A cane cradle awaits the visitors at the entrance of the Poothakkulam grama panchayat. Intrigued, most of them stop by to find the purpose of the ‘pusthaka thottil,’ an initiative of the authorities to revive the panchayt library.
“Our library at Kottuvankonam is more than 25 years old, but has been nearly dysfunctional for a while. The number of books is below 500 and there has been no update in the recent years. So the panchayat decided to renovate the library,” says M.K. Sreekumar, panchayat president.
Installed on Kerala Piravi Day, the cradle has received over 1,500 books in 10 days and the officials say they are looking forward to crossing the target of 5,000 soon. “Panchayat staff, people’s representatives, Kudumbashree units, and the public actively participated in the campaign by donating books. A couple of banks in the area have promised to contribute in bulk. So far the response has been great,” he adds. The Kudumbashree workers who are part of Nirmala Gramam are also involved in the campaign, “Our 36 green volunteers too will be collecting and contributing books for the library. Usually, all visitors now come back with a book. Then, the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme workers are also collecting.”
Pusthaka thottil will be at the panchayat office till November end and books of all genres will be accepted to make the collection diverse. “So far, we have received encyclopedias, poetry collections, travelogues, fiction and a good number of reference books. Since some of them come from home libraries, we also get some rare books that are otherwise unavailable.”
The panchayat also has plans to refurbish the infrastructure of the library and add an extra wing — an art centre where children in the BPL (below the poverty level) category will be given free music classes. “We need 1,000 books to get the affiliation of the Kerala State Library Council. After that, a lot of things will be taken care of. We want to transform the building to a modern library with separate sections for reference and e-learning,” he says.
