In an age where reading habit is nose-diving, any effort to reverse the trend is always welcomed by book lovers. And for those citizens of Arunachal Pradesh who still love to face books, there were two news last week which must have brought cheers among them. One was the foundation laying ceremony of Arya Library at Tezu and the other was the launch of an upgraded library management system at Saint Claret College, Ziro.

It is an undeniable fact that today’s youths have lost touch with books. We are in a time period, when browsing internet, playing games in smartphone apps and sending messages seem to be the order of the day. Reading a book in a cozy corner of a library or home has become an antiquated idea for most of the modern youth. For them, the contentment quotient depends on the number of ‘likes’ accumulated against their posts in social networking sites.

But, it is the youth stage where concepts, convictions and traditions are formed and have the capacity to affect the rest of a person’s life. For independent knowledge acquisition and life-long learning and also for building the essential attributes for self-advancement and national development, there is no superior tool than reading books. Sadly, a large chunk of modern youth have succumbed to the temptation of social networking sites and are staying distant from the printed word.

Libraries, synonymous with education and as gateways to knowledge have been playing a fundamental role in society for long. And now it is time to look forward to them again as saviours. The roles they will be expected to play now will be refurbished ones as the concept of society has undergone quite a change given the fact that information and technology are all around us. It will be precise to say that we are now living in information society, where circulation and production of information is a key social and economic activity. 

With the winds of change blowing everywhere, some structural and functional alternations are inevitable at the libraries too. For adapting fast with the new information society framework and regaining functionality for undertaking new and challenging responsibilities, it is inevitable for libraries to embrace advanced technology.

For Arunachal, if reaching the desired level of educational progress is a challenge, building more libraries, particularly public ones should be incorporated as a part of this overall effort. Public libraries have always been at the heart of the communities they serve and particularly relevant in the state’s tribal context where community culture is lively and vivid. Simultaneously, the existing libraries should be upgraded technologically to keep in tune with the fast changing times.