Festival of libraries
Context:
The President of India, Smt Droupadi Murmu inaugurated the ‘Festival of Libraries’ in New Delhi, stating that the development of libraries is correlated to the development of society and culture marking the progress of Civilization.
Relevance:
GS-01 (Culture)
Main highlights:
- The Festival of Libraries 2023: It is designed for different ages and interests. There are exhibitions, talks by authors, and workshops – all aimed at making people curious and creative.
- The aim of the festival is to engage audiences from the entire world of libraries.
- The festival has four cool places to check out:
- At the book-author sessions– famous writers and learn about how they come up with their ideas.
- In the digital displays area– technology makes books come alive in a new way.
- The podcasts zonehas exciting stories one can listen to.
- The Human Library Projectlets one to talk with all sorts of different people.
- The festival highlights the importance for kids to start loving to read from early on and a special area has been designated for the same. They can hear great stories, learn origami, create their own mini magazines, and even join in adventures that go along with what they read.
- The festival also wants to celebrate the Rampur Raza library, which is really important for Indian and Islamic culture. It’s been around for 250 years, and the festival wants to show how it protects our culture and history.
- The festival wants people to always be curious and keep learning.
National mission libraries (NML):
- Was launched by the then President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashrapathi Bhavan, New Delhi in 2014.
- It was an initiative to modernize and link public libraries digitally across the country.
- It is currently a part of Kala Sanksriti Vikas Yojana.
- The objective of NML is to develop a World class library system that enhances reading habits which then facilitates to bring out more productive outcomes to the people and the society.
