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 "The collection of books is great, but the idea of wading through the dust and badly maintained rows of books is nightmarish," says Anu, lecturer in a city college, when asked about the Madras University Library. Students from various city colleges who visit the library regularly wish that the books were better maintained. "The place is so disorganised that I don't have to worry about returning the books on time. The fine charged is negligible and even if the book is not returned, I never seem to get reminder notices," says a city college student who declined to identify himself, "in case the authorities get alert".
Users may have many complaints, but few would disagree that it has a fabulous collection of books, especially on subjects like literature. The only university library to be open to the public, the Madras University Library was formally set up in 1907. Besides the 3000 users who are students, research scholars or employees of the University, there are currently nearly 33,000 registered members from the public. The membership fee is a one-time payment of Rs.100. The amount is refundable if the member decides to withdraw at any time. Over the last few years, there has been a 30-40% increase in the number of new members.
 Today, this library is spread over 4 campuses. The Chepauk campus is home to the main library and is open to the public. The books here are mainly related to the social sciences and humanities. Computer Science books can also be found here. Publications in 14 languages and their literature can be accessed at the Marina campus. The Guindy campus library has collections on pure and applied sciences while the Taramani campus mainly deals with bio-medical sciences.
The four campuses together possess nearly 6 lakh books and bound volumes of periodicals. In the current year alone, 1000 titles of periodicals have been subscribed. Also here are 15,000 M Phil and Ph.D. theses submitted to the Madras University, besides some rare books on metropolitan planning, town planning, architecture and literature. Among the treasures in the library: a hand written manuscript of the famous mathematician Ramanujam, (once a regular user of this library), a book on the origin and history of the 200 names of Arjuna from the Mahabharata and the first edition of some periodicals, like 'Dravidan', 'Swadeshamitran' and 'Navasakthi'. Besides books and
periodicals, the library also has a collection of around 15,000 pamphlets on different subjects, some of them more than 200 years old.
The library also has a CD-rom collection providing access to the World Dissertation index, environment and health index and other subjects relating to engineering and medicine. For the last two years, the library has video shows on Friday afternoons. Besides, xerox and Internet access facilities are also available at the main library. But the library has a budget of just about Rs1 crore for all the campuses together. About Rs 60 lakh is spent on periodicals and the rest on books. The Librarian Dr.R.Vengan says that the escalating cost of books and periodicals has made updating the library a challenging process. Intra-library loan facilities, electronic journals and downloading information from the Internet are some options he is looking at. Funded by the UGC, the University library is slowly becoming IT savvy.
 Preservation of the ancient manuscripts, Dr.Vengan admits, is a difficult task as many of them are in brittle condition. These books, he says, are regularly dusted, fumigated and kept in air-conditioned rooms. Efforts are on to digitise old books. Apart from shortage of funds, the library is also short of staff. Those in the management are trained in Library and Information Sciences, but they are too few to manage the vast collection. Despite provisions to enforce fines on defaulters, most members seem to get away rather easily. The Librarian says that in another six months, issue of books and renewals will be computer controlled, making it easier to contact defaulters and send them reminders.
The library's framework of rules is outdated, feels Dr.Vengan. For the first time, a new set of rules has been proposed, including a revised fee structure and categorising members into groups like 'industrial users', 'student users' and so on. "People have begun to view information as a commodity," says Dr.Vengan, who believes that users will be willing to pay for information received. The new structure, he believes, will bring in more funds and also help improve the collection as well as the services on offer. It will remain a non-profit
organisation.
Meenakshi Anantharaman
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