The long-term goal of this web space is to serve as a portal and clearinghouse for information on Indian library development. India suffers from a range of social inequities and a lack of adequate public services for a vast amount of its population. Education and information services are in need of major development. With India’s growing economy, the national government is making new efforts to re-invest in public services, including libraries.
This space brings together scholarship, ideas, and debates surrounding India’s library system, with a focus on public and community libraries. A need for serious discussion around these issues exists, as stakeholders from different areas – academics in various disciplines, library professionals, activists, and concerned citizens – have contributions to make. Libraries have the potential to make contributions to human capacity development, the spread of knowledge, preservation of local culture and indigenous traditions, literacy development, and so on. Realizing this potential is an important task.
This portal provides a space to explore and think creatively about possibilities and directions for Indian library revitalization. A range of public and community library models will apply to the Indian context but it is important to begin this conversation about possible futures for Indian libraries. The discourse of India’s information economy and knowledge society is often related to furthering the neo-liberal agenda of dominant economic and political classes, and does not often affect the masses of India’s poor in a significant way. A focus on public library development can serve as one possible way to reorient this discourse of the knowledge society towards the service of India’s most marginalized populations. I welcome you to this information and research portal and offer it as an introduction to issues surrounding Indian libraries and social development, as well as a space to generate continued discussion around this important issue.