Prakash Community Library

PRAKASH COMMUNITY LIBRARY
SHREEKHANDAPUR, DHULIKHEL-8,
KAVRE, NEPAL

Email: shreekhandapur@gmail.com

1. Back ground Information

Kavre district in the Bagmati zone is the central hill region of Nepal. The district comprises of three municipalities viz: Banepa, Dhulikel and Panauti, with altogether 87 Village Development Committees (VDCs). Shreekhandapur was one of the VDCs in the Kavre district. Now, it's a small town in Dhulikhel Municipality of the district and comprises wards 8 and 9. Shreekhandapur, one of the historical places is located at 28 km east from Kathmandu and is about 1400 meter above the sea level. Shreekhandapur is also known as ‘Khampu’ or ‘Khadpu’. There are about 5000 people living together in this area. This small town is located at the mid of many small villages. On the western side of the town is SOS village and Kathmandu University is on the northern side. IT Park is also near to the town. Though the town includes ward 8 and ward 9 of Dhulikhel Municipality, the developments of the place is far behind the consideration of a planned town. Newars are predominant where as surrounding of this old city, there are other ethnic groups such as Brahmin, Chhetri, Kami, Damai, Magar, Mijar etc. Wheat, Potatoes, Maize are the major agricultural products of Shreekhandapur and many people are farmers. Other occupations of the people here are business and small scale industries such as rice mills, pipe industry, etc.
Shree Shreekhandapur Primary School and Shree Shreekhandapur Higher Secondary School are the two government schools. There are other private English Schools. Kathmandu University is also present just north to the main town though the main road to the university is via Dhulikhel.

There was no community library in the town. School library is not able to provide the service even to the students due to lack of infrastructures. In Shreekhandapur, a library was established in 1957 in the name of Prakash Library and it had served for many years to the people of this community. It has its own small building and free land surrounded. It had served in different field of education like academic, information of different countries, national and international political issues, updating the day to day news etc. Unfortunately for the few years the library remained closed due to huge changes in the village by diverting the entrance road from the east part of Nepal through this village. Businessmen who supported library financially started leaving the village for better options and since then there was no community level library providing library service to the people of this region.

Prakash Pustakalaya was established in the year 1957 AD. Then Prime Minister of Nepal B.P. Koirala provided the funds for the construction of library building and space. Prem Raj Angdev, then Education Minister of Nepal, laid foundation stone of the library building. The library committee organised Literary Conference in the year 1967AD. It is evident from the visitor books and some available pictures that renowned literary personnel such as Siddhicharan Shrestha, Chittadhar ‘Hridaya’, Dharmaratna Yami and some foreigners visited the library.

Books for the library were provided by the local people, American and Indian embassies and other organizations. There were thousands of books and many of them were in Nepali and Newari. But at present there seem to be no records of the books that were the assets of the library.

Years ago the people of this area have seen the old library building as an ancient object which was not rich enough to provide the educational strength require for the community people and students to make their future bright with the different knowledge.

The community of the people decided to renovate the ‘Prakash Pustakalaya’ as ‘Prakash Samudayik Pustakalaya’ (Prakash Community Library) in January 2009.

2. Goal and Objectives

Develop and strengthen the education, health, economic status of the community.

Objectives:

Operate well equipped library, providing services to the local people and students of the schools.
Build necessary infrastructures for the well-equipped library.
Gather resources for different fields of academic, health, agriculture, economic development and IT sectors, etc.

3. Rationale of the library:
The library shall indeed play a role model in the development of Shreekhandapur which now seems to be way back to progress. The project shall operate addressing the needs of the community which seems to be the requirements of the today’s community library.
Operation of the library is indeed important as the library holds a good historical background and hope of the many people of Shreekhandapur lies on the operation of this library. Immediate steps need to be taken to preserve the remaining property of the library and utilise for the welfare of the community.
There’s no doubt that library plays an important role in sharing knowledge and making people knowhow of the events around the globe. Current library shall leave no stones unturned to meet the information needs of the people. The project of re establishing this library will not only revive the library but also open door to development of Shreekhandapur which had lost its past glory with due of time.

4. Current Status of the Library

Prakash Community Library was finally renovated and then opened on 17th August 2009 under the chairmanship of Mr. Ashok Chandra Dhunju Shrestha. The library received financial support for renovation from the local communities and well wishers. Majority of the fund was from local businessmen who have now settled in Kathmandu. Books support was received from various organisations. Organisations supporting the library were Room to Read supporting children books, Indian Embassy, Asia Foundation, International Book Aid, Darien Book Aid and SOLID Nepal. Nepal Library Foundation is one of the major organisations which has supported PCL with books and furniture and the organisation has agreements to support further in days to come. Local people have been supporting to add the required books and newspaper. The Library has currently about 3000 books of various categories. The library is currently operating with a voluntary librarian. Financial support is received from the local schools to meet the expenditures. Library premises fencing, toilet construction in the premises, one storey hall and a truss are the recent constructions that has been completed with the support from Local government Community Development programme of Nepal Government and the local people . The beneficiary of the library so far seems to the school children.

5. Current problems and Future plans

The library is facing problems for additional books having no extra source of income. The old building needs maintenance. As the library members are growing, there is need to add furniture. The library is still looking forward to have income sources for the librarian stipends. Record keeping in the computer is another necessary. One of the objectives to start e-library still remains to be fulfilled with the installations of computers and internet facility.

We would like to thank all the wishers in helping PCL to come so far. PCL looks forward to welcome further support and suggestions to continue serving the community in ways we can.

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