Magadi Days

Sitting snuggled in a shelter between Sitla and Odakhan in the Kumaun Mountains, is a wondrous library. It is free, open and used happily by adults and children from neighbouring hills and dales. The couple whose brainwave this is built a house at Satholi and decided they would also run a library for the neighbourhood. I think their greatest stroke of luck came when they chanced upon a young man working at a restaurant/hotel in Dehra Dun and realised they had found the ideal librarian. This I can attest to, having visited the library, browsed through the books and chatted with the soft-spoken, yet sharp-eyed librarian.

How do you deal with people who don’t return books , was my first in-house question.

No problem, at all. I have their home addresses. If they take too long, I walk over to their homes and ask if they could return the books because there are others waiting to read them.

Do you have any way to guage if they are really reading the books they take?

I just ask them to tell me what they liked about the story and any character they liked. Then I know if they have read it. If they halt and stammer, then I gently tell them that it is a wonderful story and they should go back and read it!

What about recommending books? Do the children listen to your suggestions?

I show them some books and say that so and so liked it very much. Here everyone knows everyone else so they are eager to read what the others are reading. Sometimes they come looking for titles their friends have liked.

Do they suggest books to be bought?

Very much so. They will tell me that the Chirag School has this book and it is very good. The teachers also come here to borrow for themselves so they also give suggestions. Today you, a librarian, have given me many interesting ideas. That is how the library will move forward.

The library carries newspapers and magazines both in Hindi and in English. What a humbling and at the same time energising experience it was  to visit and see  this magical librarty in the mountains.

Go to Kumaun and see for yourself!

• The Open Library

Recently I spent two marvellous months at the Brockwood Park School in Hampshire in England.  My mission : To make the library a living space for staff, students and other users. So the question was: Could I do it ? The school has international students from ages 14 to 18 and has a very unusual and unique ambience in terms of intention, curriculum and living. (Please check it out on the website and while you are at it, you may read my piece on the blog there.)

It also has an amazing collection of books and has never had an accession list. Books are borrowed by a manual entry in a notebook as you leave the library. So with no malice intended, many books have got misplaced or even lost. I was asked if I could set up a system of recording the books which to an approximate estimate numbered close to 20,000! The students had got used to a certain casual relationship with the library which had them take it much for granted. So should I take the next plane back to Bangalore, I wondered?

However, to tell you quickly, this story has a happy ending and in the process I discovered that a library can be alive and vibrant no matter what state it is in, geographically and psychologically (!), it can be made a user-friendly place by bringing it into people’s consciousness in light and appealing ways and finally there is no package which can do it. All it takes is relationship….with each and every user minute by minute, day by day…and suddenly in about two weeks I saw more and more response and more and more interaction each and every hour, almost!

I opened the innings by taking a space on the main noticeboard which is the heart and soul of Brockwood. I called it “LIBRARY MATTERS” and began by putting up a cartoon related to reading. Under that I added some tit-bits about the library and anything else that might catch young people’s attention. Next to that I designated a “POETRY SPACE” and put up a poem of Mary Oliver to start it off. Slowly I could see students and staff stop and read. Each week I changed the matter! That was crucial. I had carried a stock of rare cartoons from the New Yorker to last me for the whole stay. Next breakthrough was when staff, older students called mature students and even the students began to contribute to this board. Voila!

In the library itself, I chose a selection of books to display each week. One student, Betsy who was helping to clean the library spotted a book she had read. So I immediately asked her to write a few lines about it for others to read. That really took off. If anyone stopped by to look at a book and to tell me they had read it, they were caught…to write a few sentences recommending it! I made contact with teachers asking them to tell me what they looked for in their areas of interest. Soon a suggestion book came up and staff and students slowly began putting down books they felt the library should have. Next was to make sure we got some of those books!

At the school meeting, which is like an Assembly, I talked about new books that had come in including the genre of graphic literature which was new to them. I also showed a film of book talks presented by CFL senior students for Brockwood students. They were quite touched by that and wanted to send something in return. That was the right moment to introduce book talks there. Finding a slot was tough but I hung in there until I got a time…after supper on Sat. nights (Tues. and Wed. are the weekends) and we began. Coco, a 14 year old student had already swum into my ken when she came looking for books to read. She gave a brilliant book talk and we were off. Weekly book talks had taken root.

By the time I left, I had also managed to take a group of interested students to the British Library in London. (By the way, if you are ever there, do not miss a visit.)

Meanwhile the project of accessing books was also continuing and I sat glued to the computer whenever I could to enter as many books as I could to give them a jolly good start to this project. Every book I entered was tagged with a small dot so before I left I did a presentation to the school to explain how they could use the programme ( a software designed by an old student). They were thrilled and eager to use it, so hopefully in future we will know where the missing books are!!

Too soon , it was time for me to leave. The affection and response I had got were overwhelming. Gifts, chocolate cake. a designer book with personal writings  and hugs and promises to keep the library as active and alive! I couldn’t have asked for more.

All they had needed was a body in the library….a warm one!!

Usha

We have recently worked on a Manual for Running a Library, which you may download from here. The introduction is posted here.

Introduction

A school without an open and active library is like an organism with no core.

S.R. Ranganathan, the founder of the library movement in India calls the school library,

“Truly the heart of the school. Stimulating currents go out of it into every corner of the school.”

Can this be done in each and every school, however big or small? Yes it can, provided you, the teachers and your students bring your energy and enthusiasm to making it happen.

Why is it so crucial for every school to have an open, accessible library for the students and teachers to use freely?Knowledge is everyone’s birthright and it empowers children to be well-informed, free from bias and prejudice. Access to knowledge through reading, listening, viewing and discussing, brings about an intelligent, literate and competent human being. The library can also provide historical, geographical and cultural awareness to readers through well-chosen resources. At a young age, children are full of curiosity and the zest to learn beyond the limits of the school curriculum. A library gives them the opportunity to pursue their thirst for knowledge. Here is the place where independent thinking is nurtured, individual interests are developed and self-confidence grows.

As children grow older, they are faced with many challenges and dilemmas in society. How are  they to know what is right? Here too the library can provide ample material in terms of inspiring true stories, biographies and essays by thinkers. Articles by leading intellectuals and scientists can help them to distinguish the true from the false. By providing this open exposure the library can help bring about a well-informed, intelligent and balanced community of young citizens, and  the country will be richer in human resources.

When it is begun at a young age, optimum library use and the reading habit can be a lifelong asset. Reading for pleasure has intangible benefits because young people absorb knowledge, values and perspectives with very little effort. School libraries are valuable and effective aids to bring about better learning and higher achievement levels in examinations, competitions and other activities. For teachers, the library is an invaluable tool to keep themselves abreast of factual information and deeper knowledge. They will be better educators and have the confidence of knowing that they are well read and up to date. For the school, the library is an invaluable asset because it can support, reflect and enhance the curriculum.

A brief description of me on the Pratham blog referred to me as an occasional blogger. Well! I have to do something about that. So here goes and if you are bored, so be it.

For a year and a half now I have been on a sub-committee of the Karnataka Knowledge Commission. Before you drop off, I’ll cut to the chase and say that in a recent initiative, 225 high schools in the state, mainly in the rural areas were to be given an initial collection of books, a user-friendly manual and the teacher/librarians would attend a workshop to brainstorm together how to bring about an active, open library in their schools.(This event is happening day after tomorrow. Wish us luuck!) So we first sent off a request to a few authors, NGOs working with schoolchildren, teachers and librarians to send us their recommended list.Having gathered this list, the job of sifting through these lists and making a selection fell on the worthy shoulders of Leela Garady, a former teacher at CFL and a children’s author. Along with Prakash Kamath, an NGO who had helped set up the Teacher’s Resource Centre at Chamarajanagar, she painstakingly put together a laudable list of books in Kannada. Meanwhile with inputs from Kavery Nambisan and other children’s writers, publishers and our own collection at CFL, I put down a list of books in English. Both languages had some reference books too. Apart from this we included some A/V material too. The next task was to write a really supportive, user-friendly and hands-on manual. Elsewhere here on this blog is a copy for you to read and judge. This was then translated brilliantly into Kannada by Leela Garady and is coming out (fingers and toes crossed) tomorrow!!

So thats it for now,
Usha Mukunda.

Thanks for the article. It was a coincidence that we came across it and we enjoyed reading it. It also reminded us of the time a couple of years ago. We were working at a boarding school in Dehradun. Mrs Sukumar had just taken over the primary section of the school and had introduced some great ideas to encourage children (and teachers) to cultivate reading habits.

The First step was acquiring a large number of new books for the school, the teachers as well as the children got involved in selection, cataloging and arranging the books on shelves.

Next, a program DEAR (an acronym – “Drop Everything And Read”) was initiated. The first school (period) was set aside for DEAR. During this DEARtime, the entire primary school, which included children as well as teachers, were reading books.

It was a wonderful experience for all of us. The entire school was reading. Most of the kids gradually got hooked to reading.

Reading your Open Library Blog, was a nostalgic experience for us. Thank you for sharing it on the Net.

Seema & Sameer

On 27 June, Patara was invited by Suresh Jairam’s/Visual Art Collective’s studio, 1 Shantiroad, to participate in a multimedia exhibition on Tibet. The three-day event included the ceremonial drawing of a sand mandala, film screenings, discussions, talks, poetry readings, music concerts, all on the theme of Tibet. There was also the launch and release of two books for children on the second day of the exhibition. Patara was invited to hold a reading and activity session for children in connection with these books.

Aravinda Anantharaman’s interactions with Tibetan sweater sellers in Bangalore city, and her subsequent visits to their colonies, have resulted in two charming books about the lives of Tibetan children who live in India in exile from their own country. Patara’s presentation was based on these two books, Dorje’s Holiday at the Gyenso Khang, and Dolma visits the City.

The theme of Tibet was slightly different from what Patara has been used to presenting to children it was factual, political and also emotive. We would have to plan this and carry it out carefully. Luckily for us three young people readily agreed to pitch in, and they helped us from planning to presentation. In preparation, Usha gathered photographs and pictures to show to the children. Flags resembling the Tibetan prayer flags were made from coloured kite paper and decorated, some with familiar images of Tibet, such as the dome of a Gompha, a monk in tall head gear, a yak, a prayer wheel. Another set of flags was decorated with rubbings from a tablet bearing the inscription Om mani padme hum. These flags were made by Tanu and Eric. Eric Lord also made bookmarks to give away after the session. These were decorated with Buddhist religious symbols, and each one carried a quote from the Buddha or the Dalai Lama.

Tanushree, Hemangini and Shruti contributed solidly to the session. Tanu manned the puppet sutradhar, helped in the making of the prayer flags, taught the children a Tibetan song and led them in a group dance. Hemangini ferried us to and fro, and along with Shruti guided the children through the various activities that we had planned for them. The session took off with Usha sticking out her tongue in a very friendly manner at the little crowd of children and adults gathered on the terrace. The puppet, wearing a typical Tibetan striped apron (we’ve learned since that it is worn by married women only!) demanded to know why she was making faces at the guests. It was explained that it was the traditional (primitive?) manner of greeting in Tibet, similar to the folding of hands in a namaste, or touching noses, as the Maoris do, or the shaking of hands in the West. From this interesting start, Patara plunged into the theme of Tibet. Usha told
the children about the country sometimes spoken of as ‘the roof of the world’ or as ‘Shangri La’, and about its people, their lives and their habits; she also spoke about the Dalai Lama, and his escape to India in 1959, following the invasion of Tibet by China. A map of the world was displayed for the children to identify the country, and photographs of the mountains, the people, their lives, and their leader were shown. Some of the guests who were Tibetan contributed with interesting bits of information about their
food, their music and their religion.

After this absorbing introduction, drawing materials were distributed and the children were asked to illustrate their impressions of Tibet and its people from what they had just heard. Nearly all the children drew the mountains, but it was moving to see how many of them did draw people escaping across them one or two even showing cattle accompanying the people. When all the drawings had been completed and hung up for display alongside the fluttering flags, the group got down to the main business of reading from the newly released books and introducing the author. Sandhya read an excerpt from Dolma visits the City. For the finale, Tanu led the children in a Tibetan song and a dance. Before our guests dispersed, the beautiful bookmarks made by Eric were given away – the gasps of pleasure from many of the parents and from some of the Tibetan organizers made it worth the effort of bullying Eric into doing the hard work.

Patara was paid the princely sum of Rs1000 for the evening, from which we returned 500. Far more valuable were the string of prayer flags and the knot of infinity that were presented to us; even better was the sense of satisfaction from participating in a worthwhile and successful Patara session.

“Can you help us set up a library?” was the request from Chirag School in the Kumaon Himalayas at Uttarakhand. “On a clear day, you can see the entire Nanda Devi range, as well as Trishul and Panchachuli from around the corner,” the letter added. What was I waiting for? An assignment dear to my heart and a chance of a sight of the Himalayas. I didn’t waste a moment and so July 1st saw me heading out north. To Delhi first, then an overnight train to Kathgodam and then a taxi ride to Sitla, near Mukteshwar. My spirits rose with the ascent and I found myself breathing in the air as I had never breathed before. I had not seen such a blue expanse of sky for so long and a feeling of great serenity came over me as I gazed at the lush green trees . I knew I would be happy and at peace here.

After a day, I began the interaction with the school. There are almost 60 children from ages 3 to 9. They speak Kumaoni and Hindi and very little or no English. The school itself is set in a valley with a magnificent panorama all around. Every now and then when the sky looked dramatic, I would stop short to gaze and wonder, probably much to the amusement of the kids and teachers. My target was to immerse the children in English with the help of stories, poems, songs, games and activities and finally plays. As an add-on, I was to spend an hour in English activities with the teachers too.

But what of the library, you ask. I am getting to it! The school already had a wonderful collection of books, magazines and AV material thanks to the wisdom and planning of Rajiv, the Guruji! So my first task was to alert him that a record of all the books they have was an urgent necessity. With the help of a couple of volunteers, the accession began and was almost complete by the end of July. This record enables users to borrow and return with the help of the accession number. It also categorises the material into different broad topics with a sub-topic added. Material can be accessed through key words. If books go missing, re-ordering is easy with the help of the information in the accession register.

Secondly, a physical space was located in a corner of the English language room and the library was formally housed there. A large sign, displays of books and magazines, posters and pictures made by the children, low seating for reading, a pick-a-book box, and colour-coded labelling for books and shelves, ensured a welcoming and user-friendly atmosphere.

Thirdly, an important aspect of a library, namely care for books and right handling was taken up through talking, showing and some dramatics. Book marks were made by the oldest children as a follow-up activity. Each book mark had a sentence written by the child about reading or about books. These were placed in a convenient holder for general use in the library.

Fourthly, the whole concept of browsing and borrowing was introduced through a game of selling books like in a shop, choosing what is wanted , buying it and finally going home with it. They were told that in a library, the same thing happened except that they could, at no cost, borrow and return the books.

They were now ready for borrowing, and again thanks to the free hand I was given by Rajiv, I started the Devdars, the oldest group, on borrowing. But first they had to understand the importance of registering their borrowing and returning. They also had to realise that it was a system based on trust. So they each made themselves a borrower’s card with their name on it, columns for date of borrowing, title of book and date of return. With this in place they were off and running! Every day books were going home and coming back. I waited a bit for this to get set and then would just ask what the story was about or what their favourite part in the story was, to make sure the book was being looked at!

Next we had some mini- book talks. Without fixing it beforehand, I just asked three or four children to come up and speak a little about one of the books they had borrowed and why they liked it or not. This was an introduction to a book talk and by now they must have done a few more. This activity grows in depth and sophistication as the children get older and as the librarian/ teacher also learns to ask key questions.

One fun activity we had was a treasure hunt. Each child was given a written clue leading him/her to a book they had seen on display or had borrowed. The children found their books in a flat 2 minutes! So next time the clues should be harder. But the follow-up activity was challenging. Related to the theme of the book was a thinking question. They had to respond to this with three or four sentences of creative writing.

The library project we took up was the creation of a book written by the students. Each student drew a chit with a teacher’s name on it. They then jointly wrote down some questions they would like to ask the teachers. They were to go off and do the interviews individually, get back and write their own page for the teacher with a drawing on the back of the page. This worked very well with only one or two students needing extra help. The book was put together with an illustrated cover and a title chosen by them, a back cover with blurbs from readers and a copyright date and the publisher’s name on the inside cover. This book was released at the play day on August 1st by Madhavan da and is now a part of the library collection. The younger two classes were also preparing an Alphabet book with each child being assigned one letter of the alphabet. On their page they had to write the capital and the small letter, think on their own and write a minimum of five words starting with their letter and illustrate each word. By now this book too should have been released perhaps on August 15th! These two younger groups were also assigned a weekly library period when they could sit in the library, browse and read there quietly. I was told by the teachers that this went well.

We also instituted a library rota with two children each day being in charge of changing displays and generally making the library look inviting. This too took off well.

With the teachers, we had some poetry talks and later story talks. These consisted of their taking home a poem or story to read and coming back to present it to the rest, followed by a general question and discussion session. This went very well and I saw each teacher growing in confidence.

Finally, with the teachers, we made a book buying trip to Nainital. Before going, we went through the main features of selection. At the bookstore, teachers spent 45 minutes individually selecting books for the library which were of interest to them personally. Then we all gathered and tried to make a more careful selection of the ones put aside. Some things became clear. We eliminated too many of or by the same author. Also books which were too specialised. Similarly books with bad binding or very small print were taken out. Teachers were helped to discern good publishing and translation works. The exercise was very enjoyable and energizing.

Patara was a pleasantly refreshing experience. The activities are unique, simple, un-fussy and basic. Like the book jacket they made them this year. It is a novel idea and one which can actually inspire children to read more. My daughter and I have decided to make a jacket for every book we read, and on completing the book we will write the blurb for each. This way we will be able to keep track of the number of books we read and can start building up on the children’s library we plan to set up (far in the future). Last year Patara took the children bird watching, to Sankey Tank, which I thought was wonderful, because it was not a long fussy excursion to some far off bird sanctuary, and yet the children internalized it that way! Wonderful!

The people running Patara are a team which is truly passionate about reading and for ‘real’. Their resource people are interesting and unusual!. At the risk of sounding a snob, I have very high standards for childrens’ workshops, as I am a teacher of children myself and unfortunately very few worshops in the city have ever reached up to my standards. I honestly never sent them for the “summer camps” because I never felt the camps could offer them more than what I could at home with stories and art and craft. Also most camps are commercial ventures which I personally feel take away from the spirit of child-classes.

Patara totally reached up to the highest standard both in content and in attitude of the core team.

My only suggestion and wish is that Patara would conduct their sessions somewhere closer to where I live! Nonethless the journey to Malleshwaram is worth it!

Thanks for being unique.

Shanta Srinivasan

“I loved Patara, last year I enjoyed the bird watching. I also enjoyed meeting a real authoress Mrs. Shanta Rameshwar Rao. I enjoyed the puppets because I had never made puppets like those before. The aunties are very sweet and kind. I would love to keep having Patara every week.

Thankyou”

Sharanya Srinivasan (age 8.5yrs)

Some library interactions with the children of the Shraddhanjali Integrated School.
This is a school with mainly children who have severe disabilities and is situated in Hennur.

After a workshop with the teachers of the school on innovative use and approach to the library, I went to the school along with two young students fromCFL, Dakshayini and Yamuna to actually do library sessions with each class. We covered four periods and the objectives were to initiate and expose children to the library collection, its use, reading for fun, care in handling of books and making the library an attractive place to visit.

1st period. 5th and 7th standards.
Before we began, we asked them to tell us what the library contained and where. Their awareness about this was good. Since they are older children, I decided to do a session on reference books and how to search for and find information from them.. The idea was to simulate use through a game. Students were asked to choose chits (prepared earlier) which had topics written on them. Children formed pairs and then looked up these topics in the reference books. After they found the relevant page, they noted down the page n. on the chit. Then they in turn showed the page and told the others what their topic was. In this they learnt that topics were listed in alphabetical order. So they had to look it up and read whatever they could. The follow up activity for the teacher on the next visit would be to ask them to locate the book and page, read as much as they can and write two sentences of their own on what they have understood. The activity generated a lot of excitement and interest.

2nd period. 2nd and 3rd standards.
We felt that these children needed to learn about care of books since they were a bit rough in leafing through the books. The two children accompanying me staged a dumb show, one enacting the role of the book and the other the user, both good and bad! As each action was performed, the students were asked to guess what was happening and say it. This exercise was very useful since in a fun way they saw what happens to a book which is misused and vice versa. After this we asked the children to make book marks so that they can keep to the page they are reading without turning the book upside down or fold the corner! This went well and they seemed happy to be using their hands. The follow up activity for the teacher would be to ask the children to think of one sentence about a friendly relationship with books and have them write it on the book mark so that whoever uses it next can learn something more. These book marks can be kept in a container on the library table.

3rd period. 4th standard.
I had found an excellent book published by Pratham called “Chuskit goes to school” by Manjula Padmanabhan. This lady has worked with children with disabilities and her story is about a disabled child and how her classmates help her. This is the first story I have read where the main character is disabled and I found it sensitively written.
I read out the story to the children who appeared to be much taken by it. After some talk about the story, some children worked on posters for the library and with the help of the two children with me, some others made a mobile for the library using tree pods, coloured strips etc. We also talked about story books and authors. The follow up activity would be for the teacher to source unusual books like this, read them out and have a discussion about the characters and the plot. Also encourage the children to think a little more of the kind of posters they can draw. The themes they could use could be themes of books, like animal stories, adventure stories, fairy stories etc.

4th period. 1st standard
With this class we thought we would ask 4 children to be shopkeepers. They were asked to take out a large number of books from the shelves and arrange them on the table. After doing this they were to “sell” the books by recommending them to particular children in their group for reading. They had to learn about the best way to arrange the books, choose those with attractive covers and think who would like what kind of book. After they warmed up, the activity went well and every child had a book to look at. 5 minutes before the period ended, they had to collect the books and replace them. There too care was needed to replace the books with the title showing, right side up etc. The follow up here by the teacher could be to have the children read the books they chose and have two or three of them tell the story briefly. Others listen and ask questions.

Concluding remarks.
For me and for the two children with me, it was our first experience of working and interacting with disabled children. At first we were hit hard by the extent of their severe disabilities but when we began to talk and interact, their readiness to engage and total absence of feelings of limitation freed us and we enjoyed the entire experience tremendously. I found the children bright and full of curiosity and very friendly. Perhaps my only suggestion would be to find ways to free them from any psychological limitation and find ways to enhance their creativity and original thinking. I found that many of these activities were good for them in this regard.
The last moment was an unforgettable one. We wanted the mobile to be put up but the hook was rather high. The security guard could not do it and asked a tall parent who also could not reach. He immediately carried one of the school children who slipped the mobile onto the hook and we all burst into spontaneous applause!

Usha Mukunda