Thursday, August 9, 2012

Library digital plan in limbo


The district central library in the Maharanipeta area in the city, the biggest library in Vizag, has more than one lakh books on various subjects and subscribes to around 30 magazines a month but the digitisation project of the library is yet to see the light of day.

The district central library in the Maharanipeta area in the city, the biggest library in Vizag, has more than one lakh books on various subjects and subscribes to around 30 magazines a month but the digitisation project of the library is yet to see the light of day. Although the library gets over 200-300 readers every day, it does not have a proper catalogue of existing books and journals.
In Visakhapatnam, the Zilla Grandhalaya Samstha runs 72 libraries including five grade-1 and 51 grade-2 libraries. Libraries in the city are not able to meet the demands of readers in providing a better environment and infrastructure facilities due to inadequate funds.
Thota Nagesh, chairman of the Zilla Grandhalaya Samstha said that they had submitted a proposal to government for digitisation work of the district central library to attract more readers in the city but the proposal has been pending for various reasons including funds crunch. At present, classification of books according to category is done only in the registers, he added.
The library cess, the main source of income, which is collected by local bodies, including the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) at the rate of 8 per cent of property tax, is not paid by local bodies to the Samstha. Nagesh said that the GVMC alone owes around Rs.18 crore towards payment of library cess. Sources said that government issued an order to ensure timely payment of library cess by local bodies through e-Seva centres, where the cess amount would be deducted from property tax paid by tax payers but the GVMC has not implemented the order.

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