Chennai: Operating quietly amid bustling streets of Pazhavanthangal railway station is the District Library. As the sun downs and vehicle honks paint the typical neighbourhood picture, readers walk into the library located to pick a book and spend their leisure.
While the facility has been in place since 16 December, 1970, it was shifted to Nehru Government Boys’ School in 2014. Following which, the library has been given a new lease of life and relocated to the same place where it was originally set-up over four decades ago.
The new building was inaugurated by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on 29 November via video conference. Since then, the facility has been functional at Kumaran Street.
“Back in 1970s, it was just a small place, later a building was constructed in 1987. After a few years, it was in a dilapidated condition and then it was moved into Nehru School,” says a source.
Readers’ Circle, comprising of regular visitors of the library, conduct activities for children and has been functioning for about 20 years now. However, the facility lost many readers and activities were stalled when it was moved to the educational institution owing several reasons.
Readers’ Circle president P Mailavelan states, “The space was a huge constrain and we struggled even to arrange books and so naturally we were not able to organise events.”
Now that it has been renovated, District Library officials and Mailavelan feel that it would gain the lost readership.
The reading facility has 35,458 books of various genres in English and Tamil and residents can avail membership by submitting an address proof. The prescribed fee for availing cards are – Rs 30, Rs 60 and Rs 60 for lending one, two and three books, respectively. The membership should be renewed by paying Rs 10 annually.
The Readers’ Circle community is on a mission to increase the membership. “Besides creating awareness about the existence of the library, we are going to campaign in schools and get students registered as members and bear the membership charges,” Mailavelan says.
In the months to come, the circle plans to organise events like oratorical and creative writing competitions every month.
“For youngsters, we are mulling over ways to have coaching sessions for exams as there are plenty of competitive books available in the library,” he adds.
Asked about donating books, he says that permission will be sought from the district authority if a resident is willing to give good books and not school texts or the ones that s/he wants to discard.
As the facility was recently inaugurated, volunteers are also invited to sort and arrange the books. The library is functional from 8 am to 11 am and 4 pm to 7 pm and remains closed on Fridays, second Saturdays and on government holidays.