The Directorate of Public Libraries, functioning under the School Education Department, on Friday digitally linked Connemara Public Library to 31 district central libraries across the State.
Inaugurating the ‘Networking of Public Libraries System’, Minister for School Education Thangam Thennarasu said “This is the first step towards helping people in all districts of the State get access to the world class facilities in government libraries in Chennai.”
The Directorate has created the first phase of digital linking at a cost of Rs.1.5 crore. The System would be part of the ambitious project of integrating the network using GIS (Geographical Information System) in future, said an official. The networking would make the inventory management of books easy for the Directorate. For the users, the System would help find out the availability of a title in any library which is part of the network.
The Directorate of Public Libraries would later revamp and interlink all 4,028 libraries in the State. A catalogue of the libraries with categories of district, taluk and block level would be prepared as part of the network, the official said.
Identification of 210 taluk central libraries is on and the network would eventually be linked to the Anna Centenary Library in the city, the official said. “Online readership may become a reality in future,” the official said.
