In an age of instant gratification where everything is at best a mouse click away, everyone has to adapt. Now, the neighbourhood lending libraries too have been forced to dust themselves off, and change with the times.
To be able to reach more customers, these libraries have started setting up portals so that readers can choose their titles and have them delivered home. This has helped people who had given up reading for lack of access to books, new-age librarians feel.
Thrisha Palanivel had not read a single book in the past three years. Now, she has joined an online library and has two books a month delivered to her. “Using the online library service has helped me rekindle my love for reading, which had died down,” she said. Thrisha spends her time in office browsing for books she would like to read on Goodreads, and then orders it on the Easwari library website.
While some small neighbourhood libraries have set up online options, there are also a lot of new players in the game.
According to Pradeep Muthu, who started Nerd, The Library, a home-delivery library service in the city, he was hoping to encourage more people to start reading. “Most people have stopped reading books because they are not accessible. It is only a niche audience that has switched over to e-books. For the rest, rather than buying a book, being able to borrow them from the library helps them continue reading,” he said.
In the past one week, around 35 customers have signed up on Nerd. “The customers can browse through our Facebook site, find a book, and call us to order. Alternately, they can call us on 9176866883 to order a book,” he said. The team is now working on a website.
“While there are a lot of requests for preparatory books for CAT, GRE and GMAT, we have so far not ventured into that area, but we will consider starting that soon,” he added.
Kolkata-based Doorstepbooks.com, another player in the market, operates on a slightly different business model. They encourage corporate members with a variety of pricing models. “Instead of having an in-house library, many companies choose to outsource to us. We give all their employees a login and password, and they can pick the books they want,” Vikas Khandelwal, founder of Doorstepbooks.com said.
Along with the corporates, they also deliver to individual clients from across the country. “We deliver anywhere in the country within two to three working days,” he added.
Even traditional libraries are looking at the home-delivery option. Easwari Lending Library, for example, allows its members to order books through its portal — www.easwarilibrary.com. P. Satish Kumar, proprietor of Easwari Lending Library, says that while a lot of people are choosing the online option, it will not replace the experience of visiting a real library.
“The joy of discovering a new author by chance is lost when you are searching for a specific title. Instead, visiting the neighbourhood library could open the doors to a wealth of new books that you would otherwise never read,” he said.
Neighbourhood libraries set up portals from where readers can choose their titles and have
them delivered home
