THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Hopefully, the 27,000 books donated by the British Library to the state government will be made available to members under a separate section at the State Central Library soon.
Work on entering the data related to the books onto the library software has started, library officials said. The advisory committee of the library, which is meeting shortly, will decide on the date and other formalities related to the opening of the new section.
The State Central Library had considered two proposals for incorporating the British Library books. One was to merge the books with the library collection and the second, to maintain the new books as a separate section.
This March, it will be two years since the British Library closed down after serving the reading public of Thiruvananthapuram and other parts of the State for 43 years. For more than one-and-a-half years, the books were dumped in locked rooms at the PWD Rest House here with the government failing to find a suitable building for the library.
Later, when the books were shifted to the State Central Library, more delay was in store. A proposal sprang up out of the blue that an entirely new library should be opened under KELTRON. This, apparently, has not been accepted by the government.
The British Council had donated 27,000 books and some 700 CDs to the state government following a request by Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan. Later, a legal tussle between the government and the YMCA arose over the ownership of the building that housed the British Library. Recently, the YMCA opened its own library in the building.
trivandrum@expressbuzz.com