Going through the 3 points written on the blog, I picked two things which could be adopted by public libraries in India.
If I’m not wrong, there has been a steady decline of library membership in public libraries across our country. The reasons is evident – the rise of information in digital forms, wiki’s and digital libraries, etc.This means fewer footfalls in public or community libraries.
I’m not sure about the activities undertaken in public libraries, but I’m sure that most libraries have fewer resources or leadership to take it forward. In many cases, they don’t know how to go about it. So, based on what I understood on the Grammerly blog, here are few points:
1) Start quarterly essay competition in these libraries. It should be held for school level, college level and one which is open to people of all ages. I feel a successful event can draw people living in the locality to visit the library, spend some time interacting with people, participate and in this way get familiarized with the activities of the library. To make this happen, someone should take imitative to get sponsorship, get well know writers in the locality to evaluate, and organize it systematically. During the event, organizers should take effort to collect the date of each person so that it can used subsequently for sending SMS reminders or sending email newsletter, etc.
2) Start a used book festival on every second Saturday of the month. A hall should be arranged where people can bring their used books and do barter or sell the books, magazines, etc. Again, it’s intended to engage people and develop reading habit in the locality.
I’m not sure how many libraries are taking this initiative. I bet, it could be one of the ways to foster reading habit, bring young people to its premises, and bring more meaning to the library.
P.S: Keep a notice board where people can post ads for article writers, or content writers for web project.
Flossy Ideas, Meetups and Views 