Shortage of staff, space retard development of State Central (Manipur)) Library

Imphal, April 27 2012: Even as concerted efforts have been made to restore the resplendency of the State Central Library from a state of almost a non-entity since it was razed to the ground seven years back, lack of staff and space for the building has posed as a hitch in speeding up the restoration efforts.

Established in 1958, the State Central Library had around 15,000 registered members before the building was reduced to cinders a few years back. The public libraries in the State suffered a setback with the burning down of the library, coupled with lack of initiative for constitution of a Library Directorate. No budgetary allocation in the planned and non-planned budget has also been made for the development of libraries, which is under the Art and Culture department. Sadly, the State Central Library has been maintained with a meagre resource from the plan and non-plan fund of the Art ana Culture department.

The State Central library has a standing structure near Thoubal Parking in Keisham pat area with several administrative sections like circulation section, reference section, journal section, binding section, technical section, processing section. Efforts have been made to add other sections like children section, senior citizen section and a section exclusively for women. However, the administration is hampered by shortage of regular staff as no replacement has been made for retired, expired and transferred staffs. It has been learnt that there are only 13 regular staff and 14 engaged and casual contract staff of the State Central Library.

Although the library is supposed to have a librarian for each section, the State Cen-tral Library has only a chief librarian, a technical librarian and two other librarians. "Due to acute shortage of regular staff, service of five engaged staff and nine casual contract staff has been roped in," an official of the State Central Library told The Sangai Express. The monthly remunerations of the non-regular staff were paid from planned fund for State Central Library while the regular staff are paid from the non-planned fund, the official said.

Purchasing of books, installation of furniture, and other maintenance could hardly be made as salaries of the engaged and casual contract staff were paid from the planned fund. Even if such was the case, the library has been maintained with a meagre amount of Rs 5 lakh annual fund, the official said. When surveyed by this reporter, it was found that all the sections of the library have congested space. It was also stunning to find that piles of books and journals scattered on the floor in the journal section in the absence of book-rack. Stating that a library should be constructed at serene place free from any kind of disturbance with fully ventilated rooms, the official rued the location of the library and the want of space inside.

It has also been noticed that the number of visitors in the journal, circulation and referrence sections has increased rapidly. It may be mentioned that the Manipur Public Library Act was enacted in 1996 and accordingly, Public Library Rules was made the same year. A District Library was established in each district of the State. In the Hill districts, respective ADC looks after the District Library. Although the libraries in each district are supposed to have a librarian, only Chandel District Library has a library at present. The Library official said that the Manipur Library Act should be implemented and a Directorate of Library be constituted in order to develop public libraries in the State.

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