The "Youngest Librarian" believes "reading should be free for all": A 12-year-old girl from Kochi, Kerla runs free library service
Name - Yashoda D Shenoy
Age- 12 year-old (class 7 student from TD High School, Kochi)
Place - Kochi, Kerla
Famous for - Operates the free "Yashoda's library"
- 'Yahsoda's Library' has 3500 books and currently has 110 members
- Collection of books in English, Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Konkani and Sanskrit.
- Opens every day, from 9 am to 7 pm.
"My library contains over 2,500 books in Malayalam language and about
1,000 in English. This library is free for everyone, with no membership
charges and no fine charges in case of delay in returning books," says
Yashoda.
Yashoda learned about library dues and
decided to start a free library after she thought about the poor who
would not be able to access books to read. A deep love for books and reading has prompted a 12-year-old from
Kochi to set up and run a free library in the Kerala city and lay claim
possibly to the title of "youngest librarian" perhaps in the entire
country. With a total collection of 3,500 books Yashoda D Shenoy, operates 'Yashoda's library' which currently has 110 members.
Why Yashoda start a library?
Yashoda developed a reading habit when she was in class 3. Once, she failed to return a book she had lent from a nearby library and
was fined for the delay. The incident left her worried about how children hailing from low-income backgrounds could read or become
members of a library. She soon hit upon the idea of a library, which would not charge
membership fees nor impose fines for returning books beyond the due
date. Yashoda loves to read books, and she believes that reading should be free for everyone.
Yashoda herself aspires to become an advocate one day.
The Story Behind 'Yahsoda's Library'
It's noon on Sunday and Yashoda has climbed down the stairs
of her house in Mattancherry in Kochi for lunch. She has to hurry back
upstairs - there is, on the upper floor, a library to run. By now, her
story has been written about. Young Yashoda D Shenoy – all of 12 – has
been interviewed and hailed for being perhaps the youngest librarian
around, and running it free for all in Kochi.
“It is open every day, from 9 am to 7 pm. When I go to
school, my mom or dad or brother is there,” Yashoda says. Nearly six
months ago, the library – Yashoda’s Library – was opened on the top
floor of her house, converting the gallery of her artist dad to a
library-cum-gallery. On one side, there is her father Dinesh R Shenoy’s
paintings, which have been kept aside to make space for the many racks
of books, and chairs and desks to read them on.
Yashoda, who read books from the age of
eight with the help of her elder brother Achuth and mother Brahmaja, had
no idea there was a cost one has to pay to read. “I saw dad pay money
when a library book was due. When I asked him about it, he said no book
came free. I wondered then how people without money would read. What
about those who didn’t even have ten rupees with them,” she asks,
innocently.
It didn’t take much longer for the thought to turn into
action. For the child, it was simple. If there were no free books so
far, she would just have to start giving them. She told her dad about
it, he published a post on Facebook and books came from many places.
“We began with about 2000 books, now there are more than
3500. We have separated them into fiction – stories, novels and poems
among them – and non-fiction. There are books in English, Malayalam,
Konkani, Hindi and Sanskrit,” says the young librarian.
Her favourite is Basheer books, she says. But the books in
the library are for both children and grownups. Her classmates and even
her teachers at school have taken membership at the free library. “There
is no fine but a book is to be taken out for 15 days and then brought
back. For the unwell and the aged who cannot come to the library, we
deliver the books they want at home if we have it in the library,”
Yashoda says.
It is her dream to own a very large library, she says. “If you are a
librarian, you’d need to retire one day. But if you own your library,
you don’t need to go anywhere,” she says, with a very long-term
foresight.
Source- India Today, The News Minute
No comments:
Post a Comment