kolkata: The 9th year of Library Day in the state was celebrated at the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (EZCC) in Salt Lake on Wednesday.
State Mass Education Extension and Library Services Siddiqullah Choudhury on Wednesday informed that about 35000 are books have been digitised already. Also the department will provide computers to the libraries as per their need.
On Wednesday state Disaster Management and Civil Defence minister, Javed Ahmed Khan inaugurated the programme in presence of Transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty and state Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education minister Ghulam Rabbani. Khan while giving his speech, said that the libraries must be saved for the future.
However he also mentioned that several libraries are not functioning as it should be due to unavailability of adequate number of librarians.
"Several book lovers are there who still visit the libraries. I personally had requested Anup Agarwal, the Principal Secretary of the department to revamp a library in mu which was done. I like to make another request to him about looking into the matter of shortage of librarians," said Khan
Chakraborty said that from the statistics of the book fair it was found that the number of people buying books have increased significantly.
Chowdhury also informed that at present about 2.60 crore books are there in 1975 state run libraries. About 479 libraries are temporarily not functioning due to shortage of staff. However he said that very soon a recruitment drive will be held to fill up the vacancies.