A place where stories come alive for children

BANGALORE: City Central Library in KH Road is housing over 1lakh books today.From Internet facilities to reference books, it has it all. However, we observed, as the library is situated in a commercial area, parking is a only concern.Assistant librarian, Rajeswari said, “Readers are parking their vehicles near the library itself since there is no other option for them.” As far as reading space is concerned, the library is selfsufficient.There is a reading room especially for children. The newspaper reading area is on the ground floor and the reference books section for competitive exams, engineering, journalism and medical exams is housed at the second floor.Children from the locality were seen engrossed in twinkle and chacha chaudhary.Eight year old Sudip, a student of Little Angle School at Wilson Garden said, “I love this library because we get different kinds of story books to read.” The library also has a well maintained Internet cafe.Arjun, in charge of the cafe said, “We charge very less as compared to cyber cafes outside —`10 per hour and `5 for half an hour.” He further added, “The cafe is extremely crowded on Sundays, as children from the locality comes here to indulge in cyber gaming.” Visitors consisted of children as well as adults.One of the interesting things that strikes us, just before the entering the reference section, is the notice board titled ‘job opportunities’ where readers looking for jobs can apply for latest openings in and around Bangalore.Gangadhar, a reader who was preparing for Competitive Exams said, “We would like the library to make more additions to competitive exams section.Books on pharmaceuticals are less.” Another reader, Suraj who is preparing for CA exams said, “I bring my text books here to read and prepare for my exams.This library has a positive environment and pin drop silence —exactly what one needs to prepare for exams.” On the other hand, Manohar, a fresher at this library said, “This is my first visit here and I would definitely like to come here again.” When City Express contacted the Deputy Director of Central Zone, Satish Kumar Hosamane, he said, “The response from the readers have been phenomenal so far.In future, we are planning to open 2-3 more cyber cafes.” He added, “ We are also adding a new section called competition centre which will contain exclusive materials for students preparing for competitive exams, which is now a part of the reference section.”