Regarding pulic libraries...
vishwanath shukla
ya, this will be a very good effort from our side to our fellow
friends. But if are going to collect books in this way then it take
huge amount of time and effort. But there is a way out to this, if the
place for the establishment of the library is decided and we get the
required caretakers, then we can advertise our motive in the city clear
mentioning what is the purpose of this estblishment. And we will aks
the people of the city to come forward to voluntarily donate "QUALITY"
books for the betterment of the society and to inculcate reading habits
among the YOUNGER GENERATION.
Apart from this, if we opt for buying the books then it may cost a huge
amount of money plus maintainence .
One thing more, we can start sharing books in the name BM in our local
chapters. First we can start with ourself, surveying how many good
books do we have , and then distributing among ourselves and other
students who need them.
I think one very good idea would be to contact, big dealers,
shopkeepers and pulishing and distributing firms to donate their old
stocks.
vishwanath shukla
jai hind
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From: Mukesh Bansal
Dear Friends, Namaskar!
I would need your views on this. If BM can take up this task, it would
have
a lot of good impact on society. People do care about what IIT/IIM guys
tell
them.
I think BM (central team as well as chapters) can take up the task of
developing reading habit among Indians. There may not be two opinions
about
the usefulness of books in opening our minds, but unfortunately reading
habit has reduced a lot especially after the advent of television.
Another purpose of this task may be to develop the literature in Indian
languages. Books in Indian languages are not available everywhere,
while the
books in English language are largely available everywhere. To develop
reading habit in Indians, we have to make the books available in their
own
language (Fact: Less than 5% Indians can understand English).
One more purpose that can be fulfilled through this campaign is to
create
awareness about environmental issues, and motivate literacy campaigns.
What we can do (Raw Ideas):
1. Start a group/society affiliated to BM, that will start small
libraries
througout India.
2. Each chapter will be encouraged to start one or more libraries in
their
locality.
3. The members of libraries will spend 2-4 hours per week for
Shram-Daan to
raise money in order to purchase books for their library. Some ideas of
Shram-Daan: Develop websites in Indian languages (Using Unicode),
Prepare
paper bags with newspapers, teaching youngsters/adults - basic
literacy/mathematic/computer etc.
4. The central society may send some money to libraries if they are
indulged
in voluntary service without monetory gains.
5. All these libraries will be linked together, and will be available
on
internet. The members may search for a book in all libraries and may
raise
request for a book of his choice on internet. (This will ensure that
people
will have access to a bigger set of books - they are not limited to
their
own small library).
We may rank the libraries as per following criteria:
1. 100+ books with >90% books in Indian language - Gyan Nidhi 'K'
2. 100+ books with >50% books in Indian language - Gyan Nidhi 'Kha'
3. 100+ books with <50% books in Indian language - Gyan Nidhi 'Ga'