Chennai: Dr S. R. Ranganathan awards were handed out to librarians by school education minister K. A. Sengottiyan at Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School in Chetpet on Wednesday.
The S. R. Ranganathan awards, given out in memoriam of the ‘Father of Library Science in India’, who identified the real need of libraries and library science education in our country. He quit teaching and took on the role of a librarian at Madras University Library after which he travelled to London to learn from international libraries.
In his name, the state government administers awards to librarians for their good work across all 32 districts in the state. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Ramsankar Mariappan, District Library Officer of Thoothukudi district thanked the government for allowing for such facilities. “Our library won the first place for best study circles, and also for largest donations. This was all possible because of the people who use it,” he said. The Thoothukudi library aims to introduce new features wherein library members can access a directory of the library’s journals and books. The app will help readers access books easier, Ramsankar said.
The Thoothukudi district library continues to conduct model tests for students for various competitive exams. The library prepared a special model question paper to prepare over 650 students for the recently held TNPSC group 2 examinations. "Our library also has special sections for the blind and almost all sections are handicap-friendly," Ramsankar said proudly.
The event held on Children’s Day also saw the education minister distribute awards to school children for extempore competitions both in English and Tamil. “The state-level extempore competitions allows us to learn so much about a topic we are interested in and also from all the other competitors,” said one winner.
