January 29, 2019
State Govt to abolish membership fees in its libraries
To give a further fillip to the habit of reading, the State Government has abolished membership fees for the State libraries.
Till now the facility was available to those aged below 18, which is 35 lakh; now every member will get to use libraries free of cost.
While announcing this decision, the Mass Education Extension and Library Services Department also announced the decision to increase the annual grant to libraries for buying books and journals – from Rs 10,000 to 30,000 per year to Rs 50,000 per year. This step will be implemented in stages in the about 2,000 government-run libraries.
To cover this cost, the government has allotted Rs 6 crore to the department this financial year.
Currently, the government libraries have a membership of 1.33 crore, who have access to a total of 1.8 crore books.
Another important step being taken by the State Government is the digitisation of books, of which 35,000 have been digitised, said the minister. Digitisation would enable members to access books on their computers and also books from other libraries, as there will be a central database.
Source: Bartaman
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