British Library in Pune, a gift to generations, moves to digital mode

PUNE: Avid readers among Puneites have prided themselves in their British Council Library membership for generations. The membership came after some labour. One had to wait in a long queue, submit a form, and wait for at least two years before a postcard would announce it.On Wednesday, the members of the nearly six-decade-old British Library in Pune received a mail declaring that it was going completely online by June-end and the physical space in Shivajinagar would be used as a computer-based testing centre for IELTS and other qualification tests. Antonius Raghubansie, director of learning services, British Council India, said the move was prompted to focus on “a high-quality online experience for customers.”“A mobile app version of the digital library will pull together our content in one place and allow members to build their own library collection, " he added.Sugandhi M V, assistant librarian who worked for over 30 years, said all those associated with the library were like a big family. The membership in Pune was the highest in India. “Back in the days, we were the only place with a reference books section. Medical journals were sought by the doctors from Pune and nearby areas. We had a person specially trained to look after the reference section. The internet put everything online and this section soon lost its relevance,” she said.She said there would be long queues outside the library on Thursdays long before it would open for the latest arrivals. Astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar’s wife Mangala, a mathematics lecturer, recalled coming to Pune from Mumbai to read a book.“Veerdhaval was a famous Marathi romantic thriller novel and we loved it. While living in Mumbai, he (Narlikar) found out that it was translated from an English novel set in Scotland. We contacted the library which said they had a copy of the original but it was in poor condition and we would have to come to Pune to read it. This library made you want to read books,” she said.Playwright Satish Alekar said an entire post-independence generation was groomed by the books from this library. “We have been members of the library since it started at Ranade Institute in 1961. From my days in Fergusson College to Pune University, the only source of knowledge about the world was the library. Drinking coffee for 25 paisa from Hotel Roopali and hanging out in front of the library was the in-thing then,” he said. The newspapers, magazines would arrive by surface mail, first by sea and then from Mumbai to Pune which meant people would get to read The Guardian and magazines after a two-week delay. They would wait for the New Theatre Quarterly by Cambridge University Press. The librarians were people who read widely and had contacts with almost everyone including politicians, civil servants and celebrities, he added. “All the British plays and its nuances were taught to us by these books and their reviews. The library stocked LP records of plays like Hamlet, King Lear, Murder in the Cathedral, recorded by Lawrence Olivier, Richard Burton, Ralph Richardson and Dame Cybil Thorndike. The closure of the physical library is sad,” he said.