(14 Apr 2024) The Free Libraries Network (FLN), a collective of more than 250 libraries around South Asia, released a policy memo ‘The People’s National Library Policy 2024’, drawn from years of coordination and activism at the grassroots level, to bolster a movement they believe to be the foundation of the Indian Constitution’s ideals of equity and justice – on the eve of Dr BR Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. All their libraries are fiercely anti-caste, feminist and disability-friendly, and above all, free.
The memo seeks to establish a standard for what qualifies as a decent library and establish a curriculum for librarians so they can become ‘repositories for delivering constitutional rights’ instead of being ‘merely record keepers’. It also seeks to decentralise control so individual communities can decide how to start and run their local libraries, with help from union and state governments as well as bodies like the National Digital Library and Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF). It also advocates for robust data collection –according to the union government, of a total of 27,671 government-run libraries in India, only 7,836 exist outside southern states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
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