Come evening at Panjim’s Jardim Garcia de Orta it’s not a surprising sight to see young and old out for their evening walks. More recently the sight of young and the old reading magazines and books is a welcome new sight.
Enter the Panjim Book Stop, an open library for anyone to pick up, read, borrow, return and donate books, the first of its kind in the state.
Photographer Prasad Pankar, known for his fashion photography, takes to reading as well and sees the initiative as something the rest of Goa needs to take up too. “It’s an awesome initiative. There are many people who love to read and can’t even afford library membership, let alone buy books. It’s really a blessing to many,” says Pankar.
Though he hasn’t read any of the books at the library, he has donated several Robin Sharma titles. The concept of open libraries are well known in Europe where telephone booths in some places have been converted into libraries for people to sit and read books, while also being able to donate and borrow books.
For Panjim based NGO Bookworm Sujata Noronha, who is spearheading the books that are being made available at the open library, it was the thought that reading was dying as the need to have an initiative of the sort.
“The society has been evolving more and more and with it, the way we spend our time. Reading is certainly dying. For a state that has one of the highest literacy rates, spaces for reading have become less,” she says.
And only those with disposable incomes are the type to invest in books, or a library membership. “For the rest (mainly children), it is only the textbook matter that they are accustomed to,” she says.
The ability of a book to open the mind and create avenues are very restricted she says, and this is where the library comes to help.
The books that range from fiction, non-fiction, children’s book as well as magazines get audiences from different age groups though the trend they say is for children and middle aged people to take up more interest.
The books that are checked up to three times a week go through a screening process. “Anything that is seen as hard marketing or if it seems that someone is forcing an idea or book on the public, we tend to remove them completely,” says Noronha. Other than that, torn and illegible books are kept away from the book stop.
“One of the most heartening trends we’re beginning to see is that anonymous people are donating books. We hope that in the future, it will be handled by the people alone,” says Noronha. But for the moment, the rate of returning books aren’t as desirable as those that are being donated or returned.
While users have been mixed since its inauguration during Carnival this year, the trend is toward a more children and young adult interest in books and magazines. College students and middle aged people tend to be interested in the books and novels while the elders usually settle for a magazine read in the garden.
Meanwhile, impressed with the outcome of the Panjim library, Vasco too has shown interest in setting up a book stop of their own.
