Queen Mary Empress Public Library

Beside DC Nand Plaza, Shahzadi Mandi, Agra Cantt. Uttar Pradesh, INDIA
As visited by

Vishal Sharma
On 15th November, 2011 Visited the Queen Mary Empress Library with its current Librarian Mrs. Lebon who has been taking care of it since the past four years. Before her, the library was in the hands of Mrs. Beal, a former teacher at St. Peters College. Mrs. Lebon taught at both St. Clares and St. Georges College before retiring. When I entered the library premises, the foul stench of human waste was overpowering. Evidently, the

shopkeepers from the market across the road use it as a public toilet. The library grounds are untended and are in a state of complete mess since Diwali, when it was let out by the authorities to shopkeepers to sell fireworks. The empty cartons and discarded polythene packaging was visible all around the place, stacked in big piles. As soon as I reached the main building, it came as a rude shock to me to see people sleeping in the porch on charpais with a complete disregard to the 77 years old librarian, who kept demanding that the charpais be removed to no avail. When I stepped in and asked them sternly to move out, they turned combative, using particularly harsh language against the librarian and started claiming

that theyve been living here for decades and they wont move out.. it turns out that this is the extended family of the librarys chowkidar, who himself is now more than 70 years of age and unable to perform his duties. There are about 10-12 members of his family living in the premises and utilizing the whole place, dominating over the aged librarian who is a lady of Portuguese origin and does not understand very well. The plaster is falling from nearly all sides of the library, and the doors and windows are all in a very bad shape, with window panes broken and the locks broken in by unscrupulous elements, in the obvious presence of the chowkidar and his family. The chowkidar himself was absent as he was attending a wedding in his family and had taken the keys to the library with him. Mrs. Lebon and myself, circled around the library to check out how badly it has been damaged since she had left for Goa to live with her sister for about 6 months, and not surprisingly, the doors in the back were wide open! Hindi

The family of the chowkidar has been utilizing the entire library building as their personal domain, having built a pukka house for themselves behind the library building and still utilizing the majestically high ceilinged rooms of the library to house their guests. Mrs. Lebon complained that when she returned from Goa once, she was shocked to see a large number of people sleeping inside the library. When she inquired from the chowkidar, he said that they were his guests and they will leave in a day or two, though he did not even apologize for abusing the trust placed in him as the caretaker of the library. Food was being cooked inside the library halls, endangering the valuable books stored there. Moving inside through the door, I found that the chowkidars family had broken the glass panes of one of the book case and dragged it out of the library hall, using it as a cupboard for their personal use. Behind the cupboard, I found a door that was supposed to be locked, but wasnt. The cupboard had been slid in front of the door to hide the fact that the lock had been broken in. This door led us into the main reading hall where the bookcases were neatly arranged on three sides of the hall, filled with rare books published in the 1800s and early 1900s. As I looked around, I found quite a few book cases open and books missing from their place. One cupboard, labeled Fiction was completely empty, all its precious and rare books stolen.

Finding the light insufficient to take pictures with my cellphone I asked Mrs. Lebon if she could switch on the lights, but she said that the electricity connection has not been functional for the past few years and been disconnected for non-payment of bills. The main doors had evidently not been opened in months as the doors were full of cobwebs. As per Mrs. Lebon, the library currently has just one member - Mr.

Prem Agarwal who comes to the library sometimes and reads the books here. But from the present state of the library, with the furniture covered with a thick coating of dust, it was clear that nobody has come inside the library for several months and it wasnt even being cleaned by the caretaker. Pigeon droppings covered the furniture and I found traces of termites in one of the corners of the library, which is a serious concern as it could destroy the books. As per my discussion with Mrs. Lebon, the library has suddenly lost its relevance to the young generation with the advent of the Internet as the school-going kids who used to come to the library for project work, do not come any more. The older members have either passed away or are probably too attached to the TV to bother going to the library. There has been

no book donation to the library in years and whatever periodicals are present there, are from a few years back. I promised to donate a part of my books to the library for the benefit of the readers, once we have succeeded in restoring this heritage building to its former glory and brought back its lifeblood the book readers. As a first step, I have enrolled as the member of the library. The membership fee is very low Rs. 150 (which includes Rs. 100 caution money, Rs. 30 as a one-time fee and Rs. 20 as the first months membership fee). On my way out, I talked to the caretakers son and warned him that I will be visiting again with the commissioner and other senior officials and I want the place cleaned up before his visit, leaving my cellphone number with him. He assured me that hell ask his father to call me when he gets back from the wedding.

MEASURES THAT NEED TO BE TAKEN TO RESTORE THE LIBRARY

IMMEDIATE TARGETS 1. The Library has an outstanding electricity bill of about Rs. 38000 and is attracting a non-payment interest of Rs. 500 every month. The bill needs to be paid and that is not possible without an immediate inflow of money from membership fees and the administrations help. 2. The building needs extensive repairs to prevent the walls from caving in and the roof from falling. 3. A permanent and able caretaker is required to be posted in the library, alongwith an assistant librarian who could either live on the premises or be available at the library during opening hours as Mrs. Lebon is not able to walk the 2 km. distance from her home near hotel Yamuna View to open the library regularly due to her age. 4. A Carpenter is required immediately to repair all the doors and windows to prevent further theft of the precious books stored in the library. 5. A detailed catalog of all the books remaining in the library needs to be prepared. 6. The benefits of a library membership need to be promoted among the people so that more and more people join the library as active members.

LONG-TERM GOALS 7. It may appear to be a heartless and unsympathetic view to some, but the large, extended family living on the library premises needs to be moved from there as they are not serving their purpose of taking care of the library and are in fact, endangering the very existence of the building by the activities. 8. The library could be used as a resource center where scholars could come to research on historical material, while the society could also hold events like quizzes and knowledge fairs in the premises for the benefit of the local residents. 9. The pages of some of the rare books present in the library are almost crumbling to powder and need to be preserved in a digital format and the originals sealed in a nitrogen-pack to prevent further deterioration of the books. Book preservation experts could be contacted for their help. 10. A bank of computers (3-4) needs to be installed in the library for reading the digitally preserved books and for taking printouts of the preserved pages at a nominal cost. The computers could be donated to the library by the members who could receive membership benefits in return. 11. The money earned from renting the library grounds for the fireworks bazaar every diwali should go in a fund setup for welfare of the library, instead of the administration. 12. The lawns outside the library need to be restored and taken care of.