Once upon a library

Once upon a library

Children's libraries are carrying out innovative activities to nurture readers for life.

Smitha Verma

September 8, 2019

UPDATED: September 13, 2019 12:12 IST

Once upon a library

Children at the Treasure Trove library in Gurugram.

It's not a dilapidated building where books are gathering dust under the watchful eyes of a stern librarian. Rather, the walls are painted in bright colours, books of various genres vie for attention and the librarian is someone who will not just issue you a book, but would curate the whole experience for you. These are places not run by government bodies or private corporations but in fact passionate book lovers who want children to explore books in an environment that is not just relaxed, but joyful as well.

The curators of these children's libraries are voracious readers. They are working towards fostering reading habit on a 'selfie generation' where many have long lost the love for the written word. These libraries run on donations, some opened using personal savings and some are struggling to register themselves as a not-for-profit organisation. A few offer online services. Some function as part-bookstore and part-event space; organise workshops, dance and music events, storytelling sessions and even film screenings from time to time. But what all of them have in common is a desire to see youngsters among books. And to cater to this need they are putting up several more activities in the library than just exchange of books.

The OneUp Library, for zero to 14-year-olds, is nestled in the plush neighbourhood of Vasant Vihar. The threefloor building is a bookstore and a library, started in 2017, and is proof of the sheer passion that drives Dalbir Kaur Madan in creating a child-friendly reading space. With a collection of 25,000 books, it's not unusual to see a parent read aloud to a child sitting in a corner or another one playing with blocks. It currently has 190 members, with the youngest being five-months old.

For Madan, libraries are the epicentre of learning and a place for new ideas. "Unfortunately, many schools don't pay adequate attention to innovative practices, or to make attempts to initiate kids into the world of books," rues Madan, who first set up the OneUp in Amritsar in 2011. When she moved to Delhi, it came with her.

Madan runs Book Clubs, Read Aloud programmes and an Informal Reading Assessment where the reading instruction is based on the latest research in neuroscience, developmental psychology and reading pedagogy. Members upload videos on YouTube where they talk about a book.

Madan has also started the the Bandana Sen Library Award, dedicated to her mentor, which invites nationwide entries for excellence in best practices in nurturing a learning environment. Running costs are always on the higher end and there are never enough members. "It's my third child, an elephant, who is always hungry," says Madan.

Bookworm's alley

Touted as the first children's library in Gurugram Treasure Trove is indeed a land of treasures for children. When it started in 2009, it was a concept new to people in the neighbourhood. "But I was convinced that it was the need of the hour," says Arvinda Bhatia, founder of Treasure Trove.

It was an idea that was born out of the needs of her voracious reader daughter and the son who loved solving puzzles. "In my search for a library for them, I realised none existed in this part of the city," she says. An engineer by training, she got the initial know-how of how to run a library by taking a franchiseship of children's and toys library in Maharashtra.

"After six months, that company closed but I kept my passion alive." While the initial few years demanded family savings to be pumped in, now Treasure Trove is able to sustain itself with 300 members and 10,000 titles for the 0 to 16 year age group. She conducts regular events where children's writers are invited, Sudoku sessions are popular as are thematic events. Recently, during Ganesh Chaturthi, they held activities around the festival. Her biggest concern remains floating members.

"Reading is the first thing that goes into the backburner," she rues. To keep the momentum, she has started an online library, where books are delivered at readers' doorstep. "My wish is to start Treasure Trove in other cities too. Maybe as franchises."

For the ones neglected

IT'S a children's library with the pure intent of serving the underprivileged. My Perch in Noida is a place where educational games, puzzles, art and craft paraphernalia vie for space with books for children. It is especially for those who are from the deprived background from the nearby Barola village.

"I started it five years back while I was working in a not-for-profit organisation, where I realised the vacuum that existed in their lives. So I left my job, collaborated with NGO and started this place," says 32-year-old Kamiya Dargan. The library has storytelling sessions, computer workshops, vocal music and painting classes every week. With a nominal fee of `50 for a year, children can pick and choose activity of their choice besides books, and at any given day there are around 60 kids who visit the library, which has around 300 members. She runs the library through donations. A big part of My Perch is the workshops for teenagers including mental health and sexuality classes.

Money is always less to meet costs. "Another challenge is to convince parents to send their kids. They feel this is neither a school nor are the kids earning any money from here."

A corner for young minds

Climbing up the stairs of a commercial building in a crowded marketplace, moving a level up from Subway outlet, the last thing you expect to see is a library. But the wafting smells of printed word will charm any reader into this reading nook which houses over 6,000 books ranging from classics to bestsellers and board games.

Usually it's a rare sight to see a librarian in a school to take her passion to home as well. But Suman Batra who works with DPS International School in Gurugram, opened PikkABook so she could extend her passion for reading after coming back from school too. "Children enjoy reading if they are exposed to the right kind of books from a young age," she says, when quizzed are children even reading.

Batra, a former marketing professional, picked up the skills of being a librarian from a school in Thailand where her son was enrolled a few years back. "I used to frequent my son's school library when we were living there. They saw my interest in books and offered me a job. I worked as a librarian there for four years before returning to India in 2014."

PikkaBook, which opened in 2018, runs several events ranging from book clubs, book launches, storytelling, indoor games and now even birthday parties. "It is a new concept which I started where kids in the age group of 4 to 11 can celebrate their birthday at the library. We do activities around books but no food is allowed inside," says Batra, whose library is housed in a busy shopping centre in Sector 56.

She manages to meet the running costs by lending her library premises for workshops and activities related to kids. "This is the only way to earn money for running a set-up such as this. Membership fees don't help in meeting all the needs of this place," says the 41-year-old.

the library that has outrach the century

The current view of the library. Photo: Special Arrangement

Weapons and war inventory displayed at the library. Photo: A. Shrikumar | The Hindu

The 1720 edition of the Holy Bible in Hebrew. Photo: A. Shrikumar | The Hindu

Dr. M. Davamani Christober, Principal, The American College. Photo: Special Arrangement

An inside view of the reference section of the library. Photo: Special Arrangement

Librarian Dr. N. Vasanthakumar. Photo: A. Shrikumar | The Hindu

Few of the manuscripts found in the library. Photo: Special Arrangement | The Hindu

Standing in the middle of the sprawling campus of The American College is an imposing two-storey building, the red-brick walls of which hold a century-old history. It is one of the oldest and the biggest libraries in South Tamil Nadu -- the Daniel Poor Memorial Library (DPML). With its Indo-Saracenic façade, lofty windows and stone archways, the library looks impressive yet modest. Inside its labyrinth of rooms and attics is an inseparable part of Madurai’s regal past.

Librarian Dr. N. Vasanthakumar says it took him two years to segregate, arrange, label and display the entire collection of antiques and books. “It was like a treasure hunt and we kept unravelling room after room, bundle after bundle and we still have more work to do.”

Spread over 7,200 sq.ft, the DPML houses many original palm leaf manuscripts of Tamil poems and epics, some rarest editions of famous books, decades-old Government gazettes, collections of weapons and warfare items, antique coins, brassware, idols and ancient showpieces.

Rare books

The first floor of DPML houses a rare books section, a back-volume archive of journals and magazines, a reading/reference space and a small museum. The musty smell of old paper is unmistakable inside the small dingy room where over 1,400 rare books are neatly stacked on centuries old racks made of rosewood. “Everything in this room from the books, the typewriters, chairs and tables are at least 100 years old,” says D. Aldrin Samuel Royappa, assistant librarian. Among the proud possessions of the DPML, is a 1720 edition of the Holy Bible in Hebrew. With its sepia-tinged papers, partly nibbled at the edges by louses, the book is delicate to touch. Other highlight of the collection is a century-old edition of The Mahabharata in Tamil and English.

An exclusive rack in the library displays original palm leaf manuscripts of 21 Tamil titles, totalling to over 1,500 individual inscribed leaves. The well-known manuscripts available at the library are: Grantha Suvadugal, Kathirkaamamalai, Jeevaka Chinthamani, Thiruparangundrathu Maaalai (an anthology on Thiruparankundram) and Thirupugazhal by Arunagirinathar. The museum section displays a collection of Iron swords of various shapes and sizes, maan-kombu, knives, armours, helmets and shields used in war, brass collections, wooden carvings and coins, currency notes and stamps. “We are not sure about the exact age of these antiques but they seem to belong to the medieval and colonial periods,” says Vasanthakumar.

Digitalisation

The ground floor of DPML opens to an airy reference hall which contains thousands classified under an Online Public Access Catalogue, a user-friendly search interface developed by UNESCO. The library also retains the age-old Card-catalogue that follows Deeway Decimal Classification system. The cards are arranged in a wooden box with numerous small drawers, labelled author-wise or subject-wise. For Tamil books, the library follows the Colon Classification, developed by Dr. S. R. Ranganathan, Father of Indian Library Science. “He is one among the many prestigious visitors the library had,” adds Vasanthakumar.

The DPML was one of the first libraries in South India to be digitalised as early as 1995. Keeping in line with its rich tradition, the library has also been ranked fifth in the country in terms of maximum utilisation of e-resources provided under ‘National Library and Information Services Infrastructure for Scholarly Content’, a project of UGC. In the pipeline are a talking library for visually challenged and a separate cell for competitive exam preparations.

Earn while learn

The library offers ‘earn while learn’ facilities for students who can assist in the upkeep of the library and get paid Rs.20 per hour for the service. “Students from poor backgrounds spend time in the library in shifts and earn. There are currently a dozen of them enrolled in the programme,” says Vasanthabalan, who also conducts a passport mela at the library for staff and students. Dinesh Kumar, a Chemistry student says, “I work for five hours a day, cleaning and arranging books or making entry in the registers and take home Rs.100.”

“Truly, the library has been a repository of knowledge and history. We are amazed at its rich inventory and proud that it is part of not just the college’s heritage but also the city’s legacy,” says Dr. M. Davamani Christober, the principal of The American College. The college will be holding the library’s centenary celebrations on January 8 and 9, 2016 when DPML will also be opened to public and students from other colleges from January 9 to 31.

History of DPML

The library of The American College began officially on June 28, 1915. Mr. J.A. Sunders worked as its first librarian and 5,000 books were accessioned during the first year.

The current library building was built in 1926 with a gift of 25,000 USD from Mrs. Samuel A Morman, the granddaughter of Dr. Daniel Poor, one of the founders of the American Madura Mission in 1835.

Originally it was planned as a ground floor to house 50,000 volumes but today it has a collection of over 1,50,000 books in total. A mezzanine floor was constructed in 1987 to accommodate more books.

Famous visitors to the DPML include Rabindranath Tagore, Poet Subramaniya Bharati, Khan Sahib, C. N. Annadurai, V.V. Giri and M. Karunanithi.

Books are still their best friend!

 At a time when libraries across the world are slowly turning digital, the 'physical' book has found an unlikely champion back home: the laptop-toting hi-tech crowd of Hyderabad. Contrary to popular perception, a large section of these time-pressed working professionals are trying to keep the tradition of the book reading alive and are increasingly seen making their way to private libraries located in and around their homes and offices.

Not surprisingly then, there are close to a dozen private libraries dotting the Cyberabad landscape today, each flaunting a membership of 750 to 1,000. A handful among them, in fact, has as many as 2,000 or more patrons!

Walk into these places in the evening and one is sure to return impressed with the number of adults and children walking between rows of bookshelves, checking out new books, requesting for the ones their friends recommended or simply picking them out at random to take home.

While librarians admit that their business is still recovering from the digital boom that led to the emergence of their arch nemesis e-books they claim that predictions suggesting the death of libraries are wildly exaggerated. A case in point are these city libraries, each of which witnesses around 300 books being borrowed on a daily basis, compelling them to add roughly 10,000 titles to their collection every two months. This, librarians explain, points to the existence of a significant population of readers who still prefer to read actual books than e-books.

Akhil Kamalasan, assistant marketing manager (South India) of JustBooks, a Bangalore-based chain of libraries, revealed that their book-delivery services, through which members can borrow and return books from their homes, are very popular in Hyderabad.

Librarians in the city have also identified the emergence of a new breed of readers - the millenials (born between the 1980s and early 2000s) -- many of whom spent their early years glued to television screens and who are now trying to catch up on their reading. While authors like Amish Tripathi and Chetan Bhagat are common names among this section of readers, popular series like The Hunger Games and A Song Of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin have also caught their fancy.


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