Hyderabad libraries find creative ways to stay relevant

Five libraries rekindle the joy of books in Hyderabad, attracting children and adults back to their physical spaces with study rooms, family plans and story telling sessions

A community library in Cheriyala village in Telangana’s Siddipet district has been instrumental in converting a 12-year-old boy’s habit of reading into a passion. At 47, air force veteran Satyanand Vallapragada, currently working at Gigloo Properties, is promoting reading in Karkhana, Secunderabad through his Date A Book The Library (earlier Just Books) and reading room. The library has around 12,000 books ranging from biographies to fiction, mostly in English, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada and Marathi

The first thing that Satyanand did after returning to Hyderabad from Delhi in 2017 was to enrol at Just Books library near his house to nurture his reading habit and inculcate it in his children. After two years, he heard that it was shutting down and being sold for ₹8 lakh. “I wanted to buy it, but the amount was too big, so I didn’t go forward. They delinked the franchise model, made it an independent library and got back to me with a cost of ₹4 lakh; I went ahead and I looked at it as a self-sustainable model,” he adds. Satyanand’s wife, Praveena, and Guduru Akhil, a student studying for the UPSC, help in managing the library.

The 1,600-square feet library was renamed Date A Book and relaunched on October 2, 2019. The library (₹1,100 for a three-month membership) has a small space that is rented out at ₹1,200 per month for youngsters preparing for competitive examinations.

With 150 members, the library survived the pandemic and lockdowns with its rent, read-and-return model. Satyanand cites his own example for visiting students. “I tell them how I have an edge over others because of my reading; it has helped me improve my language, personality, attitude and helps me understand others’ perceptions.”

BnM Preschool & Books n More, Library and Activity Centre (earlier Books n More) has been popular among book lovers, especially children, for 11 years now. Its founder Varsha Ramesh, who had access to four libraries while growing up in Chennai, missed those reading spaces for her children in Hyderabad. When her collection of 5,000 books kept increasing with her children’s books, she opened a space for book lovers, especially children in West Marredpally in 2011. The membership fee has always been only ₹100. “The focus is to make people value books not make a profit; when the books are damaged, the borrower has to pay a fine so that they learn to respect books.”

The library was earlier housed in a 1,000-sqft space that buzzed with workshops and activities during summer. Although around 400 youngsters are active library users, December to February is a lean period, points out Varsha. With a few online deliveries (₹250 for 10 deliveries), the library has a minimum of around 100 borrowers a day. The library’s collection has grown rapidly in the last five years and now boasts of around 25,000 books including 3,000 books for adults in English, Hindi and Telugu.

The library’s Jumbo Plan, started 10 years ago, has had more than 900 families availing themselves of it. The plan, Varsha says, is to make families come together to read.