Library Week

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.- W. Somerset Maugham

Library Week was observed at School from 22 to 26 October 2018. Arrangements for the carnival of words began almost a fortnight earlier with eager volunteers sketching and painting vivid book covers, bookmarks, and posters, intended to attract and arouse interest in an annual event which began in 2015.

Urvi Beswal, Shreya Palit, Anushree Dutta and Shruti Negi of XB, Bhamini Srivastava, Rhea, Kriti, Nidhi Daga of XA, Devanshi Chanda, Swati Aggarwal, Vidhi Wadhwa , Gurliv and Tanishka Sahni of XC and Divijaa Sahni, Stuti Mathur, Gouri Jain, Srishti Khandelwal and Dhwani of XE exhibited tremendous energy and excitement as they engaged in preparations for the upcoming event. On Day 1, the students of class V visited the National Book Trust Library or the National Centre for Childrens Literature (NCCL). NCCL is engaged in holding workshops and promoting the habit of reading at schools. The avid book lovers were taken to the NBT Book Store and then to the library, where the Director of NBT introduced the works of NBT and NCCL. It was followed by an enthralling storytelling of Sparrows Wisdom by Surayya Rasool, which captivated the students. This was followed up with narratives of the children themselves! The visitors had fun browsing the books on display before the staff at the venue gave them a warm send-off with a complimentary issue of the Readers Club Bulletin. A host of workshops and book reading sessions were held through the week. The first workshop was on Building Reading Habits by Ms. Champa Banerjee, writer, and educationist. Ms. Banerjee has conducted numerous workshops for both students and teachers in several prominent Delhi schools. The celebrated writer provided invaluable reading tips and a list of interesting books to cultivate the habit of reading amongst school children. This reading list included the classics as well as contemporary books like the Harry Potter series. The children enjoyed answering questions based on the Potter books. Each correct answer was rewarded with a chocolate by Ms. Banerjee! On Tuesday, 23 October, a workshop on Doodling for class VIII was conducted by Mr. Ajit Narayan, eminent illustrator and author of six instructional books on cartooning. Drawing for over 20 years, he has been a workshop consultant for Scholastic India for over 16 years. He is also associated with the Doodling festival which is a new art form. Almost eighty students gathered in the AV room to learn the basic art of cartooning and doodling-stick figures. Mr. Narayan asked the students to draw stick figures in action like running, sitting in a cross-legged position and lying on the ground. He also taught to draw the most common shapes used in doodling like dots, circles, waves, loops, lines, etc. On the same day, students of class VI attended a book reading session by Ms. Deepa Agarwal, author, poet, and translator, in the School auditorium. Ms. Agarwal has written more than 50 books in both English and Hindi, mostly for children. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards for her writings. The popular author read an excerpt from her latest book Go, Girl, Go! and asked the children to think of a situation where their opinions were not welcomed. The children also received valuable tips on how to write a good book. One important piece of advice was to inculcate the habit of reading and maintain a diary. Not surprisingly, everyone present felt inspired to take up writing stories as a career! On Thursday, 25 October, around thirty students of Class IX went to the National Science Library accompanied by their teacher, Ms. Mithu Paul and School Librarian, Ms. Tarannum Athar. The National Science Library under NISCAIR( National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources) collects, stores, publishes and disseminates information which benefits a large segment of society. It was for the first time that school students were visiting the premier institute. Usually, it sees the footfall of students who visit the institute for research work. The visitors were accorded a warm welcome by the senior scientist and Director, Mr. G. Mahesh who gave a brief introduction to NISCAIR especially the science library. The visitors were encouraged to ask questions on the recent developments in the fields of science and technology. They were told about the different public libraries in Delhi which the children can visit. The session drew to an end with the children being offered some light snacks and a complimentary copy of the Science Reporter magazine published by NISCAIR.

The students visited the IT unit and saw for themselves how the servers were connected by LAN to one another and the major role a router plays in transferring information. Next, they toured the National Science Library. At present, the library is using the software called KOHA which has been developed by the library itself. The children were shown the usage of KOHA through OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue).

[gallery link="file" order="DESC"] The week-long celebrations concluded on a high octave on 26 October with an interesting and interactive storytelling workshop for students of classes IV and V by eminent author, Ms. Anupa Lal. Ms. Lal has written over 20 childrens books and has published scores of articles in leading periodicals. Her body of work includes picture books, collections of poems, biographies, retold folktales as well as the Ramayana and translations of Munshi Premchands works. The effective child-friendly approach of the author left the students spellbound. The main attraction of this years library week was the Book Exchange Corner for middle school. Interested students brought a book or two from home and deposited these with Librarian, Ms. Tarannum Athar. In return, the child received a coupon with the MRP of the book written on it. The volunteers had prepared coupons for almost 200 books, of which 150 were sold! Next, these books were arranged according to their MRPs. A day was set aside for the book exchange and students were given timeslots. When their turns came, each student exchanged his/ her coupon for a book. The excitement was palpable as they were able to replace their old books with new ones, without spending money. The week also saw on exhibit, rare books which lay unseen for years. Perhaps, these books played hide and seek with the ardent library goers by closeting themselves in the deep, dark recesses of the bookshelves and cupboards! The Book Donation Drive yielded more than 200 books for donation to Divyajyoti, an NGO. Library Week was a resounding success where the entire School was synergised and awash with the fervour of words. Team Library promises to come back next year with more ideas and activities. Ms. Tarannum Athar, Gunika Meena (V C), Aryaman Goswamy ( VIE), Meenakshi Manoj ( VIII E) and Zunairah Husain ( IX B)).