A parliamentary committee has raised concerns over the decrease in membership of the Delhi Public Library and recommended that the government form a virtual library through large-scale digitization of texts.
The parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture’s 328th report, ‘Action Taken by the Government on the Recommendations/ Observations of the Committee contained in its Three Hundred Tenth Report on the subject Functioning of Central Libraries in the Country,’ has stated that the Delhi Public Library has witnessed a decrease in membership in recent times, one of the reasons being the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It has come down to 1.5 lakh membership from what it was prior to coronavirus period i.e. 1.85 lakh. Being a model library created in 1951 in Asia with UNESCO’s technical, financial assistance, it should lead other libraries in country and extend all possible help in their growth. Delhi Public Library should make all out efforts to increase its membership/viewership in the interest of general public,” the report stated.
The Ministry of Culture in its reply accepted that there has been a “perceptible decline” in the membership of Delhi Public Library (DPL) during last two years.
“This was mainly due to the Covid situation and also absence of reading habit among the society. However, Delhi Public Library has been striving to increase its membership by conducting outreach activities, approaching schools/ colleges/ RWAs, distributing membership forms and waiving of membership fee,” the ministry said.
The Committee also recommended that public library system in India should be modified while keeping to mind the latest developments in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) so as to provide minimum network based services for the urban and rural populace. Libraries should be developed as Community Information Centre models and computerization of libraries should be taken up fast to upgrade them, it said.
In its reply, the culture ministry said it has already developed Indian Culture Portal where knowledge and cultural resources of various organizations of Ministry of Culture are now available in public domain on a single platform.
“This project is a part of the Prime Minister’s Digital India initiative to showcase information about the rich tangible and intangible cultural heritage of India both at home and abroad,” the ministry said.
This portal hosts documents, images, audio-video files and other data from archives, museums, academies and libraries across the nation. It has a total of about 2.5 lakh digital artefacts, with metadata. It also has more than 9 lakh bibliographic entries.
The content is presented in 19 categories, such as rare books, e-books, archives, paintings and union catalogues etc.
It also has nine categories of content, such as stories, snippets, historical cities, and forts. The portal is currently available in English and Hindi. It can be accessed through an App called Indian Culture, available on both Android phones and iPhone.
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