After Puthur, civic body to set up three more open libraries

Buoyed by the good patronage to the open library at Puthur near Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital, Tiruchi Corporation has decided to set up three more in the city.

When the civic body set up the open library at Puthur, a novel initiative to promote reading habit among residents and mainly children, it received just a handful of readers. The trickle then grew into a steady stream.

Now, an average of 200 readers from different age groups, including school and college students, children and elders, visit it.

While a section of visitors prefer to read the available books at the library, others like to take them home. There are readers, who bring books from their personal collection and deposit them in the library so as to make them available for other readers.

Then, there are those who can be found reading even after 11 p.m. as it is open round the clock.

The good patronage has motivated the Corporation to extend the facility to the other three zones of the city.

‘Excellent response’

N. Ravichandran, Commissioner, Tiruchi Corporation, told The Hindu that the open library concept received an excellent response. Two persons manned the library round the clock. It had so far received more than 2,000 books from readers, whose number was increasing gradually.

Hence, it had been decided to establish similar libraries in Srirangam, Golden Rock and Ariyamangalam zones. Each of the libraries would be established on about 1,000 sqft area. They would come up along the roadside to attract more readers. Officials had been asked to identify locations for the open libraries.

Mr. Ravichandran said it would cost Rs. 20 lakh each for providing all infrastructure. It had been decided to digitalise both incoming and outgoing books. The new open libraries would come up within three months