Library Mithra

“While most of us are dreaming of success, winners wake up and work hard to achieve it.” -Anonymous

University and college teaching is an inspiring, pleasing and rewarding career that provides ample opportunity to influence, manage and shape lives of hundreds of students every year. With the expansion of higher education in India, there is a great demand for well qualified and devoted teachers. As compared to others, higher education teachers enjoy a flexible and friendly learning condition which provides a genuine work/leisure balance. To be a good teacher, one must have deep passion for exchanging ideas at intellectual level. He or she must enjoy working with students enthusiastically and be ready to work hard. Creativity, patience, tact and a sense of humour also help to become a popular teacher among students. Good teachers always guide students how to explore and learn from the vast knowledge and let them free from the boundaries of classroom.

To start a career as a lecturer/ Assistant Professor in a college/ university/ prestigious institute, one must need Master’s Degree with National Eligibility Test (NET). For teaching in college or university, one can earn at least Rs. 40,000 and above depending on education, experience and city. Indian market is always in need of competent teachers. With the emergence of private/ deemed universities and Global Institutes, the demand for lecturers and professors is on an all time high.

What is NET examination?

In order to determine eligibility for lectureship and to award Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and to ensure minimum standards for the entrants in the teaching profession and research, National Eligibility Test (NET) is conducted in Humanities (including languages), Social Sciences, Forensic Science, Environmental Sciences, Computer Science and Electronic Science. This time Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on behalf of UGC is holding the National Eligibility Test (NET). This is conducted twice in a year in the months of June and December. Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) is for candidates who desire to pursue research. The JRFs are awarded to the meritorious candidates from among the candidates’ qualifying for eligibility for lectureship in the NET. JRFs are restricted to only those candidates who opt for it in their application.

System of Examination

This examination consists of three parts. Paper I examination is basically General paper with multiple choice questions. Paper II & Paper III are again of multiple choice question of the relevant subject you have chosen. There is no negative marking for both first and subject paper.

Paper I consists of General paper on Teaching and Research aptitude. This paper aims to assess your capabilities in these prime areas which are foundation for Higher education teacher. Some cognitive abilities are expected from teachers and they are tested through this paper which consists of 100 marks. It contains Objective type questions from Teaching aptitude, Research aptitude, Reading Comprehension, Communication, Mathematical and logical Reasoning, Data Interpretation, ICT, People and environment, Higher Education System- Governance, Polity and Administration. Sixty (60) multiple choice questions of two marks are set in this paper, out of which you would be required to answer any fifty (50). If you attempt more than fifty questions, the first fifty questions attempted would be evaluated. For passing NET examination, you must require 40% marks in Paper I that is at least 20 questions in this paper should be correct. If you belong to OBC (Non creamy layer)/ PWD/SC/ST class than you need 35% to pass this paper I.

Paper-II consists of 50 objective type compulsory questions based on the subject selected by the candidate out of the list of 79 areas. Each question carries 2 marks. For passing NET examination, you must require 40% marks in Paper II that is at least 20 questions in this paper should be correct. If you belong to OBC (Non creamy layer)/ PWD/SC/ST class than you need 35% to pass this paper II.

Paper-III consists of 75 objective type compulsory questions from the subject selected by the candidate. Each question carries 2 marks. For passing NET examination, you must require 50% marks in Paper III that is at least 38 questions in this paper should be correct. If you belong to OBC (Non creamy layer)/ PWD/SC/ST class than you need 40% to pass this paper III. All questions of Paper-II and Paper-III will be compulsory, covering entire syllabus (including all electives, without options). Amongst those candidates who have cleared minimum pass percentage, a merit list is prepared subject-wise and category-wise using the aggregate marks of all the three papers secured by such candidates. Top candidates (for each subject and category), from the merit list are declared NET qualified for eligibility for Assistant Professor only. A separate merit list for the award of JRF is prepared from amongst the NET qualified candidates figuring in the merit list.

Seven Success Mantra’s to crack CBSE-NET

1. Sound Planning and Preparation- NET requires concentration on the strategy to define your mission, objectives and deadlines. Benjamin Franklin rightly said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” The first and foremost step towards your success is to choose your goal honestly and sincerely. Take a bold decision and ask yourself why you want to become a teacher/ professor? Never choose NET as your ambition if there is a social circle pressure. The answer should come from the core of your heart. The next important step is to ask yourself when to start preparing and how to prepare. Preparation and background work must start by the first Semester/ Year of post graduation. Try to get comprehensive understanding about the exam process, its structure and various aspects related to the preparation.

2. Commitment – It means staying loyal to what you said or promised long after the mood you said it. For success, commitment gives you energy which fuels your drive to achieve instead of simply wishing. We all have this energy high or low. Always take the first bold step earliest which is mostly the hardest part in any mission/project. One of the fine ways is to promise yourself to get/do something nice when you succeed.

3. Zeal and Enthusiasm - Khalil Gibran once said: “ Zeal is a volcano, on the peak of which indecisiveness does not grow.” Take care that you should not attempt the NET as a trial. Your first attempt after masters ought to be the best attempt. This exam is all about the complete and deep study of the subject with lot of clarity. The exam can be performed well when you have gone through a number of references/authors and you are very strong in fundamentals with clarity.

4. Focus and concentration- For NET, you must have clarity of thought and the ability to stay focused and determined on your studies. This happens when you are aware about exactly what the Examination expects from you. Unlike your university examination, this examination is relative. You have to show better performance than other aspirants to get a final place in the merit list. This will happen when you keep your goal SMART i.e Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Research based and Time bound.

5. Time Management - Self control and proper time utilization is another important skill which makes you or breaks you. If you consider everything to be equally important and equally urgent, then you will experience more stress rather than success in your life. Lord Chesterfield rightly said, “Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination; Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”

6. Remain Healthy- In order to perform better, eat right, exercise and take right amount of sleep. If you give weight to health, you will discover secret of running stress free life and find time to relax.

7. Visualise Success- You can get anything you want if you have success instinct followed by action. Success starts with a vision. You can’t do anything that you cannot picture yourself doing. Famous psychologist Dr. Walter Scott rightly said, “Success or failure is caused more by mental attitudes than by mental capacities.”

So, your success in this examination depends on four D’s i.e Dedication, Determination, Discipline and Drill. Be ready to work tough like a sportsperson. Plan your syllabus distribution in a time period and try to work it out within your set schedule. Set weekly/monthly targets and at the end of the week, do a self appraisal or critical evaluation exercise. You may find a lot of temptation to give up the attempt in NET examination but never quit. Here you keep in mind some words of Thomas Edison’s who said, “Many of life’s failures are those people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Don’t worry, I would like to hear about your experiments and incidents while applying these mantras for your success on my email kingsekhar143@gmail.com. 

Year wise history of Henri la Fontaine and Paul Otlet

1854: Birth of Henri La Fontaine

Born into an upper class family, Henri La Fontaine (1854-1943) was a lawyer who specialized in international law. This pacifist promoted his work as a means to bring peace to the world through Belgian and international organizations, particularly through the International Peace Bureau that he would head from 1907. In 1913, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his activities. He took part in the feminist debates and participated in the creation of the Belgian League for the Rights of Women in 1892. Member of the Belgian Labour Party from its creation, he was one of Belgian’s first socialist senators in 1894. Passionate about bibliography, he founded the International Office of Bibliography with Paul Otlet in 1895.

1868: Birth of Paul Otlet

Paul Otlet (1868-1944) founded the International Office of Bibliography with Henri La Fontaine in 1895. He rapidly broadened his activities beyond bibliography and accomplished an original work in such diversified areas as bibliography, photography, schematics, encyclopaedia or documentation (dematerialization). This work, along with his renowned Traité de documentation (1934) has bestowed upon him the title of "father of modern documentation". Passionate about new innovations, he anticipated the coming of the Internet before the Second World War. Animated by pacifist and utopian ideals, he strived to build an ideal society and designed, along with such figureheads as Le Corbusier, a project for a World City.

1890: Henri La Fontaine and Paul Otlet meet in Edmond Picard’s office

Paul Otlet was at this time an intern in the offices of the renowned lawyer and writer Edmond Picard, for whom Henri La Fontaine worked as a secretary. Together, they would eventually work on the draft of case law book Les Pandectes belges and discover a common interest for bibliography.

1891 : Publication of the first bibliographic works

"Sommaire périodique des revues de droit" (Paul Otlet) and "Essai de bibliographie de la paix" (Henri La Fontaine)

1893: International Office of Sociological Bibliography

This office was created with the support of the Belgian government and under the auspices of the Société d’études sociales et politiques (Society for social and political studies) and of the Institut des sciences sociales (Institute for social sciences). Its aim consisted of collecting and filing all social science information on every support.

1895: Creation of the International Office of Bibliography

The first International Conference of Bibliography was held in Brussels and lead to the creation of the International Office of Bibliography, for which Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine will go on to develop the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC)

1900 : Paris World’s fair

The Universal Bibliographic Repertory was presented at the Paris world fair where it received a prize

1905: Publication of the first complete edition of the UDC

The first complete edition of the Universal Decimal Classification was published in the Manuel du Répertoire bibliographique universel. The UDC is a universal language developed by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine based on the Decimal Classification of American librarian Melvil Dewey, and consists in filing publication based on a number. This system underwent several developments and has been adopted by a great number of libraries throughout the world.

Construction of the Westende seaside resort

Paul Otlet proposed to develop tourism in the family estate hunting grounds in Westende. Along with architect Octave Van Rysselberghe, they created a modern seaside resort inspired by the recent theory of the garden city. This interest for architecture prefigures Paul Otlet’s projects for a world city.

Development of the concept of documentation

Recognizing that knowledge does not only come from books, Paul Otlet widened his range of action to other sources of information and became the ‘father’ of documentation. Several sections were created between 1905 and 1910 in the International Office of Bibilography to realise this idea of documentation encyclopaedia, including the Universal Repertory of Documentation, the International Institute of Photography or the International Newspaper Museum.

1906 : Invention of the microfiche

Paul Otlet and Robert Goldschmidt invented the standardized microfiche to generate documentation. The microfiche would be used to reproduce books or periodicals and newspapers. It has been used in libraries for reproduction purposes.

Otlet describes the mobile telephone

In a brochure entitled "Les aspects du livre" (The Aspects of the Book), Paul Otlet wrote: "Tomorrow, telephony will be wireless, just like telegraphy. Who can stop us from believing this? We shall witness a new transformation of the book […]. Everyone will carry, in his or her pocket, a tiny little handset that will be tuned with the turn of a screw to the wavelength adopted by each emitting centre."

1907 : Creation of Central Office of International Associations

Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine created the Central Office of International Associations in collaboration with the International Peace Bureau. This originally private institution wished to become independent from the nations and aimed at world peace.

1910: Brussels World’s Fair and creation of the International Museum

In connection with the Brussels World’s Fair and within the framework of the World Congress of International Associations, a museum exhibition was organized to allow every international organization to present its activities. This international museum then moved to the Cinquantenaire Museum, where it gathered international collections aiming at illustrating the world and its knowledge.

The World City project

The idea of a World City, an international centre for knowledge for peace, took form in the mind of Paul Otlet. This project, for which Otlet will collaborate with numerous architects, including Le Corbusier, will undergo numerous evolutions well into the thirties. The project will be envisaged in many cities, including Geneva, Brussels, or Antwerp.

Creation of the Union of International Associations

On the occasion of the World Congress for International Associations, the Central Office of International Association was renamed the Union of International Associations. This institution supported the League of Nations before the First World War and was the first private right international association to receive the official recognition of a state, in this case Belgium, in 1919.

1919 : Creation of the League of Nations

Henri La Fontaine was the Belgian delegate at the Versailles Peace Conference that marks the end of the First World War and was behind the creation of the League of Nations, an organization forecasting the creation of the United Nations Organization in 1945. He participated in the Assembly of the League of Nations from 1920 to 1922 and represented the Union of International Associations at the time of the debates around the creation of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (forefather of the Unesco), trying to make Brussels the official seat of the institution, with the World Palace as a central focal point.

1920: Opening of the World Palace

The First World War put on hold the setup of the International Museum du Palais du Cinquantenaire, which started in 1914. In 1920, the International Museum and institutions created by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine occupied approximately one hundred halls. The ensemble would be known as the World Palace or Mundaneum. In the twenties, Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine put up the Encyclopaedia Universalis Mundaneum, an illustrated encyclopaedia made up of paintings on mobile boards.

International University

In parallel to the activities of the International Institute of Bibliography, the World Palace organized various events such as conferences and congresses. The International University, part of the International Fortnight (Quinzaine internationale), was one of these.

1924 : Rubber fair at the World Palace

Some of the rooms occupied by the World Palace in the Palais du Cinquantenaire must be emptied to make place for a rubber fair. This marked the beginning of the questioning of the World Palace by the government and will eventually lead to its closure in 1934.

Creation of the association Les Amis du Palais Mondial

The association Les Amis du Palais Mondial was founded in 1924. Born from the Union of International Associations, it defined itself as a ‘centre for science, documentation, education, made up of institutes and collections’ and intended to pursue the work of the World Palace. After the death of its founders, this modest association continued the activities of the Mundaneum.

1930: The IIB becomes the International Institute of Documentation

To mark the evolution of the activities of the International Institute of Bibliography towards documentation, the IIB was re-baptised International Institute of Documentation. In 1937, this institute would be re-baptised International Federation of Documentation and continue its work until 2002.

1934: Publication of the Traité de documentation

Paul Otlet published his most renowned work, the Traité de documentation: the synthesis of his considerations on matters of bibliography, documentation and the organization of knowledge. In this book, he evoked new technologies allowing for the broadcast of knowledge (videoconference systems, telephoned book…).

Closure of the World Palace

The government decided to close down the World Palace. Although the collections were no longer accessible, the work of the IIB continued in the home of Paul Otlet.

1941: Move of the collections

During the Second World War, the Germans occupied the Palais du Cinquantenaire. The collections of the Mundaneum were moved to the Parc Léopold in the former building of the Institute of Anatomy Raoul Warocqué.

1943: Death of Henri La Fontaine

Henri La Fontaine died on 14 May 1943.

1944: Death of Paul Otlet

Upon the death of Paul Otlet, Georges Lorphèvre, one of his collaborators, continued the activities of the Mundaneum.

1975: First biography of Paul Otlet

Warden Boyd Rayward (University of Illinois) unearthed the Mundaneum archives and published Paul Otlet’s first biography, entitled "The Universe of Information: the Work of Paul Otlet for Documentation and International Organization".

1980: Dissolution of the OIB

A Royal Decree abrogated the International Office of Bibliography. The Universal Bibliographic Repertoire, property of the State, was entrusted to the State.

1998: Opening of the museum

The Mundaneum inaugurated a museum at the heart of the Art Deco building. The exhibition was staged and carried out by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters.

2012: Google and the Mundaneum announce their collaboration

Recognising its origins in the work carried out by Paul Otlet, Google decided to support the Mundaneum to honour the memory of Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, pioneers of the Internet in Europe. Information has gone around the world.

2013: The Mundaneum’s Universal Bibliographic Repertory in the "Memory of the world" Registry

From 2013, the Universal Bibliographic Repertory is among the documents and documentary collections of the Unesco Memory of the World Registry. The mission of the Memory of the World Programme consists of fcilitating the conservation of the global documentary patrimony with the most appropriate techniques, helping to ensure access to this global documentary patrimony, and encouraging acknowledgement, everywhere in the world, of the existence and the benefits of the documentary patrimony.

2016: The Mundaneum awarded the European Heritage Label

European Heritage sites are milestones in the creation of today’s Europe. The network of people and institutions created by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine has contributed to the sharing and opening of new partnerships for intercultural dialogue at European and global level, based on national or regional diversity. The Mundaneum thus symbolizes peace through culture in Europe.

Henri La Fontaine : A Noble Peace Prize Winner

      Henri La Fontaine was a bibliographer, professor of International law and senator in the Belgium legislature who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1913. Elected to the Belgium senate as a socialist, Fontaine served in the Belgium senate for over thirty six years. He was the secretary of the senate for thirteen years and a vice-president for fourteen years. Before elected to the senate, Henri was one of the leading jurists of Belgium and served the Senate as its Vice Chairman from 1919 to 1932. Throughout his career, La Fontaine remained concerned with the issues such as labor, education and foreign affairs and his major contributions to these areas include a bill on primary education and labor reform. In addition to this, he was a leading spokesman for women’s right and introduced a bill on compulsory primary education for children, but he was noted, most of all, for his policies on internationalism.

Early Life

La Fontaine was born on 22 April 1854 in Brussels. He was a student of law at the Free University of Brussels and upon completing his degree there; he registered as counsel with the Brussels Court of Appeal in 1877 at the age of 23. After receiving a doctorate in law from the Free University of Brussels, he devoted himself to the law practice and became one of the top jurists in Belgium thus beginning his journey to establishing peace in the world. In his early political career, La Fontaine founded ‘La Justice’, a socialist paper. A socialist himself, La Fontaine was elected to the Belgian senate and represented Hainaut from 1895 to 1898, Liege from 1900 to 1932 and Brabant from 1935 to till 1936. He served as the secretary of the Senate from 1907 to 1919 and as vice president from 1919 to 1921, as second vice-president from 1921 to 1922 before eventually becoming the first vice president in 1923, which he served till 1932.


Political Activities

During La Fontaine’s initial political career issues like education, labor and foreign affairs remained his prime concerns. He introduced a bill to reform primary education and proposed a bill on mine inspection in 1897 and supported the adoption of eight-hour work in a day. His efforts in foreign affairs were marked by his constant demands for mediation between the combatants of the Boer War and approval of the treaty of obligatory arbitration with Italy in 1911. La Fontaine supported the League of Nations, an economic union with Luxembourg, Locarno pacts, and disarmament to eradicate the international disputes as his initial steps towards establishing world peace. La Fontaine was a member of the Belgian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and a delegate to the First Assembly of the League of Nations in 1920- 1921 and this was the period when his support for total Internationalism became known to the world.


He joined the organized peace movement in early 1880’s, becoming the secretary-general of the Société Belge De L'arbitrage Et De La Paix in 1889. La Fontaine remained active participant in all of the peace congresses held in the next two decades. In 1907, he became the president of the International Peace Bureau, an organization he himself had founded and remained on the position until his death in 1943. No longer after being elected to a national legislature, Henri La Fontaine became a member of the Inter parliamentary Union, the organization, he viewed as an originator of a world government. Later in his life he became chairman of its Juridical Committee prior to World War I and a member of two of its important commissions.


Achievements


During 1894 to 1915, La Fontaine’s exceptional work related to Internationalism gained him respect and appreciation from across the world and The Manuel Des Lois De La Paix: Code De L'arbritrage (1894) was approved by the International Peace Congress held at Antwerp. The immense volume, Pasicrisie Internationale: Histoire Documentaire Des Arbitrages Internationaux, 1794-1900, which was published in 1902, is a reference book of 368 documents on arbitrages including agreements, rules of procedures and case decisions. As a skilled Bibliographer, La Fontaine edited the Bibliography De La Paix Et De L’arbitrage international which was published in 1904 and his another creation The Great Solution: Magnissima Charta, which contains a set of principles for organized international relations was published in 1916. His interest in bibliography led him in initiating bibliography scheme and in 1895; he established the Institute International De Bibliography which became known as the House of Documentation.


The House of Documentation was an informational retrieval scheme, where information on any published note in the world could be filed and retrieved. The House successfully operated for sometime and launched some reference work, especially bibliographies of social sciences and peace. La Fontaine founded the Union of International Association in Brussels in 1907 and was elected the secretarygeneral of the organization. The Union received the consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in 1951 and eventually with UNESCO in 1952, becoming the only organization in the world devoted to documentation, research and promotion of international organization.


Later Life and Death

La Fontaine was elected the chairman of the International Law in 1893 and served till 1940, first at the University of Nouvelle and then at the Institute des Hautes Etudes after the World War I. During his long tenure as chairman, he imparted knowledge on the international law and the evolution of the judicial structure of the world and offered lectures on different topics ranging from disarmament to the League of Nations and moral crises in the world. As a leading spokesman of women’s rights, La Fontaine played a leading role in women liberalization and emancipation. He was elected secretary of a technical school for young woman in 1878 and for a short period he also served as president of the Association for the Professional Educational of Women. A dynamic personality and a man of wide ranging culture was he, throughout his life, La Fontaine wrote extensively about mountaineering, climbing and published a number of bibliographies. He served as president of the Club Alpin Belge and published essays on status of American women, and produced a number of poetry. Henri La Fontaine died a natural death in 1943 at the age of 89

Works


Henri La Fontaine was the author of a number of legal handbooks and a documentary history of international arbitration:


· Les droits et des obligations des entrepreneurs de travaux publics (1885)


· Traité de la contrefaçon (1888)


· Pasicrisie internationale (1902)


· Bibliographie de la Paix et de l'Arbitrage (1904)


He was also founder of the review La Vie Internationale.