After three years of waiting, the district library in Salem has started receiving new batch of books in various titles and they are being dispatched to branch and village libraries here.
Officials at the district library said that they would be receiving about 1.8 lakh books under various funds and copies of them would be distributed to branch and village libraries here.
District Library Officer R.Gokilavani said, “currently, we are receiving books for the year 2016-17. We have received close to 30,000 books under the Raja Ram Mohan Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF) funds and we will be receiving 1.5 lakh books under the Local Library (LLA) funds.”
The officials in the library said that they received 30,000 books worth ₹1 crore under the RRRLF funds. Children books and competitive examination books were some of the titles received under the RRRLF. Under the LLA funds, the district library would be receiving 1.5 lakh books of 3,811 titles from 517 publications.
The officials said on an average, 50 copies were received under each title and they would be distributed amongst 65 branch libraries and 78 village libraries on rotational basis.
Increasing readership
To inculcate the habit of reading among school students and youth and also to increase membership, the district library has been conducting various programmes over the past few weeks.
Ms. Gokilavani said that they were targeting one lakh membership this year.
Awareness
She said that story telling sessions and reading hours were conducted to create awareness about reading among students.
The district library currently has 1.72 lakh books under various titles including 1,17,479 lakh books in Tamil, 51,772 books in English and 3,576 in Hindi.