Demand surges for e-books to prepare for competitive exams

Mangaluru: During these times of Covid and job losses, competitive and entrance exam e-books are the most sought after and accessed content on the Karnataka Digital Public Library portal, which has more than 3.7 lakh people registered on it from across the state.
Quoting the Karnataka Digital Public Library e-content usage report, Dr Sathishkumar S Hosamani, director, department of public libraries, told TOI that interestingly most content viewed was related to competitive exams. About 7,70,850 e-books and 5,30,008 videos were accessed till Monday, he said.
Out of the top 10 e-books accessed, seven books were from the competitive and entrance exams category, which was accessed more than 50,000 times. In the classics & literature category on the site, ‘Chidambara Rahasya’ and ‘Tejaswi Nanage Nimittha’ made it to the top five list, and was accessed 14, 852 times.
Raghavendra K V, deputy director, City Central Library, Mangaluru, said that traditionally the demand for Kannada books for competitive and entrance exams has always been high, especially among students and the youth. “Before the Covid-19 outbreak, at least 50 students used to spend the entire day at the library preparing for competitive exams, as the library has a huge collection of books, starting from dictionaries to self-help books. The trend of opting for competitive exams is more in Bengaluru and North Karnataka, where the number of coaching centres is also high. Since it is difficult to get hard copies of the books, as most libraries have remained closed and the KAS preliminary exams are likely to be held next week, many aspirants may have logged on to the portal,” he said, adding that the uncertainty in the private sector with regard to jobs since the Covid outbreak, may have inspired more youth to opt for government jobs.
Reethesh Amin, executive director, Royale Academy, said that due to the pandemic, the number of aspirants taking competitive exams has increased by 30%-35%. With uncertainty in the private sector, many youths are now looking to secure government jobs, mainly from a security point of view.