State’s active engagement stressed for promoting reading culture

Kathmandu: Stakeholders have stressed the need for the State’s active engagement in promoting reading culture and sustainably preserving the libraries.

At a programme organized today for the 21st annual general meeting of the Kathmandu Valley Public Library Society, the speakers underlined the need for the State to engage at multiple levels in protecting and managing libraries and promoting readership culture.

On the occasion, Sunita Dangol, the Deputy Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), pledged to extend necessary cooperation to protect, manage, and promote libraries as the foundation for building a studious society.

‘Libraries are important for cultivating reading habits. A studious society is a prosperous society. The library provides an environment for all to study,’ she noted. Dangol shared that emphasis was laid on promoting community learning centres to develop reading culture from the metropolis along with each ward and school level.

The budget amounting to Rs 10 million has been earmarked for the management and protection of libraries in the current fiscal year, the deputy mayor informed, adding the KMC was ready to take custodian of the protection of public libraries.

Lawmaker Santosh Pariyar underscored the spectacular role of the State in developing libraries as study culture centres. Society’s founding chairperson and patron Dr Narayan Khadka said the library is not only the centre of knowledge and information but also the repository of the country’s transformation, civilization and history.

He argued that the State should emphasize the preservation of libraries for the cause.

The society’s Chair Dr Govinda Pokharel spoke of the importance of collaboration among the stakeholders for the protection and management of libraries. He expressed the commitment to ensure further effectiveness of the library as a study culture centre.

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