Library Services in London

When we shifted from Abhirampuram to Besant Nagar, I went to the district library at Shastri Nagar and asked the librarian the procedure for becoming a member. The librarian gave me an application form, asked me to fill it up, get it attested by a gazetted officer and submit the form with a deposit amount of Rs. 20 as a caution deposit.

When I asked him, where I can I go and search for a Gazetted officer, he said contact nearby Govt School, where some of the senior teachers would be in Gazetted rank. As usual, I was lazy to go and search for an obliging Gazetted officer and dropped the idea of becoming a member of the District Library. This was in 1996.

When I landed in London, I asked Uma and others, whether any of them is a member of their local library. They said ‘no’, as they are all busy in their own way; they had no time to go to library. Kirtana and Aadit were members of their school /University libraries, from where they get books connected to their studies.

During the initial part of my visit, Aadit was my guide to show me new places. We found there are two libraries, near to the house –one was at Barkingside which is 1.2 miles away and the other at Gants Hill—about a mile away.

We selected the Gants Hill Library, because we saw more Tamil books here. We approached the librarian and enquired the procedure. She said “it is very simple, please fill up the application form and hand over to me”. Aadit filled the form---name, address and phone number. Immediately a library card was issued in his name and also a pin (similar to ATM pin). We were told that we could borrow up to 20 books at a time and keep them for 3 weeks. I selected 4 English books and 1 Tamil book.

In all the libraries (I have visited quite few after that in different areas); there is one or two computer like touch-screen interactive self check console. With this service you can ‘borrow’, ‘renew’ and ‘return’ book. After selecting the books, we went to the console, we selected the type of service we needed, which was ‘borrow’. A message comes ‘please place the membership card facing the bar code up at a place shown’. The next message ‘place the books at the place shown’ we did it. Everything was recorded on the console and we could see the title of the books borrowed and the due date to return, we also got a print out.

This console is compatible to interact in French, Tamil, Hindi and Urdu; I understand that in Green Street, West Ham Library, you can operate with Bengali, as there are many Bangladeshis.

I had borrowed 22 books so far, that is from 17th July to till date, out of which 3 are with us to be read. I will not be doing justice to the library services in London, if I do not mention the personal care, the staff extend to the members.

Jackie Collins mentioned in her novel ‘Lovers and Players’ that the hero and heroine have same taste in books, TV shows, music etc. Their favourite author is John Grisham and James Siegel. I had not read any books by James Siegel. So I approached the librarian, he searched on his computer and confirmed the non availability. However, he checked on his computer and found that the book was available in the Main Ilford library. He arranged for the book to be transferred to this local library, and on the third day he telephoned home and informed that the book is ready for collection. An excellent customer service!!

When I was in US, Freemont, with Satya, he became a member of the library by showing his social security card. In that library, the arrangement was different. ‘Return’ books are sent down by a conveyor, books ‘borrowed’ by self check out console. There also the system might have changed by now for better.

Hope we may get such services in India, at least during my life time.