The heritage structure will also get a facelift and old books will be preserved using household spices
Rare books dating back to the 16th Century will soon be available on your mobile phones as the iconic Hardayaal Municipal Public Library in Chandni Chowk is going digital to celebrate its 100 years of existence. Not only that, the heritage structure will also get a facelift.
Officials said over 17,000 Urdu books have already been uploaded for the readers, and Hindi books will find their way to the Internet soon. “The aim is to digitise the library to keep up with the times. People from different age groups come here to read. We are trying our best to provide them good facilities and at the same time, preserve the age-old literature,” said library official Sheela.
Digitisation is a lengthy and exhausting process, in which each book has to be scanned individually page by page, before being uploaded. Library officials said many books date back to as far as 16th Century and special precautions have to be taken to preserve them.
“These books are antiques, a piece of history, depicting the culture of the times. Understanding their importance, we have come up with a herbal method of preserving them, using household spices,” said an official.
The digitalisation move has received warm response from book lovers and enthusiasts.“The library has not seen any changes in the last two decades in terms of infrastructure, even though the number of books on offer has increased considerably. It is good that the library is finally getting the much needed facelift,” said Arun Arora, a regular visitor.
“There are many books here. Some are so old that we were afraid of touching them. I had a very good experience exploring the old books,” said Mohammad Imran, a school student.
Sarita Rani, a school librarian, said, “My students were very happy to get the opportunity to see the old books, hand-written manuscripts and so on. Students should visit libraries regularly, because children can grab lessons here that google cannot give.”
The current library is a British-era building, constructed over 150 years ago. Initially the building was used as an English club. It was turned into a municipal library and thrown open for the public in 1912. The library was named after freedom fighter Lala Hardayal, who was born at Chira Khana in Chandni Chowk on October 14, 1884. The idealist was also an excellent orator and a distinguished writer.
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