News, updates and musings about the library, reading and the wider community from members, volunteers and staff
In early 2015, after an email exchange with the coordinator at The Community Library Project - Deepalaya, I found myself attending a read-aloud session on a very pleasant Monday evening. I had stepped feebly into the classroom, unsure, but within minutes felt motivated enough to not leave without having heard the whole story of an […]
By Shoumi Dasgupta I first came across the Community Library Project through a social media post. I was interested and asked Purnima for more information. The first thing she told me was that becoming a volunteer requires a serious level of commitment. Although I was unsure how much time I could commit, I decided to […]
By Kitty Chevallier The English-Hindi Conversation Exchange project is one of the library’s newer undertakings. As the name suggests, the aim of the programme is to develop and encourage a two-way language learning process, in which all parties can improve their confidence and fluency in producing and understanding language – be that spoken English, or […]
मृदुला कोशी के इस इंटरव्यू में वह एक बात कह गयी जो मेरे ज़हन में बैठ गयी (8.20 मिन) : "हमारा देश इतना विशाल है, लेकिन अभी भी इसमे सैंकड़ो लोग हैं जो अपनी किताब, अपनी कहानी नहीं लिख रहे हैं." अगर हम पूछे कि वो सैंकड़ों किताबें कहाँ हैं और वह ताक़ सूनी क्यों […]
By Priyanka Sancheti When I first started volunteering at the Community Library in June last year, what struck me was how the library emphasised on telling stories through multiple mediums; books were of course the obvious and immediate points of access but there were so many other ways to encounter the fascinating of stories. I […]
This summer, for the second year, The Community Library Project ran an intensive summer reading camp for children in the Khirki Extension/Jagdamba Camp/Sheikh Sarai area. The morning session for 8-12 year olds was run in collaboration with the NGO Swechha and was held at their Khirki Extension offices. The afternoon session for 12-15 year olds […]
The Community Library Project is dedicated to the idea that all people should have access to libraries and books. Observations and reading fluency assessment data collected over the past two years indicates that although most of our younger members can read, few can read very well, even in their native language, Hindi. (The following paragraphs […]
A Read Aloud session is one of the foundational programmes of our community library project. Read Alouds focus not just on reading a story out loud to the children present but also to engage everyone in creatively engaging with, and discussing the various dimensions of the story. Read Alouds enhance one’s ability to read and […]
The community library came to me unexpectedly in 2016. I was in the metro with my friend and asked him if there were any free libraries near us because I was fed up of reading books on my phone. I didn’t have money to enroll as a member in a paid library or buy every […]
By Annie Zaidi Of the people, by the people, and for the people -- it’s the simplest, cleanest, easiest-to-remember definition of democracy. These days, I often think back to my school civics book. On the first page was printed the preamble to the Constitution. I have to confess here that I often feel guilty for […]
