ANNA LIBRARY CHENNAI IS THE BIGGEST IN SOUTH ASIA
Posted on: 16/Sep/2010 1:52:14 AM
Chennai people are the blessed to have one of the biggest libraries in the world inaugurated by Kalaignar Karunanidhi, the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu on Wednesday. The library is now open to public. A modern library built eight story building designed esthetically.
Built over a massive area of 3.75 lakh sq ft in Kotturpuram, the state PWD has spent about Rs 180 cr on this. This library has been built to house 1.20 million books. Madras University alone has donated 3.75 lakhs books to this library. The library will have books on all major languages, besides providing access to two lakh ‘e-books’ and 20,000 ‘e-journals’.
The ACL will not only be networked to all other public libraries across the state led by the famous Connemara Public Library in Chennai, but will also accommodate the country’s oldest manuscript library here called ‘The Oriental Manuscripts Library’, officials said. The latter is now housed in the Madras University Library complex.
A “very special feature” of the ACL is that it would straightaway have a digital edge, being a partner of the World Digital Library (WDL) project, says Thennarasu, the Education Minister, Government of Tamilnadu. This will give it access to primary sources of knowledge of countries and cultures across the globe. So far, the Allama Iqbal Library of the University of Kashmir is the only library in the country connected to the WDL network.
The library include a Braille section for the visually impaired, a captivating separate section for children’s books with a huge replica of the “Tree of Knowledge” rooted in its heart, a 1,280-capacity auditorium.
