GUWAHATI, April 23 ? The State does not have its State Central Library since the shifting of the State capital to Guwahati in the early 1970s, the condition of the district libraries in the State is not praiseworthy either. Even, among the NE States the State?s library service is poorly placed. These were the findings of a country-wide survey of the condition of State Central and District Libraries conducted by the Raja Rammohan Library Foundation (RRLF) of the Union Ministry of Culture last year. But, the State Government has no excuse left to it for saving its skin. It can not cite dearth of fund to be the cause plaguing library services in the State.
Prof Alaka Buragohain, former professor and head of the department of Library and Information Science, Gauhati University (GU), who is at present a member of the grants committee of the RRLF and also the chairperson of Assam College Librarians? Association, said that the 11th Finance Commission has already released an amount of about Rs 6 crore to form a corpus fund for the purpose at improving the library services in the State.
Moreover, the State has received an amount of Rs 15 lakh under special grant of the RRLF meant for the public library services in the NE States. Of the amount, Rs 10 lakh is meant for procuring books and Rs 5 lakh, for furniture. The amount was released in 2001-02 financial year, Prof Buragohain said. Meanwhile, with the arrangement of Central Government?s funding the network of public libraries at the panchayat levels, i.e., ? Gaon Panchayat, Zonal Panchayat and Zilla Parishad, the State Government has been freed from all the liabilities. But, what is needed today to improve the public library services in the State is the sincere effort on the part of the State Government to project the needs of the State for developing such a network in an effective manner, she said. The State has 22 district libraries, 14 subdivisional libraries, 204 rural libraries and one children?s library. The deplorable condition of the public library services in the State, however, point to the indifference of the State?s rulers towards the public libraries. The indifference is such that the State Government does not bother even to release the meagre amount of some lakhs of rupees as matching grant to facilitate the receipt of RRLF grants for the State?s library for years together, Prof Buragohain said.
Besides, it is also observed that the people in the helm of affairs are also ignorant of the nature of RRLF grants. For example, these people do not know that the RRLF grant for children?s libraries is a non-matching grant, she said. Many posts in the State?s library service are also lying vacant for several years, Smt Buragohain said, imploring speedy steps to improve the condition of public libraries in the State so as to cope pace with the changed situation. ?Our libraries should also be provided with the modern gadgets for the purpose of resource sharing with the libraries of the rest of the world. RRLF is there to provide liberal grants for he purpose,? she said. She also laid stress on the need to introduce crash courses for training the library professionals of the State so that they can effectively use the modern technology and render quality service to the library users. Prof Buragohain also called for steps to implement the Press and Registration of Books Act in the State through a gazette notification so that the books published in the State can be procured free-of-cost and thus a repository centre for preparing a language bibliography can be developed.