Public Library

[Shaker]

Hi Ajanta Apu,

Thanx for starting a great topic. i'll write my experince all about this later.

[Russell]

Ya khoda! 100 year old books look good at museums, not at a library!

The stupid government should do something about it.

Buying new books every month and keeping the library open for 24 hours is a must.

[Shaker]

I think the idea grown up in our mind that this libraries are only piled up with old books is not true. At least not for Central library,DU. I was a full time reader of this library and it was a combination of all sort of books. I do read Humayun Azad, Sardar Fazlul Karim, Akhtaruzzaman Elias, Alauddin al Azad, Shahriar Kabir, Syed Shamsul Huq, Sunil Gangopadhay, Bani Basu, Mahasweata Devi etc. I also read Tarashankar, Mujtaba Ali, Bivutibhusan, Sharatchandra,Robindronath, Nazrul etc. So, to me it was a total collection. I must agree the process of reaching to these books are a little bit lengthy. But the thing is for the access to so many cool books, it is not at all painful or boring.

Old books gives me a thrill also. Like Ajanta apu said, i saw some books from British period. Dated like 23.01.1919. In one book, i can remember the date of issuing by someone was the year 1921!

[Ank]

Hi;

When i met my gf for the first time, who is currently my wife by the way, we used to go to the public library often..although it was a completely different theme then but it was a good place to be..for the book lovers. i don't think its grt bcos u don't get grt books there..better for those who are working on soething, may be reference books...well all these are based on my personal view..

[Shaker]

I was not much used to in public library. But i had to do some work on our Independence war. And for that i had to go through the paper archives. i was amazed to see the collection. All the important daily news papers have been kept for last fifty or sixty years. And the silence of that area was unthinkable (As that area was restricted for general users).

[Shaker]

I think our public library building is not that old as we are thinking. My idea is, it is not more than twenty five years old or may be thirty. Obviously there was a library named public library but the location of that building was different from the present one. It was in a building very close to 'Asiatic Society'. I think we all know the location of Asiatic Society. It's the very next building of Amar Ekushey Hall. In that road there is an ancient Building presently used as Tuberculosis Research centre & that is our old public library.

All this information,i came to know about was from my father. When he was a student of DU, he used to go there. And the situation in those days was not at all better than today.

One day he was reading 'Rubayat e Khaiyam' and left the book for the next day to read. But when he reached there in the next day, the book disappeared. And in those days this book was very rare. Specially the translation by Kazi Nazrul Islam. And you know when my father could finish reading this book? It was just the last year when i bought it for him from New Market. And it took for him more than thirty two years to finish a single book! Can you imagine???

I think this story represents the old days of our Public Library. And the present is all known to us.