ERNAKULAM: When it comes to reading, the people of Thiruvaniyoor in Ernakulam district are spoilt for choice. The quaint panchayat has 15 libraries. And these are not run-of-the-mill institutions. All of them are affiliated to the State Library Council. Thiruvaniyoor panchayat vice-president and district library council member Sheeja Viswanath says nine of them received state recognition in just one year. “We are also on the path to modernising these libraries,” she says.
As of now, Mayyil village in Kannur, which has around 40 libraries, is known to have the highest number of libraries in the state. “Thiruvaniyoor comes in second,” Sheeja points out. On the reason that led to the setting up of these 15 libraries, she says: “It all began when plans were afoot to set up a Lower Primary School in the panchayat. Even before the school was set up, nine libraries came into being.”
The man behind the move was KR Prabhakaran, who was a member of the Granthashala Nethrusangam, she says. “Prabhakaran Mash, as we call him, retired as the head of the Sanskrit department of Changanassery NSS Hindu College.”Prabhakaran says they did not have an LP school in ward four of the panchayat. “So I decided to take up the issue and work towards getting an LP school sanctioned.”
However, after the plan failed to materialise, Prabhakaran thought of setting up a library on the land that he had earmarked for the LP school. “This resulted in the setting up of a library called Bodhi Gramin Library. That was in 2017. Now, the library has around 6,000 books. It was a revolution and saw a large number of residents living in the area coming back to reading,” he says. That was the start.
“The success and the warmth with which the people of Thiruvaniyoor received the library propelled me to do the same in the other wards of the panchayat,” Prabhakaran says.
The the members of the library council in the panchayat began identifying areas that were in need of libraries and started the groundwork required to set them up in these places. He says all these libraries were not established just for the sake of setting them up.
“All of them are being maintained and handled efficiently. There are around 3,000 to 4,000 books in all the libraries. The library with the maximum number of books, around 10,000, is Changampuzha Smaraka Library. Each library is also equipped with projectors,” he says. Eight of these were affiliated to the State Library Council in 2021, adds Sheeja, the panchayat vice-president.