If Books are the powerhouses of Knowledge, then Libraries are the Power-warehouses of Knowledge

If books are the powerhouses of knowledge, then libraries are the power-warehouses of knowledge! It is with this understanding that I advocate the use of libraries in schools for students of all levels, K-12. Unfortunately, many good schools have started ignoring the importance of libraries with the false assumption that books are on their way out. Such schools have jumped to the conclusion rather too hastily, and they have discarded their valuable books.

Books continue to be read despite the fact that many bookstores have shut down in the National Capital Region of Delhi. It gives me the greatest pleasure to see my students of grade eleven, and a few of grade twelve engrossed in their books. Every time I see them engrossed in their books, I make it a point to look at what they are reading and it gives me great satisfaction to see most of them reading some of the heavy stuff, philosophical or scientific, things that I would read at a much later age.

I was pleasantly surprised to notice that students of grade eleven and twelve were reading such heavy stuff as, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, Walden or Life in Woods by Henry David Thoreau, The Essential of Rumi (a translation), and Brief Questions to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking. And if you thought no one read the classics, then I would like to tell you that you were wrong! Some of the classics that the students I met had in their hands or bags included titles like, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, Lord of The Rings, Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Amazingly enough, there were girls who were reading books that earlier only boys read. One of them was reading the book Mossad by Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal.

A few other titles that the students had in their hands were, The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfield, Matters of the Heart by Danielle Steele, The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, Yesterday I was the Moon by Noor Unnahar, Looking for Alaska by John Greene, by Pamela Erens, I am Zlatan by Zlatan Ibrahimovic. I could go on with longer list of books but then the point is not to create an encyclopaedic list of books but rather to prove to the reader that the reading habit is quite alive and kicking and that students are reading books that have deeper themes. It is when I see students reading Kahlil Gibran or even Walden that I realise that the students of grades eleventh and twelfth have moved on to the more heavy stuff, stuff that my generation would have read at the graduate or post-graduate levels!

The challenge before all schools is to keep the reading habit alive in their students by allowing students of all classes to have a library period. Reading should not be limited to the teaching of the skill of reading, it should not be limited to the formal teaching of reading skills, rather it should be provided as an opportunity to take a break from the stress of life. Students should be indulged - allowed, as it were to read for pleasure and not for knowledge, not to pass a test nor even complete a task!

Innovation and the use of technology will make the library more versatile. Introducing e-books, e-journals and reading Kiosks can help a lot, but then books will continue to be the real constituents of the library. Just yesterday I visited the OM Bookshop at one of the Malls on M.G. Road and was pleasantly surprised to see how many young people were browsing through the books. Most ended up buying books, myself included. I wonder if some of the larger bookstores might not have been hastily shut down for fear of losses in sales of books.
It is important that schools should not be hasty in shutting down their libraries or even, for that effect discard their valuable books in favour of the electronic versions. Being a birder of humble resources, I used to depend on the books provided by the school library to identify each new bird I spotted. Unfortunately, when the library went for a revamp and the books were put away I was at a loss! I was forced to buy a visual book from the bookshop a couple of weeks back. More often than not, the physical, the printed book is better than the online because you can turn to a particular page, you can match the picture of the bird with the photograph you have taken, all without the distraction of pop-up advertisements. More often than not, the information in printed books is more authentic and accurate than the information found online.
Schools need libraries and they will continue to need them, not only for the fiction books but also for the reference books, encyclopedia, help books, journals and newspapers. The ambience of the library is most suitable for students who would like to browse through books and journals for a research paper. The library is equally important for the teacher who'd like to update himself about a particular topic that he or she will be taking up in class. Libraries are definitely power-warehouses of knowledge, and thus they are an integral part of any good school!