With nearly seven lakh books already up on its shelves, the Anna Centenary Library (ACL) here is all set to decide on the public membership fee. A meeting in this regard is being convened on Wednesday by the Directorate of Public Libraries.
The exclusive sections for children and on Tamil literature, which were opened to the public two months ago, have become a hit with the visitors. The library receives nearly 1,200 visitors every day and 3,500 visitors during weekends, said G. Arivoli, Director of Public Libraries.
Over 2,500 periodicals from 95 countries are available and the number is expected to increase. Work on the cyber café, lounge, reading room, and the sections housing manuscripts and publications on engineering and technology, rare books, and back issues of journals is over. “It is primarily a research library and we have sourced books, keeping students and researchers in mind. Therefore, all the sections will not be accessible to all the members,” he said.
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The Directorate is planning to scrutinise every membership application. “For instance, a school student would not need access to manuscript or rare collection section, unless there is a specific reason. The librarians would help people in selecting the sections,” Mr. Arivoli added.
Work on setting up an integrated library management system, which would network all the 32 district libraries and facilitate hassle-free access to details of all the books, is nearly over. “The network system will be launched next month,” he said.