Mr. Braj Kishore Mishra is a librarian at Rajkumar school for the past 8 years. He has been working as librarian after completing his Masters in Librarian degree. He has worked in many schools in Gujarat as a librarian and has also worked as a librarian for an ISO school in UP.
Facilities at the Library
The Rajkumar School is a boarding school as well as day school. When asked about the school program, Mr. Mishra said, “Students participate in school activities from 7.30AM to 1.10 PM for studying. He also said how the school helps students from town to enjoy the benefits of the school. Mr. Mishra said, “ Students from town will come here early in the morning 6.30 and stay until after 6. From morning to evening, they stay here and do all the activities related to school. They study, play, engage in hobbies, participate in games and back to their houses in the evening.”
About the number of books in the library, Mr. Mishra said, “Currently, we have about 11,000 books and more than 1500 rare books”. He added that, “This school was started in 1970. For 45 years, the library has been expanding.” He added that “Rare books are not open for everybody. However, students can approach us and get these books for reading at the library. He went on to mention that, “Library classes are conducted once in a week for classes 3-8. During the library period, students will select the books. They can keep the book for a week and then they must submit the book to the library.” For higher classes, the schedule is flexible as the students can come in during their free time. They also get books that they can keep for a week.
“We conduct book fairs with books from well known publishers of India. We also celebrate reading for a week where the students will be engaged in reading and other library related activities for the whole week.”
About the budget, Mr. Mishra said, “The management has allocated Rs. One lakh as annual budget. If necessary, the management will be flexible.”
Challenges of modern world
Mr. Mishra admitted that, “Students these days are not interested in reading physical books. They like to read on the internet. Getting them to read physical books is difficult. On finding a way to tackle this problem, Mr. Mishra said, “We provide books from publishers who provide different formats so that we can encourage reading habit among the students.” Mr. Mishra said, “We introduce new activities, competitions and others to encourage reading habit in children. We have feedback form to improve library which is beneficial for students also.”
Contact:
Braj Kishore Mishra
Librarian
The Rajkumar College, Rajkot
Email- brajkishormishra76@gmail.com
Mobile 9427514597