Miranda House library shows the way
Author: Vijetha S.N.
NEW DELHI: Dingy corners, zero natural lighting, dusty books -- replete with yellowing pages -- that seemed to have never left the shelves: all this pictured in a crumbling library set up all those years ago is sadly what you come to expect when you walk into almost any college library in Delhi University’s North Campus. But Miranda House is truly an exception – be it for its square footage, colour-coded books, Braille library or the multiple seating arrangements sans dust. “The total carpeted area is around 21,275 square feet, we have about one lakh books dating from the founding days in the 1940s which are being constantly rebound, we also have e-books available as well as a digital resource centre,” said college Principal Pratiba Jolly, while conducting a tour of the library building which is a stand-alone structure of mammoth proportions in a corner of the college. “The original building was in the style of the 1970s when it was built, but we recently had the red-bricks added to the outer structure to blend in with the rest of the college,” she added. Renovations are still going on at the three-floored library, with a lift in the works. Ms. Jolly explained that any construction work had to be timed in order to not inconvenience the students. Miranda House is also one of the few colleges which keeps its library open until 7-30 p.m. Almost every other college library shuts shop at 3-30 p.m. This is in addition to the department libraries which are located in different buildings. The new four-year undergraduate course which has sought to do away with text-books has also prescribed a long reading list, and even here Miranda House seemed to be one of the few colleges which seemed to be consciously making sure enough copies were available. Another factor that tipped in favour of this college’s library was the importance given to reading for pleasure. An entire section was decided to fiction and poetry, contemporary and old. There was English and Urdu, Punjabi and even Tamil. “We organise book sales where we procure books from faculty and alumni and sell them for a smaller price to students and faculty.” There are separate seating arrangements to read and reference with enough natural and artificial lighting, and most importantly a separate section for the faculty is also being renovated. The college funding is not more than the funding given by the UGC to its neighbouring colleges whose libraries are not spaces that anyone would wish to spend any time in. But as Miranda House has displayed, the other colleges too -- now flushed with funds after the OBC expansion – can easily take a leaf out of this book.
