'Develop accessible digital libraries'

 Participants in an interaction programme organized by the Sustainable Development and Good Governance Committee called for developing libraries in digital form and make them available for the users both offline and online.

In the interaction organized by the Committee under the National Assembly (NA), Yagya Raj Bhatta viewed that the library should be developed in the forms of materials such as audio and video.

Bhatta stressed on developing the library in a digital form that would be confidently accessible to the users from anywhere without any obstruction.

Asserting that the upcoming era is going to be digital era, NA member Bamdev Gautam drew the attention of the Committee towards developing library in the ways that the readers could avail its services in the forms of audio and video and in any languages.

He pressed for building a large library in the central level and said that the library should possess an ample availability of digital materials.

Nepal Library Association President Indra Prasad Adhikari informed that there are altogether 327 communities and public libraries across the country at present. He lamented that the National Library's building was damaged by the Gorkha Earthquake in 2015 and it is currently being run in a small hut at Sano Thimi, Bhaktapur in lack of timely reconstruction.

Taking part in the interaction, Under-Secretary of the Division of Library Coordination of the Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Yadav Chandra Niraula, said that the although the government had a plan to construct a building for the Nepal National Library over eight ropani of land at Jamal, Kathmandu, the construction work had not made any headway owing to some technical issues.

Minister of State for Education, Science and Technology, Pramila Kumari Yadav, argued that a good public library could contribute to producing good human resources. She said that the need of the hour was to put in plan digital library.

The State Minister pledged to create an enabling environment for the staffers at the public libraries for routinely training for them.

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