| A wide range of behaviour that occurs in public places may be recognized as deviance. Deviance comprises of those acts, which do not follow the norms and expectation of a particular institution or organization in a socio-cultural milieu. It refers to those activities, which do not conform to the standards prescribed for a particular social system. Deviance usually purports to those behavioural aspects, which bring general disapproval from members of the society. Any behaviour or activity in a library which do not conform to the standards of a library system is considered as deviance in libraries. The study is intended to make an intensive and exhaustive insight into the problems of deviance in academic libraries in Assam with a view to trace out the different forms of deviance, the techniques adopted by deviants, the reasons of such behaviour and their preventive measures. It is also intended to make a comparative study on deviance in different academic libraries such as university library, college library and libraries of other academic institutions. Considering the nature of activities, place of occurrences and its costs to the library, all the deviance that occur in academic libraries in Assam are categorized into eight principal categories viz. Theft of library materials; multilation of library materials; concealment and misplacement of reading materials; refusal to return of borrowed reading materials, delay in return of borrowed reading materials; deviance in the reading room, vandalism, and other types of deviances. Deviance in the reading room includes speaking in a loud voice, laughing by making sound, pulling chairs and tables by making sound, group discussion, murmuring, walking with a sound, and using of mobile phone in the library. The other types of deviance includes verbal abuse, assault, careless handlings of catalogues, eating food inside the library, careless handling of reading materials, unauthorized accessing or altering of computer system/programmes and indecent exposure in side the library. These types of behaviours destroy the conducive library environment due to which genuine users of the library are deprived of good library services who really go to library to study and access information of their needs. We may consider the deviance in libraries as serious impediment to the progress of human civilization. Many valuable and rare documents are damaged by the deviants and replacement of those not only consumers huge financial... |
