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conscience of the nation; and from this point of view, they should encourage individuality, variety and dissent, within a climate of tolerance;They should develop programmes of adult education in a big way and to that end, evolve a widespread network of part-time and correspondence courses;They should assist the schools in their attempts at qualitative self-improvement;They should shake off the heavy load of their early tradition which gives a prominent place to examinations and strive to improve standards all round by a symbolic development of teaching and research; and They should create at least a few centres which would be comparable to those of their type in any other part of the world and thus help to bring back the ‘centre of gravity’ of Indian academic life within the country itself.

Nalini Ranjan Sarkar has suggested that education should have a three-fold aim i.e., (I) to get a living; (ii) to live a life; and (iii) to mould the world. For thousands of years over which its history and literature extend, India more than any other country perhaps has borne in mind what many of the western nations have forgotten that an essential aim of education is to enable a man to live a fuller life. It needs now to emphasise that part of education, which is designed to help men to get a living. How rapidly and how completely it can do this will go far towards determining the part it plays in the third and final aim of education i.e., to mould the world.

Despite these bold statements; the higher education in India, which has been tailored to suit the elitist society, has seen no significant change so far. The balance is still overwhelmingly in favour of the rich and the privilege; for it is the sons of the rich who go to the best colleges and get the best attention. Thus education, specially the higher education in India, does not only help to maintain the elitist system, but being a replica of the system itself it also follows a similar mode of operation. A vital function of higher education has thus been to lead to way the unabashed carrerism as also to the goals of ugly affluence. Nevertheless, the educationists of the country are striving to replace this educational system, that has been imported to us from the former colonial power and that has proved inappropriate to our culture and social values, by the one which could contribute to the consolidation of new social structure and establish new ideologies [7] . As a result of this desire our educational pattern is being subject to close scrutiny and re-evaluation. The National Education Conference held at Sevagram on 5th October, 1972 has reset the goals of education, viz.; (I) Self-reliance, self-confidence and dignity of labour through the use of work as an integral part of educational programme; (II) a spirit of nationalism and social responsibility through involvement of students and teachers in meaningful programme of community service; and (III) inculcation of ethical and moral values and proper understanding of the essential unity of all religions.

2 Function of the University Library

Keeping in view these objectives of higher education in the country, the university library system has to shoulder onerous responsibilities. In order to achieve the objectives of university education, their activities in such a way that they may prove to be significant partners in ‘conservation