Prof Dr Ghani-ul-Akram Sabzwari arrives in Karachi

Pakistan News & Features Services

Prof Dr Ghani-ul-Akram Sabzwari, a venerated scholar and one of the pioneers of the profession of Library & Information Science in Pakistan, has arrived in hometown, Karachi, after having spent the last year and quarter in the United States of America (USA). 

Although approaching his 79th birthday, he has lost none of his passion for scholastic activities and he continues to lead the Library Promotion Bureau (LPB), which he had founded nearly five decades ago, with tremendous zeal and enthusiasm. 

Living upto his reputation, he convened a meeting of the bureau less than 48 hours after his arrival with a heavy agenda and quite a few significant decisions were taken in what turned out be yet another marathon session. 

He has got into motion right away with visits to a couple of public libraries and he looks set to accelerate the pace of the activities of the bureau in the coming few months during his stay in Karachi. He has already started receiving invitations to preside over various seminars and LIS-related events. 

Prof Dr Ghani-ul-Akram Sabzwari, having had a meritorious record of academic and professional career and qualifications, has a very large circle of admirers, mostly his own students who hold him in very high esteem. 

Hailed a perfect role model for the LIS professionals, he had earned the scholastic degrees of MLIS from the University of Michigan, USA, MA in Economics from the University of Karachi and PhD from Century University, USA. 

He served as Reference and Readers Advisor at the US Information Centre, Karachi, before joining the University of Karachi as an Assistant Professor where he went on to become the Chairman of the LIS department. 

He also worked at the Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Prof Dr Ghani-ul-Akram Sabzwari founded the Library Promotion Bureau (LPB) in 1966 to produce professional literature in LIS. He launched the Pakistan Library Bulltein in 1968 which was later renamed as the Pakistan Library & Information Science Journal which remains a premier quarterly journal of the country. 

Besides authoring a large number of books he is credited to have compiled the Pakistan Book Trade Directory in 1966. He relocated in the USA a few years ago but he has made a point to continue all the projects he had initiated which brings him to Pakistan regularly.