FYI | Reinventing the library @ One of our Senior LIS Professional has been covered in below mentioned press release

[Pralhad Jadhav]

Dear All

One of our Senior LIS Professional has been covered in below mentioned press release.

Name of LIS Professional | Arati Desai (Librarian at the Nehru Centre)

Reinventing the library

Book lovers are finding welcoming new havens around the city

Ceiling high shelves full of dusty, leather-bound tomes, stern librarians glaring at you over their spectacles if you so much as whisper in the sepulchral silence… Is that your idea of what libraries are?

How about bright, well-designed, even landscaped spaces that encourage socialization?

Sneha Vashisht, a zoology graduate student at the University of Mumbai, says she spent her last three weekends reading books, each time at a different informal reading space. “I enjoy these colourful, cozy spaces that have a garden-like ambience and a casual feel with bean bags and coffee, as opposed to dusty, damp and poorly-lit libraries.” Ms Vashisht calls these spaces “book havens” and they’re a delightful trend in a city that’s increasingly in a hurry. These new takes on libraries are designed to offer relaxation and entertainment by making reading a highly rewarding activity. There are no penalties and late fees, and nobody would raise an eyebrow if you bring that mug of coffee inside the premises.

Some will even offer you coffee. Like Leaping Windows at Versova, a 250-square-foot enclosure specialising in comic books, with a café as a plus. In Lower Parel, Trilogy’s 2100 sq ft space is a ‘curated’ library with 7500 books, a bookstore, and also a literary events space. Just Books, a library chain with outlets across the island city, and in Nerul and Thane offers, over 5 lakh books across varied genres and enables readers to use technology in the form of RFID tags to issue, return, search for and request books. The Hive in Bandra attracts the literary-minded with books, book clubs and storytelling sessions.

In Leaping Windows, readers can lounge and sip coffee as they read from a wide collection of graphic novels and comics for Rs 50 an hour, which includes Wi Fi. “Comics/ graphic novels are very expensive to buy and aren’t as widely available in India,” says Bidisha Basu, who runs the place. “As a result, the readership and awareness of comics also remains small. We wanted to give people the opportunity to read as much as they want, for a fixed price. A library was the obvious answer.”

Ahalya and Meethil Momaya, the husband and wife duo who founded Trilogy last year, say that a library has to be a warm and friendly place. Trilogy is a circulating library which is membership based, and with unlimited reading plans. The more you read, the more you gain.

Just Books has a few chairs and settees placed artfully around; members sit and browse in quiet, encouraged to treat the space as their own. It also conducts workshops, mainly for children, in creative writing, story-writing and essay-writing, which are “very popular” according to Bhanumati Ganesh, the franchise owner for the Nerul and Thane branches.

Taking a cue from these new spaces, older, established libraries, such as the one in Worli’s Nehru Centre, are changing. Arati Desai, a librarian at the Nehru Centre, says “It is time for libraries to evolve from reading spaces to social spaces, since all traditional libraries are facing the threat of decreasing footfalls, due to the increasing digital penetration in every sector. Only those libraries that can deal with this challenge will survive. We have tried to encourage community participation in our new space so that a constant stream of readers is always there.” She says she has brought in a “comfortable environment and ergonomically-designed furniture inside a beautifully landscaped reading room” that encourages people to spend time in the library.

Ishant Manekar, a chartered accountant and an independent cartoonist, enjoys working out of the Nehru Centre library on some days and heads to Trilogy on the weekends where he can sink into books from a variety of genres. “I’m not an avid reader at all and have always dreaded entering a library,” he says. “But these places are so soothing, cozy and inviting that I’ve started enjoying the company of books.”

Nehru Centre has also begun conducting workshops, book discussions, meet-the-author sessions, creative writing lectures and seminars, and has also revamped the physical space, with research cubicles for scholars separated from the general reading area, and it now has extended its ‘working’ week, staying open on alternate Saturdays. As Ms Desais says, “Today libraries are no longer about restrictions and controls.”

BOOKMARK

Trilogy: Building No 28, First Floor, Above Sanghi Motors, Raghuvanshi Mills, Lower Parel; teltrilogy.com

Just Books: Kandivli, Powai, Nerul, Thane; justbooksclc.com

Nehru Centre Library: Nehru Centre, 1st Floor, Discovery of India Building, Dr Annie Besant Road, Worli; nehru-centre.org ; phone: (+91 22) 24964676.

THE HIVE

50-A, Huma Mansion, opposite Ahmed Bakery, Chuim Village Road, Khar Danda, Khar (W).

Leaping Windows, Versova

3, Corner View, off Yari Road, opposite Bianca Towers, Versova, Andheri (W). www.leapingwindows.com

Get online

Librarywala.com This online library that launched in 2007 focuses on cost, convenience, collection, and choice and offers doorstep delivery.

Sharin Bhatti

Source | http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/reinventing-the-library/article8270616.ece

 

Regards

 

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Librarian

Khaitan & Co

 

Upcoming Event | One Day Seminar-cum-workshop on “Quick Response (QR) Code: Applications in Library Information & Science Services” on 12^thMarch, 2016 @ AIKTC New Panvel.