BENGALURU: The State Central Library, which will be celebrating its 100 year anniversary on September 16, has recently undergone renovation, but many visitors, especially students, lament that many of the books are outdated and need an upgrade.
This century old structure now has undergone a makeover with fresh coat of paint on its walls, refurbished wooden flooring and the leakages too have been fixed. The renovation began in March and got over a fortnight ago. The total cost was Rs 1 crore.
However, visitors feel books dealing with competitive exams are out of date. “I have been coming here for the past two years. The only change has been the painting of the place. A lots of the subject books are old. For example, books for bank recruitment and IAS entrance exams have not updated. That's why I bring my own books to study here. I am preparing for banking service recruitment exams and the latest edition available here is of 2011. Moreover, our request for inclusion of new books into the library’s collection is not considered,” said Santosh an M.Com student.
Students preparing for competitive exams also lament that lending of study material is disallowed. “We can’t take them home during exam time. We have to either take notes from these big books or take a photocopy here. The IAS syllabus has changed, but the library does not have the new edition,” said Amol, an engineering student.
When contacted about the issue, Director of the State Central Library, Satish Kumar said, “We generally update the books every year. Whenever students demand books for competitive exams such as C.A, GATE, UPSC, CAT and others, we do we send a list to the Department of Public Library, to be ordered. It ideally takes only a week to receive them,” he said.
