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The Starting of a Mobile Library -by Ravi Aluganti
We recently started a mobile library for twenty government schools around Madanapalle, where I have been working with the children for the past two years. The children in these schools have been learning Maths, Environmental Studies and Languages by doing various hands on activities, which also included a lot of Art and Craft. The children and myself seemed to be enjoying while learning, so we were happy with the alternative learning approach. But how did we got into the idea of reading books is an interesting story. Reading books by many people is considered boring and out-dated, especially with the coming of cable TV into every village.
In April last year, an Asha volunteer sent a large carton of books for our project. It was a very good selection of children's books. I started to carry some of these books in a bag along with me to the schools during my visits and casually displayed them. In the beginning children did not show much interest in the books. Probably this was because they have had no access to any other printed material other than their text books. Gradually over a period of time to my surprise I found that some children started picking them up and reading! This was very encouraging. I started to carry more books. Reading also became an important activity during my visits. Many were still not interested in books, we had to help such non-readers by giving them books with lots of pictures, telling them stories and getting them to enact stories from the books and so on. This little bit of help from us was all that was required to make them love books.
Children have to experience the pleasures of reading. Reading skills will help both the children and the teachers. Reading books will help in enriching and enlightening ones learning. Sometimes they might be guided to select relevant information and material this helps the children do well in their regular studies. Reading as a skill will also help in self-learning; there is no doubt that reading builds life long skills. And for this to happen, we had to bring children and books together successfully. The 'little library', which was on my backpack was transformed into a full-fledged mobile library by December 2003. Right now we have more than two thousand books in Telugu and about hundred books in English. To get this collection we had to do a lot of research and searches in many bookshops. It was providence that there was a Book Fair at Hyderabad recently. We were able to buy most of the books from here otherwise one can imagine how much of hunting we would have had to do. The next purchase will not be so difficult; we will have to just note down the most tattered books, to know which are the well-read books.
I would like to quote the Director of MORE who spoke at the inauguration of the Mobile Library, "I have seen many libraries from municipal libraries to university libraries, the common factor is dust... the Mobile Library will be different it will go to where the readers are". Yes, we know where the potential readers are and we need to provide them with the right kind of reading material. Another significant factor about the Mobile Library is that comparatively a small collection of books is circulated to many schools covering a large area and many children. This is contrary to having a library in a fixed place which is accessible to only a limited number of readers.
Functioning of the Mobile Library has now been streamlined. We have issue registers for all the schools. A particular day is fixed for each school. On a typical day the library teacher goes with the mobile library to the scheduled school by 9 am. She first meets the schoolteacher to fix up the day's a program. The library includes two trunks of selected books, tarpaulin, audiocassettes and issue register. The tarpaulin will be spread out under a tree, verandah or in a classroom and the books are displayed on it. Classes will be paired keeping in mind the children's reading levels; first Class One and Two come to the library. They either listen to a story told by or read by the teacher. Sometimes they listen to the audio tapes while following the text in the book. After several rounds (visits) the children are encouraged to tell stories or enact a story. Then the children are asked to browse through the books and encouraged to read simple books. We have not yet started to issue books to children of classes One and Two. We are still skeptical about them taking care of the book for a whole week!
Next the children of Class Three and Class Four come to the library. They return the books issued during the previous round. Children are asked to talk about the books they have read without disclosing the climax. This encourages other children to pick up good books. Some children are guided in reading and selection of books. Books, which are graded according to the vocabulary and reading levels, are issued to the children. Then the children of the next classes come to the library. These children apart from reading general books, are also guided in using reference books such as encyclopedia, dictionary and atlas. The children are encouraged to write book reviews and read them out at the school assembly. Before they go back to their classes they return the books borrowed during the previous round and get new ones. After the library session is over the books are packed into the trunk boxes and post lunch the library moves to the next school.
This is the story of how a Mobile Library came into being.
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