THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Library at the Institute of English is well knowm among students and researchers in the capital city. The library situated on the University of Kerala Senate House Campus, Palayam, is run by the English department of the university. The facility that started in late 60s is now getting a technological and infrastructural makeover. The work started in January.
The library has a total of 25,201 books which includes English as well as some important Malayalam literature research books. According to the librarian, Manjusha MR, the library has contributed abundant research material to scholars over the years.
“The library will be expanded with comfortable seating arrangement for students and researchers. The digitisation of details on books and their availability has already been done. That took almost four months and we collaborated with Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation Limited for the same,” she said. The library has a collection of former thesis works, projects, reviews of research documents and academic books.
Rare collection
The facility has many rare books, said B Hariharan, Head of the Department, Institute of English. “Abroad, university websites have provisions for researchers and students to browse the availability of specific books. We have introduced a similar system here, so students from even other countries can access our rare collection. Title of the books, authors, classifications and other details are registered on the University of Kerala website,” he said.
Students from other varsities need to submit requests with the Kerala University for accessing the library’s collection. “Apart from providing information on research-related books, our aim is to give students a space to explore their reading habits. We even have Kerala Writers Series published by Macmillan Publishing Solution, Chennai. It has monographs of many prominent writers including Madhavikutty. The book is not being printed anymore,” he said.
The library also has copies of translated literary works of Russian, Scandinavian, African, Italian, French and Portuguese authors. The university hopes that these will be a rare experience for avid readers, adds Hariharan.