Amrutraj R Benahal

Amrutraj Ravi Benahal hails from Hubballi, Karnataka, and has more than 14 years of professional experience. He has a Bachelor of Science (Physics, Mathematics, Statistics) degree from P. C. Jabin Science College, Hubballi, followed by an MLIS from Karnataka University, Dharwad. He qualified for UGC NET for Lectureship held in December 2012 and earned a postgraduate diploma in library automation in 2016, in first class.

Prior to joining IIHS, he did his internship at Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, where he gained experience of working in an automated library environment which included answering complex queries using more than forty business and management databases, and built a strong foundation in technical processing of reading materials. Working as a project fellow at the University of Mysore, Amrutraj earned insight into the field of research. He conducted extensive literature review using LISA and compiled the required information for the research project. Working as an associate at Accenture, had given him an opportunity to work in a corporate environment. This experience helped him manage the information resource centre independently which included activities such as collection development, circulation, technical processing of reading materials, preparation of information products (new arrivals, article alerts, etc.), distribution of training materials, certificates, and collection of applications for professional certifications.

At IIHS, his responsibilities are acquisition, accessioning, budget tracking, circulation and helpdesk management, systems development and maintenance, content development, library promotion, reporting, and technical processing.

His research interests are bibliometrics, use studies, library automation, performance appraisal, OSILS, etc. He has attended many conferences, workshops, and seminars in his areas of interest such as 2nd SoFerence: A National Level Social Conference on Failures, Learning, Case Studies, Best Practices, Success Stories in LIS and related areas, 2013, Bengaluru; a two-day national level workshop on Koha, an open source library automation software at Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum, 2013; Advanced DSpace Workshop at GIPE, Pune, 2014; International Conference on Big Data and Knowledge Discovery, 2016, Indian Statistical Institute, Bengaluru; Faculty Development Programme on Research Literacy and Trends in Scholarly Communications, 2017; and the International Conference on Current Trends in Library and Information Services (ICCTLIS), 2017, Bengaluru.

He is an NCC ‘C’ (B Grade) certificate holder. He was awarded Best Performer for 2012 at Accenture India. He has been an editor and contributor of UDC translation work for Kannada language and has translated the Universal Decimal Classification from English to the Kannada language.