The Anantapur district library, the first digital library in the two Telugu States, had enrolled 29,000 members in five years and collected ₹9.86 crore of library cess that was pending for 22 years, said Grandhayala Samstha Chairman Ghouse Moiddin.

The Vincent Ferrer Digital Library, which has 35,000 digitised titles, would be connected to all the libraries in the district from where 49,000 members could access it, he said.

Coaching centre

Giving details about the library’s initiative of coaching aspirants for Group-I and Group-II exams, Mr. Moinuddin said faculty members from Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Anantapur had trained 250 aspirants in 54 days for both the examinations. The library provided accommodation and food to 24 to 50 women aspirants in the district. Stating that the library had 2,000 books on religion, he said the SLV Book Stall and the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam had donated several titles to it.

Moreover, Mr. Moiddin has been invited by the Telugu Association of North America (TANA) to its biannual conference from July 4 to 6. At the conference, he proposes to invite NRIs to build libraries or bear 50% of the cost of setting them up.