Training

We, Ganesh and Deepu, set off for Panamattom National Library in Kottayam on Saturday, 23 Jun 2012. It was raining heavily and Kottayam was at its scenic best with its greenery and high range drives. Panamattom is a remote village, 38 km away from Kottayam town. We took the morning train from Trivandrum to Kottayam, took a bus from there to Ponkunnam, the nearest town and then an auto-rickshaw to the library.

It is the third visit to Desaposhini Public Library from SPACE, a 75 year old library in the outskirts of the city of Kozhikode, Kerala. This time it was me, Nikhil and Indu. The library is important historically, for it had a major role in the growth of Malayalam theatre. In an age when men donned the role of female characters on stage, Desaposhini Library began staging plays which had women play the female characters. Some of the actors later became successful in cinema as well.

SPACE has been working with the public libraries of Kerala in India since 2011 with the object of strengthening their role in the digital era. One of the planned activities was to develop web content creators among the steady volunteers of the library. In the summer of 2012 (April-May), we started conducting workshops for student volunteers from three libraries in Kerala. We jointly decided the scope of the website, themes to be covered and sources of information. For a month, volunteers of the library went about collecting content for the website.

Over 212 girl students of arts and science colleges of Kerala and 40 college teachers were trained in ICT and New Media under a joint programme of SPACE and Kerala Women's Development Corporation (KSWDC) organised from January to March 2012. The workshops aimed to empower girl students in the use of ICTs by creating awareness on the potential of new media and by building their skills in using the web.

What is the role of the public libraries of Kerala in the new knowledge society? What will be their new features? SPACE initiated a series of discussions by posing these questions to a set of rural public libraries in the state. Some of the concerns expressed by libraries related to the preservation of valuable books and records in their possession, documentation of local history and engaging younger members of the public in its activities.