We are now in the US at Montgomery, New Jersey with our daughter and family. Last week , I visited the Town’s public library with my son in law and picked up a couple of books for reading. I was quite impressed by the overall ambiance , professionalism and the collections in the library.
How do we rate the performance of a Library ? What are the metrics? Number of books ? Number of members utilizing the facility ? Range and coverage of subjects? Number of Videos available for rent? Educational Value to the community served?
I remember a conversation I had once on this subject with Lt Gen Y S Tomar at Mhow Cantonment , India. I had just reported to the College of Combat [now Army War College] there , having been nominated to attend the prestigious Higher Command Course for 10 months . This course generally deals with Military Strategy at Field Army level for those officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force handpicked based on merits and proven records in Command and staff appointments in the rank of Colonel and equivalent. The College had one of the best library in the country with more than 75000 books at that time in 1988 and subscribed to a wide range of publications across the world. I mentioned about this to General Tomar who was till very recently at that time the Commandant of the College and had moved out as a Corps Commander. I had served under him in the Army HQ ,Military Secretary’s Branch during 1984-85 as an Asst Military Secretary when he was the Additional Military Secretary there. His response surprised me. He said while he could provide the best collection of books and periodicals in the College library , he was not very happy with the performance of the library . According to him ,the true measure of success of a library is its utilization factor. How many times,each book or magazine or video has been drawn by the faculty /students for study or research connected with their work . An impressive collection is of no use if the library is not utilized to its full extent! I found out the General was right when I observed later that many costly books procured by the library were not even touched by anyone for long !
Is such libraries relevant in this digital age ? . I will say , YES !. May be I am not born after the advent of Internet , but many youngsters will also agree with me that the charm of holding a book in its print format in your hand is something which you sadly miss while using a kindle or browsing the net. No wonder, there is a caption at the entrance of the main library of MCEME [ Military College of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering ] at Secunderabad , where I served as the DEAN for Management Training during 1995-96 before retiring from the Army. The caption said “Medicine for the Soul “