Now, Saraswathi Mahal Library at your doorstep

The library on wheels that rolled out on Saturday will go to even remote villages. Recently, the National Library Mission has allocated around Rs 3 crore for the development of the Saraswathi Mahal Library that was awarded the status of ‘Institution of National Importance’. With this allocation, officials decided to extend the reach of the library and apportioned Rs 7.50 lakh to get the mobile library. Though the primary aim was to sell publications of the library and provide access to students, the mobile library would also be used to collect manuscripts from residents. 

The mobile library would house around 1.50 lakh books on 600 topics and would be sold with a discount between 10 and 50 per cent. Books would also be lent to the public. “Initially, the mobile library would go around the town and later to rural parts. Plans are there to extend it to other districts where book exhibitions are held. This is just an initiative to promote reading habit among the people”, said District Collector Dr N Subbaiyan after flagging off the mobile library. 

So far the library has published 600 books on various topics including literature in Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Marathi and English languages, history, arts, medicine and astrology. 

These titles were mostly transcribed and translated from the manuscripts being preserved in the library and were edited by experts in the respective fields. 

“A similar collection of manuscripts from the public was held in 1970s and 80s and we could collect manuscripts in around 18,000 titles,” said, S Sudarshan, Librarian of Saraswathi Mahal.