Curtains down for children’s library in Chennai

 

As independent bookstores struggle to survive in these tough times, this one just adds to the growing list of those, who could not sustain themselves.

 Spread across two floors in Adyar is the bright and cheerful library tailor-made for children.

 

Launched in October 2005, the hippocampus quickly went online with the launch of the Hippocampus Home Library. It was the next step in reaching books to children, making it possible for those who could not visit the centres to get books delivered to their doorstep.

 

However, try as much but slowly and steadily business did witness a decline over the years. 

“Our best days were long gone and for the past one year there has been a steady downslide. There is no denying it,” said Chandni Khanna, owner of the library.

 

This phenomenon is affecting other bookstores across the city as well with Landmark stores closing down and only one Odyssey bookstore functioning. “Bookstores are slowly becoming like supermarkets as they sell perfumes and other products and the space for books continues to dwindle,”  Khanna, adding that besides technology, parents too are so caught up with their work that they don’t have time to drop their children to libraries.

 

“One important factor is overhead expense, which is killing us. It was a hard call but multiple factors forced us.”  With more than 500 members the children’s library also conducted workshops, activities, events where footfall was high but sustaining on that was simply not possible. Membership subscription, which is the lifeline of these libraries, continued to decline.  

 

“Earlier, there were 25 to 30 memberships a month but then it slowly kept dwindling to 10 to 13. Steady renewals also need to happen which were reducing,” added Khanna. Meanwhile, many good samaritans kept coming up and offering space in their homes and also asked the decade-old library to increase subscription to avoid shutting down.

 

One of the parents, Karthikeyan Sivasubramanian, whose 10-year-old son has been a member of this library  for  more than a year expressed his disappointment and said, “ My son and his friends love this place and often come here but soon it will be a thing of past. What do I tell him ?” Adding that it was an amazing experience for parents as well Karthikeyan said, “This is the only library in the city which is at par with libraries in the US and I wish I could rent out my space and do something to keep it going.”

 

 The owner wants people to remember the good work. A sale will also be held from December 16, 2015 where books will be sold at less than half the price.