Where a million thoughts blossomed

Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend, the paraphrased quote attributed to Mao Zedong. Nothing could describe better Pustaka Parishe held at the National College Grounds here on Sunday.

It was a bibliophile’s paradise as 10 lakh books of every conceivable genre was put together by Kannada Pustaka Pradhikara in co-ordination with Srushtri Ventures.

Many people contend that knowledge should be free. This then was the spirit at the Pustaka Parishe. The books were not for sale, but free for book lovers with no strings attached.

Bibliophiles picked up books of their choice, according to their tastes and temperament bringing alive the principles of library science as propounded by S R Ranganathan, the father of library science - Books are for use; Every reader his (or her) book; Every book its reader.

Initially the organisers had planned for one book per person but as the crowd grew in number and the demand for books went up, visitors were allowed to pick as many books as they wanted. 

From comics to books on religious discourse and novels, each one found a book of their choice. Towards evening, the best ones were already picked.

Nagaraj Navunda, founder of Srushti Ventures has been organising the book fair every year and the one this time is the fifth edition. Last year, it was organised at Netkallappa Circle with a collection of around one lakh books. 

“Many students have bought books for the purpose and have donated it to us. A few publishers also have distributed books for free. A publisher from Mysore donated 8,000 books for the fair,” said one of the organisers. A few years ago, Navunda began with just a few hundred books from his collection at home in addition to books that his friends gave away. Srushti Ventures organises the fair annually to encourage the reading habits among people.  Bureaucrat I M Vittal Murthy, who recently retired from his job, was one of the many visitors who found books of his taste at the fair. “I now have enough time to do all the reading I want to. Given a choice I would have picked up at least a dozen more books here. I feel spoilt for choice! The fair will definitely be an encouragement for youngsters.”

Read more news at: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/283772/where-million-thoughts-blossomed.html

School libraries are still about teaching students to use information efficiently and ethically

By BARBARA MILLER, The Patriot-News 

When Sue Reinaman became Northern High School librarian 18 years ago, there were CD-ROMs and a card catalog in drawers, with the beginning of digital resources. 

    

Today, her library has seven online databases, with the budget shifting toward buying more digital resources, including e-books. 

    

BARBARA MILLER, The Patriot-NewsAllyson Fea, left, and Fiona Sweeney, both freshmen, say they like to work on homework in the library at Mechanicsburg Area High School.

Still, she said the emphasis is the same. 

    

“It’s always been about teaching them how to find and use information efficiently and ethically,” Reinaman said, except in a different format. 

    

Unlike some school districts, Reinaman said no library positions were cut at Northern this year. 

    

That wasn’t the case in West Shore School District, which cut half of its 12 library positions, said Ryan Argot, district spokesman. 

    

Argot said the district is expanding its digital resources, including e-books. He said the district realigned its library program “so the individual librarians are able to assist more students this year.” There are now three librarians in each of the elementary and secondary levels.

    

“Especially at the elementary level, libraries are an important component of what schools do to ensure students read proficiently,” Argot said, adding that school library programs help students find research materials and teach Internet safety, in conjunction with regular classroom teachers. 

    

Cuts also were less severe at East Pennsboro Area School District, which eliminated one library position last year. As in many school districts, the two elementary librarians each travel to two schools, and the middle and high schools each have their own librarian, spokeswoman Katie Gouldner said. 

    

Erin Siwert, one of the elementary librarians, said the reduction does affect the amount of time students receive library instruction. When she’s not in the school, there is a clerk to make sure materials are available to teachers and students.

LIBRARIAN ROLE CHANGES

In the past, the librarian was more of a selector, protector and preserver of materials, Siwert said, sharing books and fostering a love of reading. 

    

“Today, a school library-media specialist is more of a discerning cultivator matching their patrons with the print and digital resources to meet their information needs,” she said. 

    

Computer labs are connected to the libraries in both elementary schools, Siwert said, so students can immediately apply the skills she teaches them. 

    

As students start doing research in third grade, Siwert said she sees them eagerly going to Google or other search engines to find the answers to questions. 

    

“I teach them to not always trust those search results. If they are looking for facts, they need to use reliable resources,” she said, such as online encyclopedia databases and others that the district has purchased. 

    

“It is the hub of technology — that’s definitely how we see the direction of our library,” said Capri Stiles, head librarian in Carlisle Area School District. 

    

Technology has forced librarians to “get onboard” or not be very happy with their positions, Stiles said. Carlisle hasn’t cut its library staff, but the seven buildings have been sharing three librarians for a number of years, assisted with aides. 

    

One of the current dilemmas is determining how e-books fit into a school environment. “Our district is addressing this very soon,” she said, as the district decides whether and how to allow students to bring their own electronic devices to school.

A BALANCING ACT

At the same time, Stiles sees high school students more interested in books than in the past, and more accustomed to having a Barnes & Noble-type environment in their library where people are discussing books. 

    

“We certainly don’t have lattes, but we have sections of books where discussions can take place,” she said. 

    

Books turning into movies might be generating some of the excitement, she said. “It has really inspired a lot of students to look and see what’s out there,” she said. 

    

As in most high school libraries, Stiles doesn’t have regularly scheduled classes, but collaborates with teachers to supply materials and assist students in research. 

    

Stiles said she knows that school districts have to make cuts, and added that the cost of books has risen drastically. 

    

“The trends are forcing districts to be creative in spending,” Stiles said, adding “There are other ways of accessing information that don’t cost nearly as much.” 

    

Librarians have to weigh whether it’s worth it to have an item in print form “when the same information can be accessed electronically for a fraction or free,” Stiles said. 

    

“Just as we’re seeing newspapers struggling with the competition of an online environment, I can’t imagine that Norman Rockwell picture of the man smoking a pipe reading a newspaper — is he going to have a Kindle or smartphone in his hand reading the newspaper?” Stiles said. 

    

“I see students who like to come in and browse across the shelf for a magazine that catches their eye, and sit back and relax and not have to worry about their connection going off” on their laptop, she said. 

    

In Mechanicsburg Area School District, increased commitment to the school libraries has helped make up for some state library funding cuts that cause some libraries to reduce hours and cut PowerLibrary database resources, said Kirsten Zelenky, school district library coordinator. 

    

The district has maintained four full-time librarians, and every student gets instruction in information literacy skills, Zelenky said.

LIBRARIES ARE MEDIA CENTERS

School libraries are called “information media centers,” since they offer iPads, e-book readers, DVDs and laptops, in addition to print materials. At the high school there are more than 100 titles in e-book format. 

    

“Instead of buying encyclopedia sets, libraries purchase online databases,” Zelenky said, which students can access at home as well as school. 

    

Students can collaborate online on programs like GoogleDocs, with the library using technology to foster online learning groups. 

    

The library curriculum used to be about information (reference) and literacy (books), with a librarian helping students to find a book with the facts they needed. 

    

“Today, the librarian helps by teaching a student how to develop a topic, how to narrow the search results by identifying key words, how to evaluate the results and how to give credit to the author,” she said. 

    

Information is easy to come by today, but understanding and using it is not, Zelenky said. 

    

“Students today must learn to be critical thinkers, they must understand how to approach learning as inquiry, they must develop the ethical behavior specific to the modern world,” Zelenky said. 

    

At Northern, Reinaman teaches a class for ninth-graders on research but otherwise works with classroom teachers and students on a flexible schedule, as needed. 

    

As teachers assign projects, Reinaman creates a page of resources for students to access, ranging from databases to e-books and online websites. 

    

“There’s so much information out there. We try to balance being a school library with supplying information and teaching them how to find it,” she said. 

    

Elaine Kern, president of the Pennsylvania School Libraries Association, said studies have shown that schools with strong library programs have higher test scores and better grades. Libraries not only teach students love of reading, it provides them with work skills. “It teaches them how to be critical thinkers, analyzers of information,” Kern said. 

    

PSLA is working with the state Department of Education to develop a model library curriculum, and would like to see a dedicated line item for school library funding in the state budget. 

    

The results of a new survey on 2012-13 library cuts and staffing should be available next month, along with a study correlating PSSA scores and quality of school library programs. The information will be provided to a state House education committee studying library funding. 

    

Deb Kachel, PSLA co-chairwoman of the legislative committee, said school libraries are the most economical and efficient way to centrally provide resources to teachers and students. 

    

“What we’re seeing in our state right now is a huge gap between the haves and have-nots,” Kachel said. “Wealthy parents can buy their kids e-books on Kindles and take them to the library and bookstores, and we have a huge amount of kids where the only library they ever know is a school library,” Kachel said. 

Read more news at:

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/09/school_libraries_are_still_abo.html 

The man who turned his home into a public library

By Kate McGeownBBC News, Manila

If you put all the books you own on the street outside your house, you might expect them to disappear in a trice. But one man in Manila tried it - and found that his collection grew.

Hernando Guanlao is a sprightly man in his early 60s, with one abiding passion - books.

They're his pride and joy, which is just as well because, whether he likes it or not, they seem to be taking over his house.

Guanlao, known by his nickname Nanie, has set up an informal library outside his home in central Manila, to encourage his local community to share his joy of reading.

The idea is simple. Readers can take as many books as they want, for as long as they want - even permanently. As Guanlao says: "The only rule is that there are no rules."

It's a policy you might assume would end very quickly - with Guanlao having no books at all.

But in fact, in the 12 years he's been running his library - or, in his words, his book club - he's found that his collection has grown rather than diminished, as more and more people donate to the cause.

"It seems to me that the books are speaking to me. That's why it multiplies like that," he says with a smile. "The books are telling me they want to be read… they want to be passed around."

Guanlao started his library in 2000, shortly after the death of his parents. He was looking for something to honour their memory, and that was when he hit upon the idea of promoting the reading habit he'd inherited.

"I saw my old textbooks upstairs and decided to come up with the concept of having the public use them," he says.

So he put the books - a collection of fewer than 100 - outside the door of his house to see if anyone wanted to borrow them. They did, and they brought the books back with others to add to the collection - and the library was born.

Such is the current turnover that Guanlao confesses he has no idea how many books are in his possession, but there are easily 2,000 or 3,000 on the shelves and in the boxes stacked outside his front door.

And that's before you move inside, where books are rapidly encroaching into every available space. You can hardly get into the front room, the car has long since been moved out of the garage, and books are even stacked all the way up the stairs.

Continue reading the main story

“

Start Quote

You don't do justice to these books if you put them in a cabinet or a box”

Nanie Guanlao

The library is not advertised, but somehow, every day, a steady stream of people find their way there.

On the day we visited, some shop assistants came to browse during their lunch break, a local man borrowed a weighty tome about the history of St John's Gospel, and some schoolchildren picked up some textbooks - although I noticed they were taking some fashion magazines as well.

But it's people like Celine who sustain the library. She lives down the road from Guanlao, and she arrived with two bulging bags of books - some of which she was returning, others of which she was planning to donate.

She says she loves the concept of the library, because Filipinos - certainly those who are not particularly wealthy - have limited access to books.

Guanlao gave up his job to run the library

"I haven't been to any public libraries except the national library in Manila," she says, explaining that it is quite far away - and it is not possible to borrow any books.

If she wants to buy a book, the average price is about 300 pesos (£4.50, $7), she says. Imported books - especially children's books - could easily be twice that amount.

"Considering the income here, I think parents have other priorities," she adds.

To help the poorest communities in Manila, Nanie Guanlao does not wait for them to find him - he goes to them, on his "book bike", which has a large basket piled high with books.

Continue reading the main story

Literacy in the Philippines

• The Philippines has one of the highest literacy rates in the developing world
• Approximately 93% of the population 10 years of age and older are literate
• Filipino (based on Tagalog) is the official national language, English is the language of government and instruction in education

Source: US State Department

He's also started to set his sights outside Manila. He's already given several boxes of books to a man trying to set up a similar venture in Bicol province, a 10-hour drive from Manila, and his latest plan is to help a friend who wants to start up a library in the far south of the country.

She wants to set up a "book boat", travelling around the islands of Sulu and Basilan - an area better known as a hideout for separatist rebels than for any great access to literature.

As we sat outside Nanie Guanlao's house in the midday sun, watching people browse through his collection, he tells me why he thought it was worth spending all his time - even to the point of giving up his job and surviving purely on his savings - to maintain the library.

"You don't do justice to these books if you put them in a cabinet or a box," he says.

"A book should be used and reused. It has life, it has a message.

"As a book caretaker, you become a full man."

Nanie Guanlao's story was featured on the BBC World Service programme Outlook.

Source and Courtesy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19547365

The Social Library: How Public Libraries Are Using Social Media by RICHARD MACMANUS

Like many of you, I'm connected to the Internet virtually every waking hour of my day - via computer, tablet and mobile phone. Yet I still regularly visit my local public library, in order to borrow books, CDs and DVDs. Which made me wonder: are these two worlds disconnected, or is the Social Web being integrated into our public libraries? In this fourth installment in ReadWriteWeb's Social Books series, I aim to find out!

The American Library Association (ALA) released a report earlier this year entitled The 2012 State of America’s Libraries. The report states that "Facebook and Twitter in particular have proven themselves useful tools not only in publicizing the availability of online collections, but also in building trusted relationships with users."

According to a survey conducted by the South Carolina State Library, 88% of respondents (all library workers) claimed to use Facebook in their work. Twitter was second most popular, at 46.8%.

So what are libraries using Facebook for and what does "building trusted relationships with users" mean? The ALA report elaborated:

"Social networking is used to publicize library events such as gaming nights; to alert users to additions to collections; to provide links to articles, videos, or Web content that might prove relevant or helpful to patrons; and to provide a conduit for community information. Social media also play an important role in fostering relationships with the community by allowing patrons to ask questions or provide feedback about library services."

This is precisely how my own local library, Wellington Library, uses Facebook. It's on a raft ofother social media platforms too - including Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. Wellington Library even updates its Facebook page using IFTTT, a syndication service beloved by Web geeks.

Enhanced Catalogs & Mobile Apps

But there's more that libraries can do to create a social experience for their patrons, other than being active on Facebook. LibraryThing for Libraries is a set of services offered by the companyLibraryThing. It features catalog enhancements (such as user-generated book reviews and recommendations) and a customizable mobile app called Library Anywhere.

In June, LibraryThing for Libraries had 800,000 "professionally vetted reviews." While library users could just go and get reviews and recommendations from Amazon or Goodreads, it does seem useful to have them integrated into a library's catalog.

In a discussion in Branch, Portland librarian Justin Hoenke called LibraryThing "the ultimate social reading tool for libraries." Although Sarah Houghton, Director of the San Rafael Public Library in California, cast some doubt on whether library patrons use the reviews regularly.

Reimagining The Library Book

Some libraries are experimenting not just with socializing the library catalog, but the reading process itself. New York Public Library has released an interactive website called Candide 2.0, a community annotated version of Voltaire's 1759 book called Candide. The NYPL version is described as an "experiment in public reading and communal annotation."

It'll be fascinating to track how libraries continue to bring the Social Web to their organizations. I haven't even touched on the increasing prevalence of e-books inside libraries - another trend that potentially creates a more social experience for library patrons (for example, with social book highlights).

How about you, do you still go to your local library? If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how Web technologies are being deployed by your public library.

Courtesy: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the-social-library-how-public-libraries-are-using-social-media.php

The Library: A Place to Gather

 

Bookshelves contain knowledge, but the building is a space for the community to learn from itself

By Baharak Yousefi, Vancouver Sun September 13, 2012

Libraries, such as the new Surrey Library, 'need to remain responsive to our supporters' says Baharak Yousefi.

Photograph by: Ian Smith, PNG , Vancouver Sun

I didn't grow up with books. My family didn't go to libraries. In fact, I don't come with any of the typical librarian origin stories of a childhood spent falling in love with the written word. The first library I ever visited was my school library in the eighth grade, the year my family immigrated to Canada. I went in and never left. I didn't care what they had on the shelves; I looked at every-thing. I looked because I couldn't yet read in English. A year later, I read.

Over the next few years, I made up for lost time: school libraries, public libraries, and the great big university library on top of the mountain. They held me while I grew up. They taught me history, geography, psychology, literature, politics, feminist theory, and other subjects in between. And all the while, they held me. I sat in large rooms with others and read by myself. And it is only now, years later, that I am beginning to understand the significance of public space, of "the commons," and of social consumption.

Libraries collect, preserve, and pro-vide access to knowledge and information, and it does not much matter if the shelves are real or virtual. It is by consuming books, films, music, and art that we learn to adopt a critical stance and begin to imagine a world that is different than what we know. But the most extraordinary thing about libraries, their raison d'être, goes beyond their role as collectors and access providers.

Libraries have been and must remain places where ordinary people can become aware of themselves as agents of change, and most significantly, collective agents of social change. If, as citizens, we take our role as change-makers seriously, then we must read, but also gather, listen, and do. Library shelves - whether physical or virtual - contain only a fraction of the knowledge we need to change the world.

Let us, for a moment, embrace a kind of techno-utopianism. Let us put aside the realities of class and inequitable access to technology and assume that, in the future, all British Columbians will be able to access digital copies of published books from the comfort of their homes. Even if this scenario were true, the assumption that all the knowledge that matters is written down, published, and accessible is false.

Communities are repositories of a different kind of knowledge. If libraries understand their role as stewards of this, a knowledge that has been historically disadvantaged and under-privileged, then their role in the world of ebooks and free Internet becomes abundantly clear. In an era of greater access to conventional knowledge, libraries must facilitate community engagement by providing citizens access to each other and to local communal knowledge, and seek ways to provide space and opportunities for future creation and capture of this knowledge.

A year ago, the Vancouver Foundation asked: "what is the issue of greatest concern in Metro Vancouver?" Vancouverites reported being most concerned about social isolation and disconnection. They found that "certain groups of people are struggling more than others to feel connected and engaged" and concluded that "ignoring their needs will cost our community." The Vancouver Foundation also reported an interesting statistic about library visits: 83 per cent of respondents reported visiting a local library, community, or recreation centre.

Many library users recognize libraries as one of the few remaining indoor public spaces where they can gather without having to buy something in order to stay. Time and again, in per-son and in the media, I've seen library users and citizen groups rally for their libraries.

"We love and need our libraries," they say. The generosity and goodwill is energizing.

Libraries need to remain responsive to our supporters and users who are coming through our doors, but we must also do better by those who don't see themselves reflected in our current services. Libraries must listen and better understand the needs of our communities. We must expand our role as conveners and facilitators of dialogue, joy, and social change. Our users may be coming to libraries asking for ebooks, but they are also coming to feel supported and connected, to be heard, to learn, to understand ... to be held.

Baharak Yousefi is head of the Fraser Library at SFU's Surrey Campus.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/library+place+gather/7235435/story.html#ixzz26RassauA

Time to commemorate: Historical facts about Tagore Library (Lucknow University)

Australia’s capital Canberra and Lucknow’s Tagore library (in Lucknow University) have one thing in common -- architectural design.

Walter Burley Griffin, an American, along with his wife Marion Mahony designed Canberra (after winning Canberra’s international design competition in 1911-12 and the Tagore library here.

He moved to Lucknow in 1935 and in February 1937, he succumbed to peritonitis and was buried at Nishatganj cemetery in Lucknow.

Now, on the occasion of Canberra’s centenary, Griffin’s Canberra-Lucknow contribution will be commemorated this month and it is expected that this commemoration ceremony would give this talented couple a rightful place in the history of these two magnificent capital cities.

As part of the commemoration ceremony here, a small delegation is coming to Lucknow from Australia for this purpose, according to an email to Hindustan Times by Dr David Headon, history and heritage adviser for the centenary celebrations of Canberra and adviser to senator Kate Lundy, minister for sports and multicultural affairs, Australia.

Lucknow and Canberra will also celebrate Griffin’s life through a seminar entitled “Capital Vision from the Imagine to the Real” on September 26.

The seminar is being organised by the Institute of Urban Design, India and hosted by the Faculty of Architecture, Gautam Buddh Technical University (GBTU).

As part of the ceremony, water from Lake Walter Burley Griffin will be sprinkled on his grave at Nishatganj cemetery here, says Amrita Dass, director, Institute of Career Studies.

The Lucknow University website mentions that the plan of Tagore library building was prepared by Mr Griffin, a noted architect, and was explained in detail to members of the library committee on December 10, 1935.

The model for the two-storied building was placed in the old library for students and staff to make suggestions for improvement or innovation in the plan.

However, there was inordinate delay in approving the plan. Griffin died in the meantime.

The foundation stone of the new building (present building) was laid by the then chancellor in March 1937 but the start of construction took time.

After the death of Griffin, one Mr Narwekar was assigned the responsibility for the architectural portion and supervision of the work on payment of a sum of Rs. 2,000.

The Griffins also designed the spectacular pavilions of the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) agricultural exhibition held in Lucknow in 1937.

Other important landscape architecture plans included a new campus for the University of Lucknow and a garden for its library.

The Griffins set up an architectural firm in Lucknow and “produced more than 50 projects between November 1935 and February 1937 ranging from private dwellings, gardens and public edifices to housing projects and suburban communities.”

The Bir Bhan Bhatia house is “one of the finest dwellings the couple produced anywhere.”

According to professor Christopher Vernon of the University of Western Australia, “Walter Burley Griffin grew quickly enchanted with the ‘city of gardens’,” and “likened Lucknow’s skyline to a ‘perfect Arabian night’s dream of white domes and minarets’.”

READ MORE NEWS AT:http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Lucknow/Time-to-commemorate/Article1-927954.aspx

Hard times for 19th century library of over 8,000 rare books

NEW DELHI: In the days of the Raj, when the English aristocracy travelled to India in the 18th and 19th centuries, they would often occupy themselves with books during the long sea journeys that could last over a month. Bulky tomes with heavy subjects were, evidently, a popular option. Close to 8,000 such books, donated by the British travelers, are currently housed in a corner of Chandni Chowk at the Hardayal Municipal Public Library, among the oldest in the city.

Called the "rare books collection" they include a 1677 edition of Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World and a Herodotus volume in the original Greek from 1826. But these books, like the library, are currently facing a threat. It has been four months since the library received salaries for its staff, let alone development funds. (See: 'We will have to shut down the newspaper section if we don't receive funds')

The rare books are kept under lock and key in iron vaults that are neither weather-proof, nor fire-proof. The pages of particularly brittle books are individually laminated. As for gaining access to a catalogue of these books, it necessarily involves a trek to Chandni Chowk and a classic cobwebs-in-your-hair procedure of going through physical records that will most certainly leave you with dusty fingers. The library is yet to see computerization.

Located close to the Chandni Chowk Police Station, the library has close to 1,200 members and gets about 700 visitors a day, library officials say. The library was instituted by the British in 1862, when it was called the Institute Library. In 1916 it was shifted to the current building and renamed Hardinge Municipal Public Library. It was only in 1970 that the "Hardinge" was replaced with "Hardayal". In December 1912, freedom fighter Lala Hardayalhad flung a bomb at Lord Hardinge's elephant procession. Ironically, the present building was built with contributions with influential Indian individuals and institutions of the time to commemorate Lord Hardinge's escape from that attack.

And then, even in the general stacks, history has a way of sneaking up on you. On a recent visit, TOI discovered a dust-laden, moth-eaten, yellowed copy of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Ishmael. One of the last few pages bore the inscription "Printed for the Author By WilliamClowes & Sons Limited, London and Beccles". It is an 1884 author's edition.

The building, nearly a century old, preserves the tall arches, wooden spiral staircases and tall doors. A precarious, narrow iron staircase leads to the first floor that houses books in Hindi and English. Flooded with natural light during the day, you'd need to watch your step walking on the frail, creaky, plywood floor. British books on Indian and Roman history, or books in Hindi about homoeopathy, the library has most things covered in the 1,70,000 books it houses.

The reading rooms of the library underwent a renovation two years ago. Open to all from 8 am to 10 pm, it is particularly popular for its newspapers. During the day, it is invariably populated with young students consulting their books, punching away at their calculators and scribbling in their notebooks. "This is where I prepared for my M.A. and B.Ed exams. When I became a teacher, I would send my students here," says Yashpal Arya, the honorary secretary of the library. Currently it is difficult to say whether the library will survive. Even the various memos and letters submitted to government offices by the staff bear an ominous title enquiring for the "fate" of the library. There's hardly any going by the book right now.

'We will have to shut down the newspaper section if we don't receive funds'

It has been four months since the staff of the Hardayal Municipal Public Librarywas paid its salary. With the trifurcation of the MCD earlier this year, there was initially some confusion over the jurisdiction of this library with 31 branches across the city. The Chandni Chowk region, where the central library and the head office are, falls under the North Delhi Municipal Corporation. The official NDMC budget estimate lists "Grant-in-aid toHardayal Mpl. Public Library" as Rs. 3 crore for 2012-13.

Honorary Secretary of the library Yashpal Arya says he will have to shut down the newspapers section of the library by next month if he does not receive funds. The HMPL's newspapers section that subscribes to 31 newspapers from the English, Hindi and Urdu press, is gratis and open to all. "There are so many students who have done their PhDs from here. I only have hope until the end of August. I don't know how things will function beyond that," says Arya.

The library staff submitted a memo to Chief Minister Sheila Dixit on August 3 asking for release of provisional funds for salaries and other expenses. A copy of the memo, bearing the CM's handwritten note to NDMC commissioner PK Gupta is with the TOI.

"There are some audit problems. We are looking into it," said Gupta when last contacted. Meanwhile, the staff continues to scratch their wallets. "My son just joined college. I had to take a loan to submit his fees. It has been four months! How will we run our homes?" says a senior library official from Chandni Chowk.

Read More News at:  Times of India

The Student, Libraries and Machines

Recent debates over photocopying expose the many complications that underlie the practice

What did we do when there were no photo-copiers? From my under graduate days over two decades ago, I seem to remember an economy of paucity where books, class-notes and the low cunning needed to pass examinations served as the principal currencies of knowledge. Other than a few cheap editions and reprints, most books were expensive and difficult to come by outside libraries. So we took ourselves to the reading rooms and tried to switch off the world outside for at least a couple of hours.

This is still not a bad model for the humanities, where often all that you need to do is to place a reasonably intelligent young person and a large number of books in mutual proximity . But Indian libraries are not welcoming or comfortable places, nor do they stay open beyond office hours. The mandarins responsible for higher education do not seem to realize the need of properly equipped and staffed libraries, and waste their time on footling irrelevancies. However, it is also true that we could make do with fewer books in our time, for there was a one-sizefit-all curriculum which was rarely revised. In addition, the leisurely gait of an annual system meant that there was no mad rush for study materials.

Then in the 1990s, things began to slowly change, with `option al' and `special' papers beginning to daringly raise their heads -for the first time, the research interests of the teachers started to be reflected in the curricula.

In 2003, Jadavpur University became one of the first institutes of higher learning to switch wholly to a semester system. The resultant culture shock played out differently -some departments resented it, and did a cutpaste job with their old syllabus, with disastrous consequences. Others, such as ours, dismantled the older system completely and ex tended the scope of op tional courses to cover nearly half the sylla bus. Evaluation meth ods were also chang ed, with reduced weight given to termi nal examinations, and more stress given to continuous evaluati on.

Given the wide range of new texts that were brought into the changed syllabi, ext began to become re the idea of the `set' text began to become redundant. Library acquisitions could not keep pace with the needs of both students and teachers. In a semester at JU, four courses are taught and each of the courses may have anything between half-a-dozen to a dozen texts. In a course titled `Crime Fiction' I once taught, there were nearly 30 detective novels. Which student could be expected to buy all the texts?

And which library would stock them? We had perforce to depend on borrowing, photocopying and in some cases, e-texts or pdf versions of the books. It was that or not running the course at all.

I do realize that the scenario is different with affiliating universities which do not have the luxury of rotating their syllabi or offering optionals. But at the same time, there is a need to move away from the stultifying system of teaching the same syllabus year after year and sending students scurrying to photocopy the same old stuff. Sometimes, the act of photocopying itself becomes a surrogate for study, with proportionately less time devoted to the actual task of reading the copies.

Having said which, the fuss made by the three publishers about photocopying at Delhi University has a faintly comic ring about it. The fact that they did nothing all these years indicates that it was not worth their while then to prosecute, but now the peanuts DU has to shell out as licensing fee suddenly seem to matter. Add to it that one of the trio -which specializes in publishing academic journals -is notorious for charging the most unconscionable prices to libraries worldwide and not paying a paisa to its contributors.

ABHIJIT GUPTA The author is Associate Professor of English, Jadavpur University
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