First Ever Street Library At Hyderabad

Throughout centuries books have shaped the thought process of human beings, famous author Mark Twain wrote: “a reader lives a thousand lives through books”. While Lloyd Alexander claimed: “reading books is the most marvelous adventure.”

Books are packed with knowledge, insights into a happy life, life lessons, love, fear, prayer and helpful advice. One can read about anything under the sun. Books have been here for centuries and without them today’s knowledge of our past ancestors, cultures and civilizations would have been impossible. 

Societies have developed through their reading habits and many tactics are used to increase reading habit among people, establishing libraries and reading halls is one such practice that helps create new readers.

In Sindh during the Samma dynasty, Thatta, the then capital was considered as hub of schools and libraries, and even people from different parts of sub-continent used come here to enhance their knowledge.

However, during the British Raj a proper network of libraries and reading halls was laid in different cities of Sindh, libraries and reading halls were established in cities like Karachi, Hyderabad, Jacobabad and Shikarpur.

As time passed by we lost our reading habit and we kept ourselves away from libraries and reading halls, we find huge plazas, shopping malls and gaming zones in cities of Sindh but we hardly find libraries or reading halls. Hyderabad is the second largest city of Sindh, but there are only two or three functional libraries including Allama Daudpota Library and Hasrat Mohani Library.

Keeping such need of reading in view, the administration of Hyderabad including its Commissioner M. Abbas Baloch and Deputy Commissioner (DC) Fuad Ghaffar Somroo in collaboration with Rotary Club, Qasimabad and other social organizations took initiative to open the first ever street library in Hyderabad.

The library was inaugurated on 14^th August 2020 by the Commissioner of Hyderabad and is located on Thandi Sarak opposite of Shahbaz Building, and it has open air space, with benches installed, the readers could get access to reading material from 4:00 pm to 10:00 pm, while the books have been denoted by people belonging to different walks of life.

In this regard the Vice President of Rotary Club, Qasimabad Waleed Khan told WiseSindh that the initiative of street library was taken by DC Hyderabad in collaboration with Rotary Club, Hyderabad and few other social organizations, the aim behind this idea was to promote literacy and education among general public.

He said that they have collected good number of books on variety of subjects in Sindhi, English and Urdu languages, the books were provided voluntary from people belonging to different walks of life.

“According to our survey there are very few libraries in Hyderabad, while the number of readers has increased, so the infrastructure or resources don’t match with numbers of readers, that is the reason we have initiated this project,” he added.

Mr. Waleed said that their slogan was “make education easy for everyone”,   the project also included to provide free books to poor and needy students.

He further said that the people of Hyderabad have given positive response for this project and it was hoped that other street libraries would be opened in other areas of Hyderabad.