominations from various institutions including IITs, IIMs, NITs, IISERs, leading medical institutes such as AIIMS, PGIMER Chandigarh and research institutions, out of which the winners included: Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur won the Digitally Transformed Academic Library Award; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai won the Digitally Transformed Research Library Award; and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali won the Aspiring Young Academic Library Award. Wiley India, a wholly owned subsidiary of John Wiley and Sons Inc. and a global leader in the publishing industry, announced the winners of the second edition of the Wiley Library Awards 2017. The awards for Digitally Transformed Academic Library, Aspiring Young Academic Library, and Digitally Transformed Research Library went to Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, respectively. The winners were determined by an independent jury comprising highly respected Library Professionals who have made groundbreaking contributions in advancing the library sciences. These included Dr. H. Anil Kumar (Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad); Dr. Medha Joshi (Tata Memorial Centre Mumbai); Dr. Ramesh C Gaur (Jawaharlal Nehru University); Dr. Suman K Malik (Central Drug Research Institute); and Dr. Tamal Kumar Guha (Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati).

Dr. K.P. Singh (Director, National Medical Library) and Central Institute of Technology, Kokrajhar (represented by Dr. Sangrang Brahma) were given the coveted Wiley Visionary Award and Wiley Library Award for Emerging Library respectively.

The Wiley Library Awards is a one of its kind initiative in India bringing together the community and honoring the best in the field of library and information sciences, encouraging innovation and digital transformation efforts, and paying tribute to the community that helps spearhead knowledge dissemination in society. This year, there were more than 145 nominations from the various leading institutions including IITs, IIMs, NITs, IISERs, along with medical and research institutions. First instituted in 2016, each award carries a citation and cash prize of INR 25,000.

Vikas Gupta, managing director, Wiley India, said, “My heartiest congratulations to all the winners of the Wiley Library Awards 2017. It is heartening to note that this year both the number and quality of nominations have grown multi-fold. We sincerely hope that the awards further nudge the library fraternity in India towards the avowed objective of advancing libraries to the next level in addition to making them even more relevant in a Google-led world.”

Winning speeches

The Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, beat out 80 other nominees to win the Digitally Transformed Academic Library Award. Dr. B. Sutradhar, on behalf of the institution said, “It has been an overwhelming experience with so much competition seen in most of the categories. Digital is the way to go in the current context and also from where we are all headed, and I am happy to know that our efforts in ensuring our library was not lagging behind but moving ahead are now recognized by my peers.”

While, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, came out tops to clinch the Aspiring Young Academic Library Award. Dr. (Mrs.) P. Visakhi, representing the Institution said, “I would like to applaud this initiative taken by Wiley in recognizing the excellence in libraries. The intent to institute a category focused on young librarians itself is laudable. It gives me immense pride in having been chosen for this honour. This only motivates us to achieve and drive ourselves more in the days and years ahead.”

Dr. R. Prabakaran, accepting the award for Digitally Transformed Research Library on behalf of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai said, “For India to be truly developed, research across disciplines is key and research libraries play an important role in this. I am pleased to note that our efforts in digitalizing our research library is now known to the fraternity at large across India. It only spurs us to do more to aid research efforts in India.”