The Kalaignar Centenary Library in Madurai is open between 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on all days of the week except eight holidays in a year. A casual visitor to the library has surprise in store for him on every floor. From the basement parking area, one can take the lift to the floor of their choice. But for the first-time visitors, it is worthwhile to explore everything leisurely.
The ground floor houses the Art Gallery with pictorial display of dance forms, replicas of Keezhadi excavation site, black and white drawings of people and places of Madurai by the late Manohar Devadoss, traditional games, 17 panels of archeological importance on acrylic and Madurai of yore through vintage photos. The ground floor also has a wing for differently abled people, including braille materials and audio books.
There is a multi-purpose hall with 200 seats with customisable seating arrangement and an auditorium with 600 seats. Here events such as ‘Ponmalai Pozhudhu’ of the Chennai library fame will be held to offer readers a chance to hear and interact with writers.
The ‘own book reading’ section on two floors has a separate entry. Here visitors with laptops can enjoy hi-speed Internet facility. But firewall is there to block social media sites.
First floor has children’s section, a huge space with vibrant colours and inviting seats in the shape of Tamil and English alphabets. A performance theatre is there for the children to learn yoga, art from craft, origami, etc. It has a hologram-based Augmented Reality facility. The children’s section also has a 40-seat theatre with digital screens where documentaries and other films will be screened.
On the other side, there is a Science Park which houses flight simulator, Anatodyne, a giant touch screen tablet that teaches human anatomy, a scale where one can know ones’ weight in each planet, infinity space window, etc.
The piece de resistance is the Kalaignar section. As a fitting tribute to litterateur Karunandihi, this opulent area has Dravidian literature, including the works of Anna, Kalaignar and Periyar. Here, Kalaignar’s speech are aired. Besides, there is an AR facility for a tete-a-tete with Kalaignar.
The periodicall section on this floor has newspapers and magazines.
The second floor houses books in Tamil with a lakh-plus collection. The third floor has books in English, including literature. Books on both these floors would be for lending. Members can just use the automatic lending system and take the books home. There is no need for human interaction, though the library will have 60 qualified librarians.
The fourth floor houses a very long hall with shelves after shelves of reference books and magazines where visitors can prepare for competitive examinations.
The fifth floor houses the E-Library where online materials for competitive examinations can be accessed. This floor also has a multimedia hall with 48 PCs for conducting workshops and training programmes. This floor also has digitalisation facility where rare books are brought from various sources and digitally stored for posterity There is also a studio to create video content with dubbing facility. Here audio content for the visually challenged is also created. Celebrity talks will also be recorded here.
The sixth floor has an extension of the reference library and the administrative offices.
There are photocopying facilities in the library and there is a canteen on the campus.
Published - July 13, 2023 06:50 pm IST
