To carry ‘wisdom’, the most important cargo in the world, people in ancient days have used different modes of transport such as donkey-drawn trolleys to huge ships.
Mobile libraries have been an important tool to spread knowledge and meet the need for books among citizens.
City-based Sri Sarvotham Grandhalayam near Benz Circle has embarked on a similar drive.
Raavi Sarada, secretary of Andhra Pradesh Library Association (APLA) and the curator of this over 100-year-old library, launched on Tuesday a mobile library. “Coinciding with the World Literacy Day, we have launched this new facility in the city to reach out to book-lovers who find it difficult to visit libraries for various reasons,” said Ms. Sarada.
Accessibility
Through this new innovative mode, Ms. Sarada is making an attempt to provide accessibility to the book-lovers to a vast treasure of a collection of over 24,000 books in Sarvotham Grandhalayam.
“To start with, we are identifying clusters of apartments in a particular area and I am using my private car to carry a small collection of 150-200 books there. Our people stay put at the location for a couple of hours to enable residents in the vicinity to borrow books of their choice which could be returned after a week when we take our next trip to the same area,” she explained.
On Tuesday, the first load of books-laden car headed to Bhanu Towers in Thangellamudivari Street on High School Road in Patamata area. Koneru Rama, wife of Mayor Koneru Sridhar, inaugurated the event.
Passionate librarians
Movements such as this one have been associated with passionate librarians. Ms. Sarada is the daughter of the doyen of library movement in Andhra Pradesh, ‘Kalaprapoorna’ Paturi Nagabhushanam, who redefined knowledge, introduced an innovative concept of ‘boat libraries’ in 1935.
“The best part of this move, as I foresee, is that the internet won’t kill the excitement when people see books coming to their neighbourhood,” says Ms. Sarada.
Coinciding with the World Literacy Day, we have launched this new facility in the city to reach out to
booklovers who find it difficult to visit libraries
Raavi Sarada
Curator, Sri Sarvotham Grandhalayam
