Delhi University consists of more than 34 libraries and is accomplishing its task of reaching to wider academic community .Libraries of DU are run in an effort to assess students, researchers and faculty members and every college in the University has a constituent library.
According to a report, DU colleges need to provide means for disabled students, especially visually challenged students to access their libraries. There is an urgent need of upgradation of academic books and resources for certain courses.
Motilal Nehru College and Lady Shri Ram College have one of the largest book collection in colleges in the University with over 1 lakh books in each library. Whereas the library of Hindu college is one the oldest. However, still a lot of colleges however, complain of academic books that are too old and could use some up gradation. Several colleges lack enough books to cater for certain courses. College of Vocational Studies for example, has only one bookshelf for students pursuing English Honours.
Rajdhani College has a ‘a seperate corner’ for disabled students. Shri Ram College of Commerce has a ‘resource centre’ for visually challenged students while a lot of colleges of the University, including Lady Shri Ram College offer audio visual services.
The colleges even provide special services for the disabled friendly students. Colleges such as Indraprastha College for Women and SGTB Khalsa College have a lift for disabled students to access the books in the library. Lady Shri Ram College has a Braille printing machine with all library notices being printed in Braille.
Also, When it comes to providing online library facilities St. Stephen’s College is a clear winner among DU. Not only does the college have a seperate section of the website dedicated to library services but they also have a Web OPAC interface which anyone can use to browse through the books available in the library.
DU Website also has a Web OPAC interface for its central libraries. Unfortunately, nearly all colleges don’t provide this facility. Some college websites fail to provide even the basic information about their libraries, including Moti Lal Nehru College’s website.
Colleges like Lady Irwin College which have relatively lesser number of students enrolled still have ample of seating space in their reading hall. Entry rules are pretty strict across the University college libraries.
Proper records are maintained to ensure that no book is misplaced. Also the student must clear all his issue records from the library in order to get his/her admit card.
The life of a student has undoubtedly become easy with services provided by the library. If they have the interest they can very well make good use out of it. While some colleges are doing already well some need to work upon it for sure.
