Patiala Central State Library cries for attention

Gagan K Teja

Tribune News Service

Patiala, October 27

Developed on the famous Rigvedic thought “let noble thoughts come to us from all sides”, Musafir Memorial Central State Library, popularly known as Patiala Central State Library, which is one of the oldest libraries of the state, is crying for attention.

Opened in 1956 and named after the former Punjab Chief Minister and Sahitya Akademi Award winner, Giani Gurmukh Singh Musafir, the library is known for its rare collection of books.

It has more than 1,35,000 books of which over 15,000 books have archival books, besides 3,000 rare manuscripts and 100 volumes of work of Mahatma Gandhi. However, the shortage of staff members has greatly affected the upkeep of the precious books and reduced the number of daily visitors.

The dust covering the glass cabins in which the rare manuscripts are displayed clearly shows that they haven’t been cleaned since days and the art gallery of the library has more or less turned into a dump yard where different departments have kept their stuff. The two halls constructed for organising functions, too, are not in a very good shape for the lack of funds.

To top it all, the authorities have failed to make any substantial and latest additions to its collection of books in the past few years following which it has more or less reduced to a storehouse of rarities. The main addition comes in the form of books from Raja Ram Mohan Roy Library Foundation, Kolkata, under the Ministry of Culture and Affairs and some private publishers who send their books for the visitors to see.

Most of the daily visitors are students who are only interested in screening books to help them prepare for the competitive examinations or bring in their own handwritten and photostat notes to study in isolation.

Though the authorities have somehow managed to keep all its wings open, the shortage of staff and finances comes as another blow to the library, making it difficult for the authorities to keep up with the maintenance costs of the large infrastructure.

The library has eight sanctioned posts of librarians, including the post of Chief Librarian, out of which six are lying vacant. Moreover, out of five posts of restores and 14 posts of Class IV employees, as many as two and five are vacant, respectively.

Therefore, the work of upkeep of the books has fallen into the hands of the ‘chowkidars’ (security guards) who are incompetent to handle such rare collection.

When it comes to finances, the library is getting a meagre annual grant of Rs 18,000 since past three years to purchase new books and pay for newspapers and magazines following which the authorities have even discontinued the subscription of many magazines and newspapers. Chief Librarian GS Kahlon said: “The authorities are doing their best to maintain the library with whatever resources they had and no chance was being taken with the rare manuscripts. We have been time and again conveying the issue of staff crunch and we have been assured that the problem will be resolved soon”.