Chennai: The Madras Literary Society, a great heritage building, is often mistaken for an old palace. It initially functioned as a part of Fort St George College but was moved to its current location in 1906.
The library here is entirely maintained by donations, grants and members’ subscriptions and hence sustainable sources of funds are required to make the library active, says a volunteer. With one head librarian and two assistants, the library, it is safe to say, is critically under-staffed. The amount of work to be done is more than the number of hands we have, she adds.
The library is on the look-out for volunteers who can come in at least four to five times a month for a few hours to organise books, which is a large part of the work. Once the initial briefing cum training, which happens on Saturdays, is completed, volunteers are free to come in whenever they can during the library’s working hours. College students too sometimes come in to help catalogue the books.
The government needs to appoint more helping hands here, says the volunteer. “It’s difficult for a library as big as this one to run with just four permanent members when there are close to one lakh books and 400 regular members,” says the volunteer, “other libraries much smaller than this one have 50 employees!”
