A little reasoning before presenting the solution

Before I go into how we can change things, let me go a little bit into why we even need libraries. Why do we even need to encourage a love for reading, a love for knowledge.

In this day and age of television and X-box, we also have problems like ADD, ADHD and whatever other names they may come up with for a restless mind. TV and video games have had a direct impact on decreasing attention spans and giving way to a generation of fidgety, edgy children. The extreme fast moving pictures, shorter frames per seconds are moulding the children’s minds. They are thus driven to constantly seek stimuli, which also needs to be changed in quality ever so often because their distracted minds move on and get bored so quickly. Also, the media discourage active participation. So there is no interaction possible, leading to passive, one-sided bombardment of stimuli. The mind, not just turns restless, but also loses to capacity to think for itself. (I know I’m diverging, but bear with me for a moment)

Books, on the other hand, can be experienced at a pace defined by the individual reader. Books allow the reader to participate and let her imagination conjure or fill in the blanks. The ‘handicap’ of book for being a single dimensional medium, becomes its strength. Secondly, books are vast and varied. There is one to suit every mood, interest and frame of mind. The mass access to knowledge is something that should be a defining factor in the measurement of the evolution of a society. A civilized, developed nation is defined not just by its growth rate, but by the number of schools, hospitals, libraries, open community spaces that it provides to its citizens.

There may be public libraries India, but they are hardly inviting enough to create a culture of broad based reading – as in, even though a good number of people love reading, due to little access to a wide range of books, generation after generation grows up reading the same ‘classics’ many of which may be out dated, irrelevant to the present times. As a result, there is a real danger of the interest in reading waning over time.

Because books are expensive, few can afford to buy a book without a good reference/review from a known source. This results in many good books remaining unheard of or unread simply because a) book stores have no demand for them and b) no one wants to take the chance of diverting from the tried and tested.

Seeds of the idea

This has been brewing since quite some time. I have lived in the US for 8 years now. Even though the roads, the cleanliness, the orderliness, the availability of services is amazing...it is the access to the public library system that has been, to me, the most impresisve service by far.


I come from India. A land of beautiful, but complex culture. Right from early childhood I have been an avid reader [to be honest, my brother had to pester me to take to books early on. Though once I entered the wonderful world of books, I got hooked big time.] Books to a large extent mould our mind and spirit. They are a companion that open the doors of our emotion, intelligence and wisdom.
I have been at the receiving end of claims about the extensive depth and reach of Internet. The information explosion on the net has touched a lot of lives but it has its own limitations. Even the era of the Internet cannot take away the feel of turning the crisp page of the book that is sharing its tale with us.
A book is less a ‘thing’ and more a ‘culture’. I have seen the influence that easy access to books has had on my own children. They have become more aware of the earth that they are living in, have opened their eyes to fictional world that transcends the realm of reality. The unleashed creativity is finding its manifestation is many ways. As a mother, there cannot be a better joy that seeing the seeds within our children blossoming with the potential of a flower.
My last visit to India was an exploratory visit to prepare for my R2I [Return To India] endeavour. The trip evoked an overall positive feeling with regards the education, housing and other critical areas [anyone in the right mind to move back to India takes the problems associated with population, pollution and politicians as a given]. The one voyage that left me shattered though was the plight of our public libraries. I remember calling my husband back home to cry my heart out. The pain I felt was not just that of disappointment. I saw thousands of people back home deprived of something that i had come to take for granted during my life in the US .
The initial pain led to a resolve in my mind that I would not let the negativity of 'what the country has done for me' seep into me…Living in the US has certainly taught me empowerment. Can something not be done to change the situation?
(to be continued...)