MALAPPURAM: Nearly 10,000 books including Kindle eBooks collected from different parts of the state were given a ceremonious welcome on Sunday at the AKG Library in Talukkara near Tirur which was gutted in a fire set by BJP workers sometime ago. The books collected by the members of Book Collection, a Facebook group with 1,320 members which spearheaded the social media campaign, were handed over to the library during a cultural gathering held in the library premises on Sunday evening. Acclaimed writer T.D. Ramakrishnan was the chief guest in the special gathering.
The rigorous social media campaign had gone viral attracting hundreds of book lovers from around the world soon after the library committee had announced their plan to rebuild the gutted library. The offers would galore in the form of financial aid, computer, TV, besides a large chunk of books including Kindle eReader which alone offered more than thousand free e-books.
The books were brought to the library in nine special vehicles named ‘Pustaka Vandi’ which travelled all the districts collecting books for the past three days. The collection effort was inaugurated by Dr. Thomas Isac MLA on Friday in Alappuzha.
The campaign through the Facebook group was coordinated by 12 people who were stationed at various places including Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia besides Kerala and other Indian cities. Around 250 people were present for the event. The group also plans to continue the book collection in the coming days as well.
“Besides this mass contribution we have also received thousands of individual contributions by post. We have made temporary arrangements to store and categorise the books till the completion of reconstruction works of the library,” Said K.T Mustafa, secretary of AKG Library.
