BANGALORE: The City Central Library in the south zone in Jayanagar, South End Circle is housing over 50,000 books. Covering fairly a large area, as one enters, there is a reception desk to assist visitors to access facilities.
It is an ideal place for college students, as several students and youngsters appeared to be studying for exams, working on school assigments and projects.
Pravin, a student of Vijaya College said, “We come here and do combined studies, as our exams are approaching. We prefer this library over others for many reasons. Firstly, it has almost all the books we require.
Secondly,the noise from traffic is comparatively less.” Another reader, Pushpa said, “I am doing a distant course, hence, I get all the materials that I need for my studies.” The ground floor consists of reference books and the first floor is the newspaper reading area, where one get to access all the newspapers circulated in the city.
The library has sufficient number of seats for the readers.
Aruna, a student said, “Although it is crowded most of the time, space is not an issue in this library. As there is a small park in front of the library, we can always go there to do our reading.” Although the library is located near a traffic signal, there isn’t much chaos. Hence, senior citizens who love reading can use this library. As far as parking facilities are concerned, it has sufficient area for twowheeler parking.
The library is also well-equipped to tackle any emergency like fire. Superintendent of Library, Sannathaoanna said, “We have fire extinguishers to overcome any such emergency situation.” On the timings and fees charged by the library he said, “We are open from 8.30 am to 8 pm. We charge `40 for three books, which is refundable. One has to return the books on within 15 day’s time.” The library records more than 100 visits per day. There is a visitor’s log that every visitor must sign upon, before entering the library. Internet facilities are available in the Central Library of the south zone and has about 25 users per day. The south zone has over 3o branches and one mobile library.